Zelenskyy: US threats of sanctions before the war were "bullshit"

Authored by pravda.com.ua and submitted by Pravda_UA

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has revealed that he urged the US to impose preemptive sanctions on Russia before the full-scale invasion, describing their threats of sanctions in the event of an attack as "bullshit".

Source: Zelenskyy in an interview with American podcaster Lex Fridman

Quote: "I asked only for one thing, primarily from the United States – if you are sure, if you have evidence, if you talk to him [Putin] and he tells you that there will be an invasion, if all this scares you. I only asked for two things: send us weapons, or better yet, strengthen us with preventive measures so there would be no war. It wasn't the weapons that I was asking for – I asked for sanctions. Intimidate him.

Please don't say ‘If he comes, if he crosses borders, if he kills, we're imposing sanctions.’ Well, this is complete bullshit. Sorry, but really."

Details: At this point, Fridman, who speaks Russian, noted that he had understood one particular word without translation. He also asked if Zelenskyy meant that Ukraine was not given help.

"I believe we didn’t. We didn’t receive help. If we assume that words are help, well, then yes, we received a lot of it, because there were plenty of words," the president responded.

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SwordfishOk504 on January 6th, 2025 at 04:29 UTC »

Since no one reads articles, he's not saying the sanctions were bullshit as the clickbait title wants you to believe. His comments were about his frustration that all that was being proposed at a certain point was sanctions.

Please don't say ‘If he comes, if he crosses borders, if he kills, we're imposing sanctions.’ Well, this is complete bullshit. Sorry, but really."

"I asked only for one thing, primarily from the United States – if you are sure, if you have evidence, if you talk to him [Putin] and he tells you that there will be an invasion, if all this scares you. I only asked for two things: send us weapons, or better yet, strengthen us with preventive measures so there would be no war. It wasn't the weapons that I was asking for – I asked for sanctions. Intimidate him.

th3st on January 6th, 2025 at 02:01 UTC »

Crimea should have been taken more seriously. By everyone

JKlerk on January 5th, 2025 at 22:26 UTC »

Domestic politics tend to heavily influence foreign politics. We should all remember that the Obama Administration was not actively campaigning to provide heavy weapons to Ukraine when Putin began to support the insurgency in Eastern Ukraine.

Trump, I may be wrong, also wasn't fully on board with the Ukraine train.

It should come to no surprise that the Biden administration along with Europe were recovering from COVID lockdowns so there probably was little appetite to cause more pain via NatGas sanctions.