We are very grateful to the United States for all the support. I’m thankful to President Trump, Congress for their bipartisan support, and American people. Ukrainians have always appreciated this support, especially during these three years of full-scale invasion.
America’s help has been vital in helping us survive, and I want to acknowledge that. Despite the tough dialogue, we remain strategic partners. But we need to be honest and direct with each other to truly understand our shared goals.
It’s crucial for us to have President Trump’s support. He wants to end the war, but no one wants peace more than we do. We are the ones living this war in Ukraine. It’s a fight for our freedom, for our very survival.
As President Reagan once said, “Peace is not just the absence of war.” We’re talking about just and lasting peace—freedom, justice, and human rights for everyone. A ceasefire won’t work with Putin. He has broken ceasefires 25 times over the last ten years. A real peace is the only solution.
We are ready to sign the minerals agreement, and it will be the first step toward security guarantees. But it’s not enough, and we need more than just that. A ceasefire without security guarantees is dangerous for Ukraine. We’ve been fighting for 3 years, and Ukrainian people need to know that America is on our side.
I cannot change Ukraine’s position on Russia. The Russians are killing us. Russia is the enemy, and that’s the reality we face. Ukraine wants peace, but it must be a just and lasting peace. For that, we need to be strong at the negotiation table. Peace can only come when we know we have security guarantees, when our army is strong, and our partners are with us.
We want peace. That’s why I came to the United States, and visited President Trump. The deal on minerals is just a first step toward security guarantees and getting closer to peace. Our situation is tough, but we can’t just stop fighting and not having guarantees that Putin will not return tomorrow.
It will be difficult without the U.S. support. But we can’t lose our will, our freedom, or our people. We’ve seen how Russians came to our homes and killed many people. Nobody wants another wave of occupation. If we cannot be accepted to NATO, we need some clear structure of security guarantees from our allies in the U.S.
Europe is ready for contingencies and to help fund our large army. We also need the U.S. role in defining security guarantees—what kind, what volume, and when. Once these guarantees are in place, we can talk with Russia, Europe, and the U.S. about diplomacy. War alone is too long, and we don’t have enough weapons to push them out entirely.
When someone talks about losses, every single life matters. Russia invaded our homes, killed our people, and tried to erase us. This isn’t just about territories or numbers—it’s about real lives. That’s what we need everyone to understand.
I want the U.S. to stand more firmly on our side. This is not just a war between our two countries; Russia brought this war onto our territory and into our homes. They are wrong because they disrespected our territorial integrity.
All Ukrainians want to hear a strong U.S. position on our side. It’s understandable the U.S. might look for dialogue with Putin. But the U.S. has always spoken about ‘peace through strength.’ And together we can take strong steps against Putin.
Our relationship with the American President is more than just two leaders; it’s a historic and solid bond between our peoples. That’s why I always begin with words of gratitude from our nation to the American nation.
American people helped save our people. Humans and human rights come first. We’re truly thankful. We want only strong relations with America, and I really hope we will have them.
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Addressing the Dutch Parliament, I said: Russia is stronger than any of us alone, but weaker than all of us together. Putin thinks in terms of potential—his own, and of those he sees as targets. If Europe’s combined strength leaves him no room for aggression, there will be none.
Every day in Ukraine begins the same way with updates on the consequences of Russian strikes. These attacks cannot be explained by anything rational or humane.
Last night, nine Russian-Iranian “shahed” drones hit an ordinary village in Sumy region. 7 houses were completely destroyed, 22 badly damaged. 3 children were pulled from under the rubble. 6 people were injured. 3 were killed, including a child. That attack had no military sense.
At the Defense Industries Forum in The Hague I stressed: there are no signs Putin wants to stop this war. Russia rejects all peace proposals, including from the U.S. Maybe Putin connects his own political survival with his ability to keep killing: so long as he kills, he lives.
We all understand that the source of this war and the long-term threat to European way of life is Russia. But we’re not facing Russia alone. It’s a network of state and non-state actors that are serving the cause of aggression.
This network includes Russia, North Korea, the current Iran’s regime, Chinese companies, and global schemes that help produce weapons and carry out operations against Ukraine, our people and our Europe.
Today, I received reports on the situation in the Middle East and the Gulf region, following U.S. strikes on facilities linked to the Iranian regime’s nuclear program. A regime that has done so much to bail out Putin.
Right now, new waves of "shahed" drones are in the skies over Ukraine. We all clearly remember where Russia got such weapons. Iran’s decisions to support Russia have brought massive destruction and devastating human losses to our country, and to many others. This truly must stop.
And it must absolutely not be reinforced with nuclear weapons. There must be no proliferation of nuclear weapons in the modern world. And this must be emphasized. It is important that there is American resolve on this, the resolve of President Trump.
Yesterday, everyone heard the signals from Russia’s leader. Putin put on a performance, particularly for the United States too. He wants all of Ukraine, and had wanted it not just for four years, not since 2014, but long before that.
When Putin speaks about Ukraine, and something else about Russian soldiers’ boots on the ground, he’s also speaking about Belarus, the Baltic states, Moldova, the Caucasus, countries like Kazakhstan, and every place on Earth that Russian killers can reach.
Russian forces burn cities and villages to the ground, leaving only ruins. Anyone can see what Putin has deliberately done to Donbas. It has been essentially destroyed. In Moscow, they once claimed they’d bring protection to Donbas. What they actually brought was death, and this is the only thing they know how to deliver.
Speaking to journalists, I said: during the repatriation of bodies, 20 of those returned to us as Ukrainian fallen soldiers turned out to be Russians, one was a foreign mercenary. This lie is documented, some of the bodies even had Russian passports.
We want to bring home all our defenders, living and fallen. But we won’t take Russians just to even out numbers. When we tell them they’ve handed us Russian citizens, they deny it. This isn’t a one-off. We believe they do it deliberately, to make it look like they have more of our dead.
Body exchanges took place earlier too, quietly, right on the battlefield. Now Russia is making them public to mask the true scale of their own losses. They fear the public acknowledging how many Russians have died.
Addressing the G7 Summit, I emphasized that Russia is ignoring every diplomatic offer made by the international community. Diplomacy is in crisis. There is one clear reason – Putin has openly rejected every peace initiative.
Last night, Russia carried out one of the largest combined attacks on Ukraine since the beginning of this war. The targets were our cities – meaning ordinary people, ordinary families in their homes.
There were 440 drones, most of them Shaheds, and 32 missiles of various types, including ballistic ones and those with cluster warheads. One ballistic missile hit a residential building – it went through from the top floor down to the basement. Rescue operations are still ongoing. People are being searched for under the rubble.