Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wants to spend up to $300 billion in seized Russian assets on US weapons purchases, which would grant a hearty boost to the American defense industry, he said in a new interview with podcaster Lex Fridman.
The US and its allies banned any transactions with Moscow’s central bank and finance ministry after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, freezing roughly $300 billion of Russian government assets in financial institutions in the West.
In the interview posted to YouTube on Sunday, Zelensky suggested that Ukraine could use those funds to purchase additional weapons from the US instead of waiting for donations.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky proposed spending $300 billion in frozen Russian assets on US weapons purchases. UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE/AFP via Getty Images“We don’t need gifts from the United States,” he said. “It will be very good for your industry, for the United States. We will put money there. Russian money, not Ukrainian, not European. Russian money, Russian assets. They have to pay for this.”
The Ukrainian president explained that such an endeavor would amount to a “security guarantee” to help push Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiation table.
Zelensky said he offered his idea to Trump, with whom he last met in Paris on Dec. 6 when they were in the French capital for the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral.
At the time, Trump demanded that “there should be an immediate ceasefire and negotiations should begin,” he said in a post to Truth Social.
Zelensky said his country doesn’t “need gifts from the United States” and that the proposal would boost the American economy. DoD/AFP via Getty Images“[The Ukraine war] should have never started, and could go on forever,” he said.
Zelensky said he hoped Trump would be swift to implement tougher sanctions on Russia than his predecessor before a ceasefire agreement is reached.
“With all due respect to the United States and to the administration, I don’t want the same situation like we had with Biden,” he said. “I ask for sanctions now, please, and weapons now, and then we will see.”
Zelensky said that it would deter Russia from re-invading after a potential ceasefire if Ukraine was armed with additional weapons even after the battleground fighting ends.
“It’s different when you have weapons. Putin wouldn’t have been able to occupy so much territory,” he said. “It was very difficult for us to push him out, but we didn’t have weapons before and that is the same situation. It can be the same situation.”
“I want to be very honest with you and with your audience. Yes, it’s true, if we do not have security guarantees, Putin will come again.”
The Ukrainian president lauded Trump in the interview, remarking that the president-elect showed he was “much stronger” than Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris — both “intellectually and physically.”
A Ukrainian soldier holding a FIM-92 Stinger from the US in Zaporizhzhia on Dec. 2, 2024. Photo by Nikoletta Stoyanova/Getty Images“It was an important point to show that if you want to have a strong country, you have to be strong. And he was strong,” Zelensky said of the 78-year-old soon-to-be president.
“He is young. He is young [mentally] and his brain works. So I think it’s important, very important.”
Along with trying to appeal to Trump, Zelensky touted the Kremlin’s latest losses from Ukraine’s counterattack in Russia’s Kursk region, where Kyiv launched a surprise counter-invasion in August.
“During the Kursk operation, the enemy has already lost 38,000 of their soldiers in this direction alone, with nearly 15,000 of these losses being irreversible,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly address, without clarifying whether that meant the 15,000 were killed or unable to return to the front for another reason.
Kyiv launched a new offensive in the occupied region over the weekend, with the Ukrainian president claiming that Russian forces and their North Korean backups have suffered significant losses.
Moscow, however, said it successfully beat back the advancing Ukrainian troops, taking out multiple tanks and armored vehicles near the village of Berdin.
Zelensky also avoided discussing Kurakhove, a key Ukrainian city that Moscow claimed to have seized Monday following months of war.
Rather than mentioning the alleged defeat, Zelensky said Kyiv had managed to create a strong buffer zone in Kursk while the army focused elsewhere along the border.
“Importantly, the occupiers cannot now direct all this force to our other directions, particular to the Donetsk region, Sumy, Kharkiv region or Zaporizhzhia,” he said.
