Evidence receipt / belief
Published · transcript-backedVolodymyr Zelenskyy: belief
6 Jan 2025 Lex Fridman Podcast #456 – Volodymyr Zelenskyy: Ukraine, War, Peace, Putin, Trump, NATO, and Freedom
“Both those who participated and those who remain silent because silence is also about participating, in my opinion.”
Source trail
Everything needed to verify it.
- Speaker
- Volodymyr Zelenskyy
- Attribution
- Verified speaker
- Claim type
- belief
- Recorded
- 6 Jan 2025
- Publisher
- Lex Fridman Podcast
Transcript context
…Listen, I have tremendous respect for you, admiration for many reasons. One of which is you stayed in Kiev and another one is that you visit the front and you talk to the soldiers in the front and you talk to people all across Ukraine. Absolutely tremendous respect for that. And not enough people say that. I had a conversation with Tucker Carlson for example, and I said that, “You’re hero for staying in Kiev.” And he said, “Well, he just did a thing that every leader should do.” But I think not enough leaders do the thing that every leader should do. So tremendous respect. I agree with you totally. Yes a leader should go to the front of a war. That said, America has waged wars all across the world. The war in Afghanistan and Iraq costs $9 trillion and killed over a million people. War is hell. And just because war is waged in terrible ways that it is does not mean the leader does not love their country. But I take your point. I once again have a dream that even if there’s hate, that you sit down with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin and you find a way to peace. Let me ask you a question. What do you think? Will there ever be a day when the Ukrainian people forgive the Russian people and both peoples will travel back and forth again and marry each other, rekindle and form friendships? Will there be such a time in the future? I think history has long answered this question. I don’t know how be for us. It’ll be in the future without a doubt. History has shown this time. And again after every devastating war, one generation, one country recognizes that it was an aggressor. And it comes to realize this is impossible to forgive. This is precisely the kind of education they’ve had in Germany for many years. Even though these children had nothing to do with it. It was their grandfathers who participated and not all of them were participants of Nazi Germany’s war essentially against the world. Yes. And against life. And therefore they’re still apologizing. Apologizing is not easy. They know that they were the aggressors, they were guilty. They do not look for compromise in history. Compromise in itself buys time. And they understand this. There are convicted murderers condemned both historically and by their own people. Reparations have been paid and security guarantees have been established by the way. And all this is done. And when all this is done and recognized, in any case, people develop relations with each other. That’s clear. But it can only happen the way it always has, always has in history. Russia will have to apologize. It will. This will happen because they are guilty. They’re guilty. And as I told you, the guilty are different. Both those who participated and those who remain silent because silence is also about participating, in my opinion. Can I ask about Donald Trump? We’ve already mentioned him a lot, but let’s focus there. What do you admire? What do you respect about Donald Trump? And also maybe why do you think he won overwhelmingly the election in 2024, that American people chose him?…
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