Volodymyr Zelenskyy: commitment

Transcript context

…Yeah. I just really want you and I to be on the same page. It’s very important to be in the same information space. Extremely important. Let’s talk a bit about the ceasefire. Let me describe the situation to you. In December 2019 in Normandy, in Paris at the Elysee Palace, Macron, Merkel, Putin and I agreed on the ceasefire. The U.S. wasn’t there and this, by the way, was a weak point of the meeting. If you’d like, we can later discuss why they weren’t there. It’s a security guarantee thing in general. It’s Germany’s position, et cetera. We agreed on an exchange of hostages, an all for all exchange. We made a deal to exchange everyone for everyone, I think you know that. There was also a meeting that lasted many hours, a meeting where we made a deal with him. Everyone was tired. It was just the two of us in the end and I proposed a ceasefire. By the way, no one in Ukraine believed. Few believed in the ceasefire and he wanted troop withdrawal. I calculated that if there were a withdrawal of troops from the line of contact the way Russians proposed, it would take 20 years. I proved it to him just in terms of time, square kilometers, namely the length of the line of contact or delimitation line, and we agreed on what I told him that it will not work out but I had many points because I was deeply involved in the issue. I was involved very deeply. It’s my thing in general. If I start doing something, I can’t stand there like that guy I spoke about with my ass out. I must be dressed. I must be prepared. I must be prepared better, better than anyone in front of me. You do sports, right? Mm-hmm.…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.