(Kyiv) Russian President Vladimir Putin is counting on the “collapse” of Western support for Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky told G7 leaders on Wednesday, reporting that the Russian army had “significantly increased pressure” on forehead.
“Russia only hopes for one thing: that the unity of the free world collapses next year. Russia believes that America and Europe will show weakness and will not maintain their support for Ukraine at the appropriate level,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a teleconference between the leaders of the G7 countries.
While he admitted that Russian forces were on the offensive on the front, Mr. Zelensky assured that Ukrainian soldiers were “resisting attacks”.
“We maintain important bridgeheads in several directions of the front line and we are preparing for the next steps,” he said.
After the failure of the great summer counter-offensive of the Ukrainian army, which did not manage to break through the Russian defenses, it was the troops from Moscow who took back the initiative, notably in Adviïvka, an industrial city of the ‘Is they trying to surround.
Western military and financial aid to Ukraine, crucial to Kyiv’s war effort, has increasingly come into question, the subject of political wrangling in both the United States and Europe.
Mr. Zelensky thus estimated on Wednesday that his country must “win the battle of motivation” at home and abroad. “The free world has a vital need to maintain its unity,” he pleaded before the G7.
He also said he hoped that the European Union “will keep its promise to Ukraine”, whose desire to join the EU must in particular be discussed at a summit in mid-December.
Volodymyr Zelensky canceled Tuesday evening to everyone’s surprise his planned speech before the American Congress, where negotiations are tense regarding continued aid to Ukraine.