Sometimes Russia would like to pause war, but has nothing to sell to its people as victory – Zelenskyy

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that he does not believe Russia wants to end the war, but that there are indeed moments when Moscow would like to pause the fighting, in particular because of economic exhaustion, while looking for something it could sell to its people as a victory.

Source: Zelenskyy during a conversation with journalists

Quote: "If all pressure tools are brought to bear, there will be more chances [to end the war]. I do not believe that Russia wants to end the war. There is a great deal of evidence to the contrary. I simply think that sometimes there are moments when they would like to 'pause the war' and are looking for a way to 'sell' that at home as some kind of victory. In my view, this is exactly the process we are seeing now."

Details: The president said that the Russians understand they are not yet in a stalemate economically, but the situation is "extremely negative".

"They understand that they still have a certain buffer, because there is money and there are relevant contracts. But sanctions pressure remains, there are already results, and there will be more," Zelenskyy said.

As an example, he cited the fact that France and the United States are stopping tankers from Russia's shadow fleet. French President Emmanuel Macron told Zelenskyy that his country is preparing to work on legislative changes so that detained Russian tankers could be held and not released.

"God willing, he will succeed. This is an issue for all states – at least for the northern, maritime countries that have leverage here. Tankers carrying Russian oil need to be stopped in a way that they remain detained, not just stopped temporarily and then released. So there is movement toward such decisions, and it will definitely become harder for the Russians. This is one of the tools," the Ukrainian president believes.

He expressed confidence that if all these instruments start working, the Russians "will be more inclined to end the war sooner".

Quote: "I want to end the war. Ukrainians want to end the war. Putin started the war, and he has not achieved the results he set out to achieve. [...] He does not have that achievement. That is why there is pressure now for us to withdraw from Donbas. Because if you withdraw from Donbas, that would be the one thing he could say: this was our main goal, Donbas is ours, this is our victory. This is a problematic issue, because it is the only thing they are clinging to in this propagandistic 'sale' to their domestic audience."

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