Zelensky swears and expresses his disdain for Russians in three-hour interview

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gave an interview to American blogger Lex Fridman. The three-hour recording was posted on the podcaster's YouTube channel.

Photo: commons.wikimedia.org by PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY Official website, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Meeting of the President of Ukraine and the Prime Minister of Great Britain in Kiev 63

Zelensky and Fridman spoke in Ukrainian and English. Both Zelensky and Friedman speak Russian, but Zelensky refused to use the Russian language during the conversation. 

Zelensky said that he allegedly did not want to "pass to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, so that he would once again declare that we are one people and speak the same language."

The Ukrainian leader also recalled how he addressed the Russians in Russian in the very the beginning of the special military operation, but his speech had no effect.

"Since those people are deaf, I sincerely despise them," Volodymyr Zelensky said adding that he had no respect either for the Russian president or for the Russian people.

During the interview, Zelensky resorted to obscene language several times. He responded with obscenities to a question about Putin and the role of Chechnya in modern Russia. He suggested that the Russian leader does not like the peoples that are part of the Russian Federation.

Volodymyr Zelensky swore when he recalled the Budapest Memorandum. He called the document, which guaranteed Ukraine's security in exchange for renouncing nuclear weapons, "just a piece of paper that no one gave a *** [care] about."

Zelensky also swore when he spoke about the refusal of Western countries to impose preventive sanctions against Russia.

Zelensky believes that Donald Trump enjoys the highest level of trust among the Ukrainians. According to him, the people of Ukraine believe that the US president "can support Ukraine and stop Russia."

At the same time, he refused to negotiate with Trump and Putin. He noted that he first wanted to meet only with Trump, and also announced his intention to get European politicians involve in the negotiations.

"I am sure that he [Trump], together with Europe, can offer strong guarantees for Ukraine's security. A conversation with the Russians will come next. Only in this way, and not just that the three of us immediately sat down,” he said.

Ukraine will be ready for negotiations with Russia if NATO provides Kyiv with security guarantees, he added.

"NATO can act in the part that is controlled by Ukraine. Can we agree on this? I am convinced that we can. This is not a great success for us, but if we see a diplomatic way to end the war, then this is the first one,” he said.

Additionally, Zelensky believes that Western weapons should remain in Ukraine after the truce is concluded. Ukraine needs clear security guarantees from the West and it will be possible to conclude peace with Moscow once Kyiv has such guarantees on the table, the Ukrainian President believes.

Ukraine has received only half of the money that the American authorities promised. According to him, Washington was supposed to transfer a total of about 177 billion, but Kyiv has never received half of that amount.

"The first question — is it corruption? The second question is — whose corruption os that?” he wondered.

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Lex Fridman (born 15 August 1983) is an American computer scientist and podcaster. Since 2018, he has hosted the Lex Fridman Podcast, where he interviews notable figures from various fields such as science, technology, sports, and politics. Fridman rose to prominence in 2019 after Elon Musk praised his study which concluded that drivers remained focused while using Tesla's semi-autonomous driving system. The study was criticized by AI experts and was not peer-reviewed. Fridman was born in Chkalovsk, Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic and grew up in Moscow. He is Jewish. His father, Alexander Fridman, is a plasma physicist and professor at Drexel University. His brother Gregory was also a professor at Drexel. When he was about 11, soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Fridman's family moved from Russia to the Chicago area.