Zelensky Quotes

Because freedom is not about having unshackled hands. Freedom is about having unshackled minds.

Ukraine did not seek greatness. But Ukraine has become great.

But this is not a book about how we are unable to change the past. It is a book about how we can build the future.

What will bring the end of the war? We used to say 'peace'. Now we say 'victory'.

Today, children and grandchildren tell their grandparents about war, and not the other way around.

To understand Putin, you must understand Russian history. To understand Zelensky, you must understand Ukraine history.

I would prefer that when people heard the surname Zelensky, they replied, 'Who?

Today, people often say that if there is a Third World War, it will be the last. I hope this statement is a recognition of the dangers our planet faces, rather than a prediction of our future.

Zelensky acabou por enfrentar um desafio difícil: liderar o povo ucraniano durante a guerra. Com lágrimas de desespero, com raiva e ódio aos invasores. Com fé na vitória e luto pelos mortos. Não, não foi com isso que sonhava enquanto recebia as insígnias de presidente. Mas foi este desafio que nos permitiu ver o verdadeiro Zelensky. Sem maquilhagem.

I would be the happiesr person in the world if the book you are holding in your hands had never been pubkished

I would be the happiesr person in the world if the book you are holding in your hands had never been published

Because for us, the most terrible steel is not within missiles, aircraft, and tanks - but in shackles. We would rather live in trenches than live in chains.

Open doors are good. But today, above all, we need open answers.

The next day, September 26, the House Intelligence Committee released the complaint to the public, and people could read for themselves the whistleblower’s concern that Trump was soliciting foreign interference in the 2020 election and that both Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr were implicated in the scheme. The complaint laid out how Trump tried to strong-arm Zelensky into smearing the Bidens and how White House officials had buried the tape of the call on a secret server.[

I write these words not as an attempt to grab your attention, nor in a phony stab at glory. The reason I need your attention is far too painful, the price of any 'glory' far too high. It is the war that has been unleashed against Ukraine. It is the thousands of lives taken by Russia.

Within days, Trump admitted that on July 25 he had called the new president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, to enlist his help against former vice president Joe Biden, who was beating Trump in most polls going into the 2020 election season. Zelensky was desperate for the money Congress had approved to help his country fight Russian-backed separatists in the regions Russia had occupied after the 2014 invasion, but Trump indicated he would release the money only after Zelensky announced an investigation into the actions of Biden’s son Hunter during his time on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

His aim, as he saw it, was to keep them engaged, to pry open their eyes and point them toward the picture of the war he wanted them to see. My work was useful to him as a means to that end. He took a pause and cleared his throat, realizing he may have crossed a line in telling me how to do my job. Then he continued to do exactly that. "Forgive me for saying this, but I think the aim of journalism, of the media, is to keep people from getting sick of this," he said, referring to the story of the war. "When they do get sick of it, that brings about fatigue, and fatigue causes a loss of interest. For our country, that leads to the loss of support.

Dear Ukrainians,” Zelensky said in his inauguration address. “After my election win, my six-year-old son said: ‘Dad, they say on TV that Zelensky is the president…. So, it means that I am the President too?!’ At the time, it sounded funny, but later I realized that it was true. Because each of us is the president. “From now on, each of us is responsible for the country that we leave to our children,” Zelensky said. “Each of us, in his place, can do everything for the prosperity of Ukraine.” He raised his first priority: a cease-fire in the Donbas where Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces had been fighting since Putin’s 2014 invasion. “I have been often asked: What price are you ready to pay for the cease-fire? It’s a strange question,” Zelensky said. “What price are you ready to pay for the lives of your loved ones? I can assure that I’m ready to pay any price to stop the deaths of our heroes. I’m definitely not afraid to make difficult decisions and I’m ready to lose my fame, my ratings, and if need be without any hesitation, my position to bring peace, as long as we do not give up our territories. “History is unfair,” Zelensky added. “We are not the ones who have started this war. But we are the ones who have to finish it. “I really do not want you to hang my portraits on your office walls. Because a president is not an icon and not an idol. A president is not a portrait. Hang pictures of your children. And before you make any decision, look into their eyes,” he said. “And finally,” Zelensky concluded, “all my life I tried to do all I could so that Ukrainians laughed. That was my mission. Now I will do all I can so that Ukrainians at least do not cry anymore.

Is Volodymyr Zelensky a puppet of the west?

Volodymyr Zelensky appears to be losing the support of the Ukrainians as they are watching their people being displaced, their country being destroyed and their men being killed instead of negotiating a peace deal with the Russians.

It was August 24, 2021, the 30th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union. President Zelensky, who previously had criticized military parades, decided it was time to send Putin a message.

Zelensky, who became president in 2019, was a new guy on the political scene. Trump was still trying to feel Zelensky out. So was Putin, Kellogg believed. “To him, Putin, Trump was an unknown,” Kellogg said. “Hell, we didn’t know how Trump would react at times. “Trump was basically Jekyll and Hyde.

The psychological dynamic in play was that Zelensky did not want to signal that a full Russian invasion was going to happen because it would create a self-fulfilling prophecy of the Ukrainian economy and potentially the government collapsing.

Principles are the first thing dictators attack. Various “Putins” around the world are undermining principles in their societies through propaganda and repression so that people cannot stand up for what they believe in. And then, when the dictatorship gains strength and resources, it tries to export its lack of principles, creating gray zones devoid of values. Europe has had to face this many times. Now we are experiencing another defining moment. Russia is trying to convince nations that it is easy to compromise principles—that they can ignore international law and turn a blind eye to injustice if it will supposedly bring stability. This is Moscow's main message - Putin invites everyone to forget about their principles, to show no resolve, to give up Ukrainian land and people, and then, he says, Russian bombing will stop. But throughout history, every time such agreements have been made, the threat has returned even stronger. Today, we have a chance to win in Eastern Europe so that we don't have to fight on the northern or other eastern fronts—in the Baltic states and Poland, or in the south—in the Balkans, where it is easy to ignite a conflict, or in African countries, whose problems are much closer to European societies than it may seem. We have to stand up for international law and the values on which our societies are built. We must be decisive. People matter. The law matters. State borders and the right of every nation to determine its own future matters. And while we know that Putin is threatening leaders and countries who can help us force Russia to peace, we must not give in. I thank you for every package of defense assistance to Ukraine. Every weapon you have provided helps to defend normal life—the kind of life you live here in Iceland or in any of your other countries, a life that no longer exists in Russia, where basic human rights have been taken away. We are now in the third year of a full-scale war, and our soldiers on the front lines need fresh strength. That is why we are working to equip our brigades. This is an urgent need. We are already cooperating with others—France has helped to equip one brigade, and we have an agreement on another. We invite you to join us in creating brigades, Scandinavian brigades, and demonstrate your continued commitment to the defense of Europe. I am grateful to Denmark and other partners who invest in arms production in Ukraine. Artillery, shells, drones—everything that allows Ukraine to defend itself despite any logistical delays on the part of partners or changing political moods in world capitals. We see that Putin is increasing weapons production, and rogue regimes like Pyongyang are helping him with this. Next year, Putin intends to catch up with the EU in munitions production. We can only prevent this now (...). - Translated from Ukrainian

During the call, Trump threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine unless Zelensky provided damaging information on Hunter Biden, the son of Vice President Joe Biden.

Manda detener a Von Meck, el director de los ferrocarriles, y lo hace fusilar por sabotaje. Eso no resuelve el problema de los ferrocarriles, es más, puede incluso agravarlo. Pero es un desahogo de la ira acumulada. Sucede lo mismo cada vez que el sistema no está a la altura. Cuando la carne empieza a faltar, Stalin ordena arrestar al comisario del pueblo para la agricultura, Chérnov, lo manda ante un tribunal y, como por arte de magia, el tipo va y confiesa que es él quien ha hecho sacrificar miles de vacas y cerdos para desestabilizar el régimen y fomentar una revuelta. Luego viene la escasez de huevos y de mantequilla. Entonces arresta a Zelenski, el jefe de la comisión para el Plan, y este, poco después, admite haber esparcido clavos y trozos de vidrio en las reservas de mantequilla y haber destruido cincuenta camiones de huevos. Una ola de indignación mezclada con un cierto alivio atraviesa el país: ¡todo queda claro! El sabotaje es una explicación mucho más convincente que la ineficacia, Vadia. Cuando es descubierto, el culpable ha de ser castigado. Se ha ejercido la justicia, alguien ha pagado por ello y el orden se ha restablecido. Esto es lo fundamental.

Zelensky wanted—he needed—air defenses. F-16 fighter jets, to maintain air supremacy against the far larger Russian Air Force. A no-fly zone. Tanks. Advanced drones. Most important, long-range missile launchers. There was one in particular that the Pentagon, with its penchant for completely unintelligible acronyms, called the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS). Zelensky wanted to arm these launchers with one of the crown jewels of the U.S. Army, a missile known as ATACMS that could strike targets nearly two hundred miles away with precision accuracy. That, of course, would give him the capability to fire right into command-and-control centers deep inside Russian territory—exactly Biden’s worst fear. In time, Zelensky added to his list of requests another weapon that raised enormous moral issues: He sought “cluster munitions,” a weapon many of the arms control advocates in the Biden administration had spent decades trying to limit or ban. Cluster bombs are devastating weapons that release scores of tiny bomblets, ripping apart people and personnel carriers and power lines and often mowing through civilians unlucky enough to be living in the area where they are dropped. Worse yet, unexploded bomblets can remain on the ground for years; from past American battlefields—from Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq—there were stories of children killed or maimed after picking one up years later. Blinken told colleagues he had spent much of his professional life getting weapons like this banned. Yet the Pentagon stored them across Europe because they were cruelly effective in wiping out an advancing army. And anyway, they said, the Russians were using cluster munitions in Ukraine. With each proposal it was Biden who was most reluctant: F-16s were simply too provocative, he told his staff, because they could strike deep into Russia. The cluster munitions were simply too dangerous to civilians. Conversations with Zelensky were heated. “The first few calls they had turned pretty tense,” one senior administration official told me. Part of the issue was style. Zelensky, in Biden’s view, was simply not grateful for the aid he was getting—a cardinal sin in Biden’s world. By mid-May 2022, his administration had poured nearly $4 billion to the Ukrainian defenses, including some fifty million rounds of small ammunition, tens of thousands of artillery rounds, major antiaircraft and anti-tank systems, intelligence, medical equipment, and more. Zelensky had offered at best perfunctory thanks before pushing for more.

To some degree, though, the tension was inevitable. Biden’s national interests—and his global responsibilities—ran headlong into Zelensky’s urgent need to survive another day, another month, another year. Biden feared feeding Putin’s narrative—or his paranoia—but Zelensky saw it differently. As that shell fragment near Zelensky’s residence made clear, Putin was out to kill him and eradicate his country. Zelensky was in a war for the survival of his nation, a war he would never win if Putin could fire on Ukraine from Russian territory and he could not fire back. Biden’s preoccupation was avoiding escalation.

Over the next year, a pattern emerged. Ukraine’s request for a specific type of arms would at first get a frosty reception in Washington, perhaps an outright no, a one-word answer Biden delivered himself to reporters who asked about sending the F-16s, which could strike Moscow. After saying absolutely not, the Biden White House would then say it was “studying” each request, trying to line up Ukraine’s capabilities with weapons that could do the job. Situation Room meetings would be devoted to the question of whether a specific weapon was truly “escalatory.” Leaks to the press assured that the debate played out in public, creating new pressures. And then, as Biden discovered that Russia’s “red lines” were not as bright as first feared, he would relent, noting that Ukraine’s defense demands had changed—from defending Kyiv to defending vast sections of Ukraine’s industrial east. Eventually, a commitment to deliver weapons previously off-limits would follow. At one point, Zelensky’s representatives argued that the cycle from “no” to “studying it” to “yes” was so well trod that the United States could save itself a lot of time and money by just saying yes from the get-go—or at least begin training Ukrainians on how to fly an F-16 or drive an Abrams tank months before actually agreeing to send the weapons. It would save time, the advisor said to me, “and maybe scare the shit out of the Russians.

Hungry Zelensky, Biden is dreaming! And Trump, Putin is crazy… Satan’s NATO apprentices, nuclear war prophesied… Peace no one ever gives to anyone! Bat Roscoe P0etЪ Rosen Markov Bulgaria 2024

Absolutely typical day! Yes! Putin is bombing Ukraine from his bomb shelter. Zelensky withdrew several million dollars from his bomb shelter.... They changed Biden's diapers. Everything is fine!

The Ukrainian men should have been smart and told President Zelensky they would defend Ukraine, but not the traditionally Russian part of Ukraine that Russia was invading.

I think the main purpose in life is to be needed, not just to be a blank space that breathes, walks, and eats. But to live, to know that certain things depend on your being alive, and to feel that your life matters to others.

In other words, by early July, Zelensky knew the price for continuation of American military aid to his country: the announcement of a Ukrainian investigation of Trump’s political rivals.

It was notable, in light of subsequent defenses of Trump’s behavior on the call, that he made only two demands of Ukraine: to investigate CrowdStrike and the Bidens. Trump said nothing about the need for Zelensky to fight corruption in Ukraine or to defend his country against Russia. All Trump cared about was extorting this vulnerable nation for his personal electoral advantage.

Military aid to Ukraine represented a rare point of bipartisan consensus in Trump’s Washington—supported by liberals who disdained Putin’s reactionary authoritarianism and by conservatives who wanted to check, as in Soviet days, Russian expansionism. Trump saw the military aid in a different way—as the most compelling form of leverage to use on Zelensky.

On Monday, July 22, Giuliani, Volker, and Yermak had a three-way call for thirty-eight minutes where Giuliani received assurance from Yermak that Zelensky understood what was expected of him in a phone call with Trump. The investigation of the Bidens—not burden sharing with the West, not corruption in Ukraine, not saving lives from Russian bullets and bombs—was all that mattered.

The next day, July 26, one of the White House aides who had listened to the call confided in a CIA official that Trump’s comments to Zelensky had been “crazy,” “frightening,” and “completely lacking in substance related to national security.” The aide added that “the President had clearly committed a criminal act.

But if you weren’t convinced by Mueller’s report, if you believe President Trump’s actions in 2016 did not warrant impeachment, then this book is for you. Because the proven facts of what President Trump has done with Ukraine far eclipse the allegations of his campaign’s coordination with Russia in 2016. Whereas Mueller’s report could not prove collusion, in this case there is no doubt President Trump tried to collude with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine—because we have notes from the call, released by President Trump himself, demonstrating our president doing exactly that.

In our time disaster, wherever it may occur, affects absolutely everyone,” argued Zelensky. “This is proved by the explosion at the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station, which caused suffering not only in Ukraine but in dozens of countries. This tragedy also shows us another truth: the most effective measure for reviving the environment is noninterference by human beings. In Chernobyl, nature is reviving much more quickly than expected. It seems to be suggesting: people, the best way to help is not to interfere.

We’re all inclined to project our own qualities onto other people. But some people are different. There are those with whom it’s just not possible to make a connection.

Zelensky won a crushing 73.17 percent of the vote, compared with 24.5 percent for Poroshenko.

He remembers giving himself a pep talk that would play in his mind throughout the day. "They're watching," he told himself. "You're a symbol. You need to act the way a head of state must act." As the day wore on, his aides could see Zelensky's posture stiffen. His tone became clipped, and he began to issue a stream of orders from the bunker and from his office on the fourth floor. Most of his decisions had no real basis in experience or planning. Zelensky had neither of these things to guide him at the time, but he didn't seem to mind. His assent to the presidency from the world of comedy would not have been possible without a knack for projecting confidence even when he lacked it. Now that skill went into overdrive, and Zelensky became what one of his aides described as a "decision generator.

My life today is beautiful," he said at the end of the press conference, when a reporter asked how he was holding up. "I feel that I'm needed." The previous week, as horrifying and tragic as it had been for him and his country, was also among the most exciting and fulfilling of his life. He would not trade it for any of the comfort and security he knew in his old life as a movie star. "I think the main purpose in life is to be needed, not just to be a blank space that breathes, walks, and eats. But to live, to know that certain things depend on you being alive, and to feel that your life matters to others.

Still, in those early hours of war, when Ukraine's survival as a country was at stake, Zelensky had no time to weigh risks and analyze data, and he did not need much prompting to fire off instructions to his staff, routinely flavored with profanities.

Now, when he was truly vulnerable, one Russia missile strike away from death, the president carried an air of invincibility, as though the war had made him grow some stubborn armor that no weapon in the world could break. If this was an act, it looked convincing right down to the details, the way he settled into the seat across from me like a sovereign into a hereditary throne. The presence of all these aides, all these bodyguards, no longer made him feel self-conscious. He saw no need to maintain an ironic distance between himself and the symbols of power around him. The role was his now.

President Zelensky visited Bucha a few days after the Russian retreat, and he would long remember it as the most terrifying moment of that tragic year of war, another turning point for him and his country. It showed him, as he later put it, that the devil is not far away, not a feature of our myths and nightmares. "He's here on this earth," Zelensky said.

He warned them again and again in his speeches that the loss of freedom in one nation erodes the freedom in all the rest. "If they devour us," he told me on the train, "the sun in your sky will get dimmer.

The president asked his staff to prepare a bed for him in a little room behind his office on the fourth floor. It was a single, about the same size as his bed in the bunker, with a wooden headboard and a TV suspended on the wall above his feet. In the closet, he kept several changes of clothes from local military outfitters, who gave him an ample supply of the T-shirts and fleeces that turned Zelensky into an unlikely fashion icon. "I had to tell them to stop," he said. "They all wanted me to wear their T-shirts." Hanging next to them in his closet he kept a single business suit, pressed and ready, he said, for the day when the war would end in victory for Ukraine.

Wars are fought in the minds of men and women long before the shooting starts, and Zelensky, the showman turned president, operated on that plane.