Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday handed Russia a tongue-in-cheek offer to end the war between the two countries at the Munich Security Conference.
Zelensky said during a panel discussion that he would be willing to agree to a ceasefire “for Russians if they will do elections in Russia,” prompting laughter and applause from attendees, as critics say Russian President Vladimir Putin is essentially guaranteed wins through the country’s authoritarian system.
On a more serious note, Zelensky responded to U.S. pressure to hold elections in Ukraine. Kyiv has received intense criticism for canceling presidential elections since the war broke out in 2022, by declaring martial law. Zelensky said this week that he would be willing to hold elections, but only if a ceasefire is first declared, which he said President Donald Trump could broker. The United States has for months been leading peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, seeking to end the war as it approaches the four-year mark.
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“I’m very honest. Give us two months of ceasefire. We will go to elections. That’s it,” Zelensky said. “Give us security infrastructure … President Trump can do it. Push Putin. Make ceasefire. Then our parliament will change the law, and we will go to elections.”
During his high-profile address at the Munich conference, Zelensky pushed Europe for more support in the war effort, arguing that it is to their advantage to counter Russia so they can eliminate the threat before it crosses NATO borders, instead of hunkering down and “building trenches.” He pressed the continent to establish “a real common defense policy,” and argued that Ukraine deserves a seat at the table with integration into NATO, a highly controversial proposal, as Kyiv offers “the strongest army in Europe” and “new approaches to protect lives in any European country.”
”Just imagine, hundreds of thousands of Russian troops on your borders, massive military equipment, and all you, all you hear, is ‘dig trenches.’ So if Russian troops enter Lithuania, God bless you, just like example, or another country on NATO’s eastern flank, what will the allies hear then? Will they hear that help is on the way? I hope so, or will they hear dig trenches or something else? We must have the ability to give a strong response to that threat, and that is why we are talking about a joint European defense policy. That is why we need American backstop. That is why Europe needs Ukraine.”
Zelensky pressed for partners to intensify pressure on Russia to end the war, pointing to the sweeping human costs of the conflict.
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Weapons are evolving “faster than political decisions meant to stop them,” Zelensky warned in his demands for increased urgency, pointing to Iranian-designed Shahed drones he said have become much deadlier. In south-eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk, one of the most intense areas of fighting, “the price Russia pays for one kilometer now is 156 soldiers,” he said, calling Putin a “slave to war.” It is Kyiv’s goal to kill “at least” 50,000 Russian soldiers a month, Zelensky added, mourning that not a single Ukrainian power plant has escaped damage by Russian attacks.
The Ukrainian president also reiterated his demand for strong security guarantees as a precondition to ending the war. He accused the Trump administration of being harder on Ukraine than Russia in seeking concessions to end the conflict, but expressed hope that substantive progress would be made in the next round of the next round of U.S. brokered peace talks, scheduled for Geneva next week. Trump recently floated a new June deadline for an agreement to be made to end the war.
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“It would be an illusion to believe that this war can now be reliably ended by dividing Ukraine, just as it was an illusion to believe that sacrificing Czechoslovakia [to German invasion during WWII] would save Europe from a great war,” Zelensky said, casting doubt on a U.S. proposal to turn the Donbas region, which includes Donetsk, into a free economic zone.
“We hope President Trump hears us. We hope the Congress hears us. We hope American people hear us, and we are grateful for all the real help,” he concluded.
