Volodymyr Zelenskyy: The 2022 60 Minutes Interview

on february 24th with the russian  invasion coming at him from three sides. ukrainian president volodomir zielinski  reached for his most powerful weapon. his phone the moment zelinski  told his people he refused to flee. ukraine refused to fall leaders don't become  legends often but over these nearly seven weeks. this 44 year old former comedian inspired his  country to stand up to the overwhelming force.

of russia last wednesday we were admitted to  zielinski's fortified war rooms to meet the. man who stands between the russian army and the  free world the story will continue in a moment. we met president zielinski in the blacked-out  hallways of his command center in ukraine's. capital kiev it is a fortress crowded  with troops machine guns mines explosives.

and a great deal more are you safe here yeah  i'm fine he told us i feel pretty calm about it. our guards are worried because there could be an  air strike but when we get the air raid evacuation. signal we head downstairs mr president what  has it been like working under these conditions. we we we found way how to work.

we don't have any another way you found a  way how to work you don't have any other ways. slipping back into ukrainian he said it has to  be dark in here you can't switch the lights on. because a bomb could just fly in during an  airstrike you have you have troops sleeping. the president and his staff have lived here for  46 days now russian invasion plan expected kiev. to fall in three days but that relied on  one assumption that zielinski would run no.

before i do something i analyze the situation  i've always done it calmly without any chaos. i might not be the strongest warrior  but i'm not willing to betray anyone. what did you tell your wife and  children about your decision.

i told them this is my choice and i can't do it  any other way i'm the president of my country. i'm the president of our people and even if  i wasn't president i would have stayed here. my family understood not only understood  but fully supported my decision fully. it was the decision that saved ukraine from  immediate collapse good evening everyone he said.

we are all here our soldiers are here  the citizens of the country are here. we are all here protecting our independence  our country and we're going to continue. you had made a decision to give your  life for your country if it came to that. i don't want to make myself out to be  a hero he said i love my family i want.

to live many more years but choosing  between running or being with my people. of course i'm ready to give my life for my  country you just want to work for a man with. 44 million lives in his hands we found zielinski  buoyant gracious humble and brutally honest. the day before our visit and angrier zielinski.

scolded the u.n security council  where's the security he asked. in speaking to nato you called them weak. in speaking to the u.n security  council you said if you can't help. you shouldn't exist not very diplomatic of you i  wonder why you feel the need to speak so bluntly. when you're working at diplomacy there are no  results all of this is very bureaucratic that's.

why the way i am talking to them is absolutely  justifiable i don't have any more lives to give. i don't have any more emotions i'm no longer  interested in their diplomacy that leads to. the destruction of my country a lot of countries  have changed their mind about ukraine and about. our people but i think we've paid too high a  price for that what must the world understand.

we are defending the ability of a person to  live in the modern world we are defending. the right to live bravo i never thought this  right was so costly these are human values. so that russia doesn't choose what we  should do and how i'm exercising my rights. that right was given to me by god and my parents.

god was hard to find on our  visit to keeve's northern suburbs. which russia occupied for weeks much of  what we found will be difficult to watch. behind saint andrews church there is a sandy  trench not quite full of civilian residents of the. town of bucha ukraine stopped the russians here  45 minutes from the center of the capital city.

the russian retreat was so hasty it seems there  was no time to cover up the war crimes president. zielinski visited bucha two days before our  interview what did you see in bucha smart death. just death last monday was the first  time zielinski saw with his own eyes.

what russia has done in what vladimir  putin calls the liberation of ukraine. the day after our interview we found civilian  neighborhoods in bucha blocks and blocks shelled. and blasted with no purpose but terror bodies  and parts of bodies lay in the streets left out. like trash zielinski told us no one knows how many  victims are still in their homes yet to be found.

there's a photograph mr president of you in bucha. with an expression on your face that you have  not allowed your people to see during this war. and i wonder what we're seeing there is that  heartbreak is it anger this is least it's anger. it's anger.

because we don't understand  the russians you can't really. understand this world that there are  people on this planet who give these orders. neighborhood relief for  the hungry and the homeless. looked like world war ii in color valerie  met vienko was so angry about the senseless. russian bullet wound in his leg we  can't repeat what he told us in english.

some of the russians were normal some of them  were totally crazy you could walk and they. would shoot sometimes up in the air sometimes at  your legs so you'd have to jump in front of them. cars were run over by russian tanks very brutal.

who compressed the occupation  into a single word horror. she said gunfire was nonstop day and night thanks  to god it all passed and we survived it's simply a. miracle i had two grandchildren with me in the  basement i never thought i would live to see. this horror mr zielinski told us that he  couldn't believe that human beings could do.

something like this we never believed it  either we are simply in shock all of us. what evidence is there of  war crimes across ukraine. the ukrainian security service has  intercepted communications he told us. there are russian soldiers talking with  their parents about what they stole and. who they abducted there are recordings of  russian prisoners of war who admitted to.

killing people there are pilots in prison  who had maps with civilian targets to bomb. there are also investigations being done based on  the remains of the dead should vladimir putin be. prosecuted for war crimes they would say look i  i think everyone who made a decision who issued. an order who fulfilled an order everyone who is  relevant to this i believe they are all guilty.

do you hold putin responsible i do believe  he's one of them that's what i believe. the slaughter of civilians could have been stopped  zielinski told us he's deeply grateful for the. weapons nato and the u.s are sending around the  clock but he's bitterly disappointed the allies. refused to impose a no-fly zone over ukraine  president biden has called that an invitation to.

world war three but in zielinski's view it's the  kind of inaction the world has suffered before mr. president in a speech to nato you said quote all  the people who die will die because of you because. of your weakness are you saying that the west  bears some responsibility for these atrocities.

he told us i remember all of us remember  books about the second world war and about. the devil in uniform adolf hitler are those  countries who did not participate in the war. responsible the countries who let german  forces march throughout europe does the world. carry responsibility for the genocide yes yes it  does when you have the ability to close the sky.

yes it's scary that a world war could  start it's scary i understand that. and i cannot put pressure on these  people because everyone is afraid. of war but whether the world is responsible  for this i believe so yes i believe so stand. in front of the mirror every day and ask yourself  were you able to do something or were you.

unable to do something you will find the answer  in the mirror to this question and to another. that's what i believe perhaps zelinski reaches  for world war ii because of his homeland's history. of catastrophe and because he's ukraine's first  jewish president zielinski is 44 years old holds a. law degree he's married with a son and a daughter  his family is safe somewhere in ukraine in this.

war zielinski is the leading man in a tragedy but  he's worked his entire career to make people laugh. he was ukraine's favorite comedian  whose sitcom was popular in russia too. in his show called servant of the people he  played a high school history teacher whose anger. at corruption in ukraine explodes into a profane.

a rant posts the tirade and the teacher is  elected president in 2019 zielinski turned. parody into power he ran on an anti-corruption  platform and won 73 percent of the vote. he was 41 years old he brought long-time  friend and business partner andre your mac in. as chief of staff he is a smart he's a strong  he's a brave and he's person who is self-made.

zielinski is not just the leader of our heroic  nation i think he is a leader of the free world. why do you say president zielinski is the leader  of the free world now because ukraine defend not. just ukraine we defend all democracy zielinski has  been defending ukraine since his inauguration day.

that green t-shirt which caught the eye of the  world was no surprise to ukrainians he keeps. fatigues in his office because he often visited  the battlefront near the russian border where. ukraine has been in a shooting war with russia  since 2014. that was when putin invaded part of. ukraine called the donbas and seized ukraine's  crimea peninsula in 2014 before zielinski was.

elected a russian anti-aircraft battery in ukraine  shot down an airliner killing 298 civilians. in our interview zielinski told us he's been  trying to warn the world that putin will not. stop at ukraine mr president it appears that  the free world has calculated that the suffering. of your people is not worth even the risk of a  nuclear exchange yet i think so that's how it is.

some are using that politically as an excuse  by saying we can't defend ukraine because there. could be a nuclear war i think that today no one  in this world can predict what russia will do. if they invade further into our territory they  will definitely move closer and closer to europe. they will only become stronger and less  predictable president biden says he is.

outraged by bucha nato leaders say they are  outraged by bucha so what should they do now. weapons number one they need to be very serious  about it they definitely understand what i'm. talking about right now they have to supply  weapons to ukraine as if they were defending. themselves and their own people they need  to understand this if they don't speed up.

it will be very hard for us to  hold on against this pressure. the second factor is sanctions because we've  found some things in sanctions that are easy. for financial experts to circumvent russia has  been circumventing them and this is absolutely. true the western world knows it this shouldn't  be allowed this is not a movie this is real life.

stop fearing the russian federation we've shown  we are not afraid when we come back in the wake. of the bucha atrocities president zielinski tells  the united states what he must have to survive. friday a russian missile strike hit a crowd  of refugees striving to escape eastern ukraine.

by train at least 50 were killed five children  ukrainian president volodimer zelinski calls it a. war crime tonight zielinski is fighting a powerful  russian assault on ukraine's east and south. russia has not seized its strategic objectives  so instead it's shelling defiant cities. to ruin the one exception at least now is kiev  in a feat of arms no one expected ukraine's.

outgunned army defeated the massive russian force  that had been ordered to take the capital city. the story will continue in a moment. keeves survives for the moment a capital of  mummified monuments and 19th century grace.

before it was a bumper-to-bumper city  with 3 million residents but now the. streets are congested only by shadows air  raids are still a danger but after nearly. seven weeks the siren doesn't quicken the step  like it used to have you won the battle of kiev. give.

if the people of those towns were wiped out  then did we win this battle i'm not sure. we've withstood and we did not give up  what is ours but whether we won i can't say.

no one expected ukraine to fight russia to  a standstill and i wonder how did you manage. we united as a nation even though our people  understood that they would be outnumbered tenfold. and there would be no way out just no way out  we fought for our existence and for survival.

that's the combined heroism of everyone of the  people of the authorities of the armed forces. we became a single fist. we saw the ukrainian punch in the town of bucha  where the remains of a russian armored column. rested dead in the street neighbors holed up for  weeks emerged to remember what victory looks like.

no one seemed in a hurry to deal with the  bits of russian soldiers in the wreckage. the full story of how the outmanned ukrainian army  stopped the invasion of kiev will fill history. books but we already know part of it because the  russians believe that keeve would fall in a matter. of days they literally did not bring enough food  or fuel for their armored columns on the other.

side the ukrainians have been trained for years by  the california national guard and other u.s units. when the invasion happened the united  states britain and other countries. flooded ukraine with lightweight shoulder-fired  anti-tank missiles how much difference have. american arms made in this war they're helping  frankly speaking i would have wanted more i don't. know if i have the right to say that but the fact  that the united states has helped a lot is true.

zielinski's man in charge of arming ukraine  is chief of staff andre yermack when we met. he just finished a two-hour call with u.s  national security adviser jake sullivan. and the chairman of the joint chiefs general mark  milley yermak asked for heavier weapons faster. first there was artillery the second we need  the tanks we need the military jets and we need.

everything which give to us opportunity to close  our sky when you ask the biden administration. for artillery tanks jet airplanes the  administration says what we have very deep. and very detailed conversation this is american  presidents who is done for ukraine more than all. other presidents but then you have the  war and we are openly said we need more.

it's not enough we need it as soon as possible  if we receive this support in time we will win. a white house official tells us yermak got a yes  to his requests but filling orders takes time. the ukrainians need russian-made weapons that  they already know how to use the u.s is cajoling. allies to ship their russian gear now on the  promise that the u.s will replace it later.

america has thrown in nearly 2 billion  in military aid from the ukrainian point. of view of course nothing is fast enough  russian bombardment is escalating in the east. and south cities are being shelled to ruin  including mariupol with 450 000 residents.

what are you expecting now in the east and in the  south we think this will be a new wave of this war. we don't know how much russian weaponry there  will be but we understand they'll be many times. more than there is now all depends on how  fast we will be helped by the united states. to be honest whether we will be able  to survive depends on this i have 100. confidence in our people and in our armed forces  but unfortunately i don't have the confidence.

that we will be receiving everything we need  and so what are you asking of president biden. to tell you the truth long ago i asked president  biden for very specific items he has the list. president president biden can enter history as  the person who stood shoulder to shoulder with. the ukrainian people who won and chose the right  to have their own country this also depends on him.

you are frustrated with president  biden no i'm not disappointed. i don't know how another president in his  place would help us i don't know it's difficult. we have a good relationship i think so  at least ukraine depends on the support. of the united states and i as the leader  of a country at war i can only be grateful.

as for the other president at war we asked  zelinski if he would meet now face to face. with vladimir putin he told us it was worth the  chance they wouldn't resolve everything zelinski. said but they might stop the killing are you  willing to give up any part of ukraine for peace.

we're not ready to give away our country i think  we've already given up a lot of lives so we need. to stand firm for as long as we can but this is  life different things happen it's negotiable this. issue would definitely be raised in the course  of negotiations we understand the russian side we. understand one of their provisions that is always  talked about is to recognize crimea as russian. territory i will definitely not recognize that  and they would really like to take the southern.

parts of our country i clearly understand that  questions like this will be raised in negotiations. if there ever are any but we were not ready  to give up our territory from the beginning. had we been willing to give up our territory there  would have been no war mr president in almost. every speech to your country you say that ukraine  is going to win what does winning look like to you.

victory first of all our people would definitely  feel victory they will come back the return of. refugees is blood for the body of ukraine without  them there's nothing the bombardments would end. we would recover our territory there would  be no russian soldiers in our country. yes i understand they will not withdraw from  crimea and will be arguing and negotiating for one.

territory or another in the south of our country  the donbass i know exactly what has to happen. after which we can say this is victory but if you  don't mind i'm not going to talk about it just yet. mr president we wish you all the luck in the world. i need half of it i think even half will be enough.

has borrowed more luck than anyone expected  with the reprieve of kiev ukraine has turned. mere admiration into credibility its people  are suffering grievous loss every hour. but they have proven there was a moment in  kiev when they silenced the guns of russia.

leading from the front more from president  volodimir zielinski at 60 minutesovertime.com.