By Kanishka Singh and Costas Pitas
(Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said his country is “closer to the end of the war” with Russia, according to excerpts from an interview with ABC News released on Monday.
“I think we are closer to peace than we think,” he was quoted as saying. “We are nearing the end of the war.”
In the interview, he urged Washington and other partners to continue supporting Ukraine. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022 as what Moscow called a “special operation,” has killed tens of thousands of people, uprooted millions more and devastated Ukrainian cities.
The Ukrainian leader said that only from a “strong position” can Ukraine pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin “to stop the war.”
Zelenskiy arrived in the United States on Sunday to attend meetings of the United Nations General Assembly and called on his partners to help achieve “a shared victory for a truly just peace.”
Washington and its allies have provided a multibillion-dollar aid program to Ukraine since the Russian invasion began while imposing several rounds of sanctions against Moscow.
Putin says peace talks can only begin if Kiev cedes parts of eastern and southern Ukraine to Russia and drops its ambitions for NATO membership. Zelenskiy has repeatedly called for the withdrawal of all Russian troops and the restoration of Ukraine’s post-Soviet borders.
Kyiv launched a cross-border attack on August 6 against Russia’s western Kursk region. Ukraine says the action was partly aimed at preventing Russian forces in the area from launching their own incursion across the border into Ukraine.
Zelenskiy told ABC News that Putin was afraid of the Kursk operation.
“He’s very scared,” he said. “Why? Because his people saw that he cannot defend—that he cannot defend his entire territory.”
Ukraine and the West say Russia is waging an imperialist-style war. Putin made the invasion of Ukraine as a defensive move against a hostile and aggressive West.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Costas Pitas; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)