Putin ‘didn’t break Ukrainian people,’ says Zelenskyy 4 years after attack – National
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared on Tuesday that Russia has never “broken the Ukrainian people” or won its war, four years after an attack that severely tested the resolve of Kyiv and its allies and fueled European fears about the extent of Moscow’s ambitions.
In a show of support, more than a dozen top European officials traveled to the Ukrainian capital to mark the first anniversary of the conflict, which has killed tens of thousands of people, improved the lives of millions of Ukrainians, and created instability far beyond its borders.
Zelenskyy said his country was able to withstand the onslaught of Russia’s larger and better-armed army, which last year claimed only 0.79 percent of Ukraine’s territory, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank. Russia now owns about 20 percent of Ukraine.
“If we look back at the beginning of the attack and think today, we have the right to say: We defended our independence, we did not lose our status,” Zelenskyy said on social media, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin “has not yet achieved his goal.”
“He has not broken the Ukrainian people; he has not won this war,” Zelenskyy said.
Despite showing defiance, Ukraine has struggled to contain Russian aggression, and the war has brought many hardships to the Ukrainian people. Russian airstrikes have destroyed families and denied residents power and running water.
As the apartheid war enters its fifth year, the US-led effort to end the continent’s biggest conflict since World War II appears to be no closer to finding a compromise that could lead to a peace deal.
Negotiations are still ongoing over what is happening in the Donbas, an industrial hub in eastern Ukraine that Russian troops have been occupying but have failed to fully capture, and the terms of Kyiv’s post-war security plan to deter any future Russian attacks.
Zelenskyy urges Trump to visit
At a makeshift memorial in Kyiv’s central square, where thousands of small flags and statues display images of fallen soldiers, Zelenskyy said he would like US President Donald Trump to visit and see for himself the suffering of Ukraine.
“Only then can one really understand what this war is about,” Zelenskyy said.
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Trump, who once vowed to end the war in a day, has repeatedly changed his tone on Putin and Zelenskyy over the past year: at times criticizing the Ukrainian leader’s negotiating position while reaching out to the Russian leader and at others challenging Putin with harsh barks and appearing more sympathetic to the situation in Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the attack would continue to follow Moscow’s policies. It includes a demand that Ukraine drop its bid to join NATO, cut back its troops, and cede more territory.
Zelenskyy said he expects a new round of US-Russia talks in the next 10 days.
A ‘nightmare’ for the Ukrainian people
The number of soldiers killed, wounded or missing on both sides could reach 2 million by spring, with Russia sustaining the highest number of military deaths of any major power in any conflict since World War II, a report last month from the Center for Strategic and International Studies said.
European leaders see their national security at risk in Ukraine amid concerns that Putin may target them next.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz wrote in X that “for four years, day and night and day has been a nightmare for the Ukrainian people – not only for them, but for all of us. Because the war is back in Europe.”
“We will finish only by being stronger together, because the fate of Ukraine is our fate,” he added.
A dangerous gamble by Putin
Putin believes that time is on his military’s side, Western officials and analysts say – and that Western support will follow and that Ukrainian military resistance will eventually collapse. Trump has already ended new military aid to Ukraine – although some NATO countries are now buying American weapons and giving them to Kyiv.
But French President Emmanuel Macron described the war as “a triple failure for Russia: military, economic and strategic.”
The war “strengthened NATO – the very expansion Russia wanted to prevent – encouraged Europeans it hoped would weaken, and exposed the weakness of imperialism from another era,” Macron told X.
The European Union has also sent financial aid, but has sometimes met with reluctance from members in Hungary and Slovakia.
While NATO countries helped Ukraine, Russia helped North Korea, sending thousands of soldiers and artillery shells; Iran, which has provided drone technology; and China, the United States and analysts say it has supplied machine tools and chips.
Among the European officials who visited Kyiv on Tuesday were the president of the European Council, Antonio Costa, the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and the President of Finland Alexander Stubb, as well as seven prime ministers and four foreign ministers.
The only American listed among the official guests at the Kyiv ceremony was Lt. Gen. Curtis Buzzard, the US official representing NATO in Ukraine.
British Defense Minister Al Carnes said Russia’s war in Ukraine was “the most important conflict” in decades.
The war has brought “a revolution in military affairs,” particularly with the rapid development of drone technology on both sides, according to Carns. Drones now cause the majority of battlefield casualties, he said.
Both sides are facing challenges in getting enough troops and are increasingly turning to obsolete types of aircraft that carry the killing far from the front lines, the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies said in its annual report on the state of the world’s military.
“Since both sides rely on foreign material support, decisions made in foreign capitals will play an important role in shaping the course of the war,” the think tank said.
The United Kingdom on Tuesday announced a new package of military and humanitarian support for Ukraine, including sending teams of British military doctors to train their Ukrainian counterparts.
The cost of rebuilding war-torn Ukraine could reach nearly $588 billion over the next decade, according to the World Bank, the European Commission, the United Nations and the Ukrainian government.
That is nearly three times Ukraine’s GDP estimated last year, they said in a report on Monday.
