Zaluzhnyi recalled what brought him to tears from the beginning of the invasion: I didn't have enough strength

The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, despite the lack of emotion, is painfully experiencing Ukrainian losses. He recalled how he was crying when he had to tell a defender's mother that her son was killed.

Source: Zaluzhnyi in an interview with Dmytro Komarov, "One year. Behind the scenes"

Quote: "First of all, I am a normal person with a completely normal heart, and the fact that the emotions on my face and in my behaviour do not show human pain, this does not mean anything. In fact, the heart feels it very, very painfully. And even now I would not like to remember those names that have been stolen from my memory. There is no strength to do anything with these records.

I guess I'm not ready for that yet. Someday I'll probably do it to get this person off my phone forever, but I can't get it off my mind."

Details: When Zaluzhnyi was asked if he had to cry, he answered: "As the Commander-in-Chief, I don't want to show any weaknesses, but I'm human. Once I cried when a mother was looking for her son. He was a helicopter pilot flying to the city of Mariupol. Even at that moment, while I corresponded with her, I had hoped that he was still alive and everything would be fine. And at that moment I was told that he died, he is gone."

Zaluzhnyi noted that when he had to talk to the mother of that pilot about his death, he "didn't have enough strength."

He refused to name the defender and noted that all fallen defenders deserve honour and recognition.

The Commander-in-Chief added that he is handling the experience of Ukrainian losses very badly.

Zaluzhnyi believes that the strategic goal of the Russian Federation at the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine was to destroy Ukrainian statehood: "They expected that they would enter in organised columns, people would meet them with bread and salt, and that would be the end of the Ukrainian state. But Ukrainians began to resist; Ukrainians began to defend themselves."

Quote: "As of now, they are coming here from the Russian Federation to deliberately kill Ukrainians. The essence of this war is that if we do not destroy this enemy now, we will be destroyed, because they came deliberately."

The commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine emphasised that the Russians are going to kill Ukrainians, despite the fact that they are suffering "huge" losses on the battlefield in Ukraine.

Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron!