00:00They expected to crush Russia to destroy the statehood within a few months, but they failed.
00:08These political forces will step by step get back to the leadership positions,
00:14or they will seize power with the support of the vast majority of the European countries.
00:20I believe that it is coming to an end, but nevertheless, that was a serious thing to do.
00:25So the question is, why did it happen? Because they expected to crush Russia to destroy the statehood within a
00:35few months, but they failed.
00:38But, well, they got stuck into this, and now they cannot get out of this.
00:44Even though there are enough smart people out there, there are those people who understand what is happening.
00:51And I hope that these political forces will step by step get back to the leadership positions,
01:00or they will seize power with the support of the vast majority of the European countries.
01:05And as for provocative statements, these decisions had been made much earlier than the so-called provocative statements were made.
01:28As for said statements, we responded to them, as you know.
01:33First, the Ministry of Defense made their statements that, in case there are any attempts to thwart or disrupt our
01:46festivities,
01:46we will be forced to do massive retaliatory rocket strikes on Kyiv downtown.
02:01But that was supposed to be a response.
02:08That wasn't all of it, it was followed by a note of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but it even
02:20didn't end there as well.
02:24We started working with our partners and friends, first of all, with our friends from the People's Republic of China,
02:31India, and some other countries,
02:37including the U.S. administration.
02:39What kind of work that was, we outlined to our friends, colleagues and partners, we outlined the picture that could
02:54have formed.
02:55We have no desire to spoil relationships with anyone.
03:01That could have happened because all decision, centers of decision-making in Kyiv are in direct vicinity of diplomatic establishments,
03:12consulates of dozens of countries.
03:15That's the problem.
03:16When we started this dialogue with the U.S. administration, we warned them, we informed them of possible consequences and
03:28asked them to do everything to ensure security of their diplomats.
03:35And as a result of those discussions, there came the initiative of U.S. President Donald Trump about the extra
03:46two days of truce and exchange of prisoners of war during those days.
03:52And we agreed to that right away, since this, I think, this idea is highly justified and dictated by considerations
04:06of respect to our common victory over Nazism.
04:11It's obviously a humanitarian move, and several days before, on the 5th of May, we passed on to Ukraine our
04:27suggestion of truce and sent them a list of 500 Ukrainian prisoners of war that are currently in Russia.
04:37The initial reaction was that they need to take a closer look at that, maybe not all 500 of them,
04:44maybe 200 of them, and then, after that, they said directly that they were not prepared for this exchange.
04:53They did want to do it.
04:57So when President Trump stepped forward with his initiative, we supported it right away, and we expect that in this
05:10case Ukraine will respond to the suggestion of the President of the United States.
05:18But there haven't been any responses from Ukraine, sadly, sadly, so far.
05:26The Ukrainian side and Mr. Zelensky, they are ready to have a personal meeting, and we heard that before, so
05:37what can I say?
05:37We have never refused, I have never refused, so if they proposed a meeting, and those who want to meet,
05:49they can travel to Moscow, and we will have a meeting, and we can meet in the third country as
05:55well.
05:55But only after there is an ultimate agreement regarding a peace deal that must be a long-term deal.
06:12Then we can meet to sign something, but then this should be the final thing to do, not to hold
06:20negotiations there, because we know what these negotiations could look like, because we have this experience from Minsk regarding Minsk
06:29Accords.
06:29We can speak hours, we can speak hours, day and night, and it would yield no results.
06:34We need specialists to take care of that, to do everything, to make it clear for both sides, to make
06:40sure that both parties agree, then we can meet, we can sign, or we can attend some ceremony where the
06:48document will be signed.
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