We could have stopped Vladimir Putin a long time ago if the sanctions and anti-Russian resolutions were not half-baked, said Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian President in an interview with Le Monde, APA reports citing RBС-Ukraine.
A journalist from AFP asked Zelenskyy why Russian troops continue to advance in eastern Ukraine and whether the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) will be able to stop them in the near future. The president explained that there are several reasons behind the Russian army's advance, and if these issues are addressed, it will be possible to halt their progress.
"We are no longer keeping it a secret that we were preparing 14 brigades. 14 brigades that we wanted to equip with weapons primarily. These brigades are meant to defend our territory and should serve as reserves so we can rotate our soldiers to give them rest, with these brigades replacing them. When we talked about and prepared the relevant packages (of Western aid - ed.), it was for equipping these 14 brigades. What do you think, if out of 14, only 3 are equipped, can we stop them? We can certainly stop them. But there is a cost because the cost is time. Time while we equip the brigades. And time is people's lives," the president said.
"If we didn’t have half-sanctions and half-measures, we would have already stopped Putin. Definitely stopped him. The world is much stronger, much larger, much more powerful, principled, economically stronger. I’m not only talking about military strength, but also political and economic," Zelenskyy told French journalists.
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