Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Tuesday that unless his nation wins a drawn-out battle in a key eastern city Bakhmut, Russia could begin building international support for a deal that could require Ukraine to make unacceptable compromises. He also invited the leader of China, long aligned with Russia, to visit.
If Bakhmut fell to Russian forces, their president, Vladimir Putin, would “sell this victory to the West, to his society, to China, to Iran,” Zelenskyy said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press.
“If he will feel some blood — smell that we are weak — he will push, push, push,” Zelenskyy said in English, which he used for virtually all of the interview.
Zelenskyy is also well aware that his country’s success has been in great part due to waves of international military support, particularly from the United States and Western Europe.
“The United States really understands that if they stop helping us, we will not win,” he said in the interview.
“We can’t lose the steps because the war is a pie — pieces of victories. Small victories, small steps,” he said.
Zelensky’s comments were an acknowledgement that losing the 7-month-long battle for Bakhmut — the longest of the war thus far — would be more of a costly political defeat than a tactical one.
He predicted that the pressure from a defeat in Bakhmut would come quickly — both from the international community and within his own country. “Our society will feel tired,” he said. “Our society will push me to have compromise with them.”
In his AP interview, Zelenskyy extended an invitation to Ukraine to one notable and strategically important leader who has not made the journey — Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“We are ready to see him here,” he said. “I want to speak with him. I had contact with him before full-scale war. But during all this year, more than one year, I didn’t have.”
China, economically aligned and politically favorable toward Russia across many decades, has provided Putin diplomatic cover by staking out an official position of neutrality in the war.
Asked whether Xi would accept an invitation from Zelenskyy — or whether one had been officially extended — Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told reporters she had no information to give. She did say that Beijing maintains “communication with all parties concerned, including Ukraine.”
Xi visited Putin in Russia last week, raising the prospect that Beijing might be ready to provide Moscow with the weapons and ammunition it needs to refill its depleted stockpile. But Xi’s trip ended without any such announcement. Days later, Putin announced that he would be deploying tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, which neighbors Russia and pushes the Kremlin’s nuclear stockpile closer to NATO territory.
Zelenskyy suggested Putin’s move was intended to distract from the lack of guarantees he received from China.
“What does it mean? It means that the visit was not good for Russia,” Zelenskyy speculated.
