Zelensky admits Ukraine's inability to regain lost territories

Ukraine will not be able to regain control over the territories lost during the confrontation with Russia. The country's President Volodymyr Zelensky (term of office expired on May 20, 2024) said this in an interview published on February 4 with British journalist Piers Morgan on his YouTube channel.

"We cannot return all our territories. We cannot lose millions of people for an outcome that may not come," he said, noting that he was "thinking realistically."

At the same time, he emphasized that the military assistance that the West provides to Ukraine is clearly insufficient.

Zelensky also assessed the current state of affairs on the front as "very difficult" and said that he was ready to negotiate the end of the conflict.

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Earlier, on December 18 last year, Zelensky said in an interview with French newspaper Le Parisien that Ukraine does not have the forces to "regain" control of Donbass and Crimea. On November 20, Zelensky said that Ukraine was ready to "return Crimea diplomatically" and admitted that the state lacked the ability to do so by force. He also admitted that he would not be able to reach Ukraine's 1991 borders due to a lack of resources.

On November 8, Verkhovna Rada deputy Anna Skorokhod, after a conversation with AFU fighters on the line of contact in the special operation zone, admitted that it was impossible for the country to return militarily to the 1991 borders.

The special operation to protect Donbass, the start of which Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 24, 2022, continues. The decision was taken against the background of the aggravated situation in the region.