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Zelenskyi spoke in Munich on Saturday directly after Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Photo: Tobias Schwarz / AFP
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on his country's supporters to step up their efforts against Russian aggression and President Vladimir Putin. "If we don't act now, Putin will succeed in turning the next few years into a catastrophe," Zelensky said on Saturday at the Munich Security Conference.
He spoke immediately after Chancellor Olaf Scholz's appearance and thanked the German security agreement, which is a promise of long-term support and further arms deliveries. When asked, he personally invited US presidential candidate Donald Trump to Kiev. "If Trump comes, I'm ready to go to the front with him," says Zelensky. "Decision makers need to know what the war is like in reality and not just what it is like on Instagram."
“Putin kills whenever he wants”
Zelensky warned that the longer the war lasts, the greater the risk of expansion and further damage to the international order. According to Zelenskyj, Russia only has one decisive advantage in the war of aggression against Ukraine: the sheer number of soldiers who are being mercilessly burned at the front. "Human life has no value for the Russian state," says Zelensky, "Putin kills whoever he wants."
It was only on Friday that Putin sent a clear message to the security conference by murdering a Russian opposition figure, says Zelensky, referring to government critic Alexei Navalny. "Putin is a danger to all free nations." It must be clear that there are only two options for Putin's future: either the Russian president ends up before the International Criminal Court in The Hague or he is killed.
Zelensky ended his speech with an appeal: "Let's ensure that today's world does not become yesterday's world."
tgk/dpa/Reuters