In an interview with American television, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that Ukraine cannot give up its own territories for the sake of a peace agreement.
According to Suspilne, Zelenskyy described the issue of territories as the most difficult aspect of negotiations to resolve the war and “the only one where the positions of Ukraine and Russia differ significantly”.
The president recalled that abandoning Donbas “is beyond the scope of our law, and not only that, because our people live there and our army is there”. Around 300,000 Ukrainians live in the territories that the Kremlin seeks to obtain without resistance.
Zelenskyy is convinced that Ukrainian society wants peace, but not at any price. He stressed that a referendum on the renunciation of territories “cannot be positive for Ukraine”.