Europe

Europe

Czech president: Ukraine is not in position to liberate occupied territories without significant cost to lives

04 August 2025 20:19 (UTC +04:00)

The temporary Russian occupation of part of Ukrainian territory may be the necessary price for Ukraine's survival as a sovereign state.

Czech President Petr Pavel in an interview with the BBC, APA reports.

Pavel said that it would be unfair for the West to pressure Ukraine to immediately liberate all occupied territories. In his words, the West does not want the destruction of the Ukrainian nation.

The Czech president said that Ukraine is not currently in a position to liberate the areas occupied by Russia in the foreseeable future, even with Western support, without significant human losses.

"Right now, Ukraine, with all Western Support, is not in a position to liberate occupied territories in a short time frame without a significant cost to lives. And of course, it will be very unfair from the West to push Ukraine to liberate all occupied territories right now, because we don’t want to exterminate the Ukrainian nation. We want them to survive as an independent sovereign country. And if there is a cost to renewing Ukraine as an independent autonomous state, if the cost is to accept that part of the territory will be temporarily occupied, without recognising it legally, then so be it. We will never recognise these occupied territories as legally Russian," Pavel said.

The Czech president believes that it is necessary to continue providing military aid to Ukraine, but, in his words, the war cannot be won on the battlefield. He believes that economic pressure from Europe and the United States is a more powerful tool to force Moscow to the negotiating table.