Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. File
| Photograph Credit score: Reuters
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated U.S. President Donald Trump was exerting undue strain on him in making an attempt to safe a decision to the practically four-year-old conflict pitting Kyiv in opposition to Moscow.
Mr. Zelenskyy, in an interview with U.S. web site Axios printed on Tuesday (February 17, 2026), additionally stated any plan requiring Ukraine to surrender territory that Russia had not captured within the jap Donbas area can be rejected by Ukrainians if put to a referendum.
Axios quoted Mr. Zelenskyy as saying it was “not truthful” that Mr. Trump saved publicly calling on Ukraine, not Russia, to make concessions in negotiating phrases for a peace plan.
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“I hope it’s simply his techniques and never the choice,” Axios quoted Mr. Zelenskyy as saying within the interview, performed by telephone as Russian, Ukrainian and U.S. negotiators held talks in Geneva.
Mr. Trump has twice in current days recommended it was as much as Ukraine and Mr. Zelenskyy to take steps to make sure the talks proved profitable.
“Ukraine higher come to the desk quick. That’s all I’m telling you,” Mr. Trump instructed reporters aboard Air Drive One on Monday (February 16, 2026).
Mr. Zelenskyy, Axios stated, recommended it’d be simpler to place strain on Ukraine than on Russia.
He thanked Mr. Trump once more for his peacemaking efforts and instructed Axios that his conversations with the highest U.S. negotiators, envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, didn’t contain the identical form of strain.
“We respect one another,” Axios quoted him as saying. He added that he was “not such an individual” to fold simply below strain.
Mr. Zelenskyy instructed Axios that acceding to Russia’s demand to take over the whole Donbas area — it now holds about 88% of it — can be unacceptable to Ukrainian voters in the event that they have been requested to think about it in a referendum.
“Emotionally, individuals will by no means forgive this. By no means. They won’t forgive… me, they won’t forgive (the USA),” Mr. Zelenskyy stated, including that Ukrainians “can’t perceive why” they might be requested to surrender extra land. “This is a part of our nation, all these residents, the flag, the land.”
He referred to as once more for positions to be frozen on the present entrance traces of the battle.
“I believe that if we will put within the doc … that we keep the place we keep on the contact line, I believe that individuals will assist this (in a) referendum,” Axios quoted him as saying.
Revealed – February 18, 2026 01:05 pm IST