Zelenskyy hopes US won't yield to Kremlin's demands

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he hopes the US will “stand strong” against Russian demands to lift sanctions as a condition for implementing a Black Sea ceasefire, BBC reported on 27 March.

After taking office in January, US President Donald Trump reversed US policy on Ukraine, aligning more with Russia and pressuring Ukraine into concessions by cutting military aid and intelligence sharing, while pushing for negotiations without demanding anything from Moscow. The details of the ceasefire agreements reached by US, Ukrainian, and Russian officials on 24-25 March remain unclear.

Speaking during a panel interview in Paris with journalists from across Europe, Zelenskyy responded to a BBC question about whether the US would resist Russian pressure by saying:

“I hope so. God bless, they will. But we’ll see.”

The White House announced on 25 March that Russian and Ukrainian delegations had agreed to a ceasefire in the Black Sea after three days of separate talks with American officials in Saudi Arabia. However, hours later, the Kremlin issued its own statement with a list of conditions.

Moscow’s demands include revoking Western sanctions on financial institutions involved in agricultural trade and restoring their access to the Swift international payment system.

Trump said the US government was “looking at” Moscow’s request for restrictions to be lifted, but the EU stated on 26 March it would not consider removing sanctions before the “unconditional” withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine’s internationally-recognized territory, according to BBC.

During the Paris panel, Zelenskyy expressed gratitude for bipartisan US support but worried some were “under the influence of Russian narratives.“

“We can’t agree to those narratives,” he said, according to BBC.

When asked whether US President Donald Trump had a closer relationship with him or Russian President Vladimir Putin, Zelenskyy responded:

“I don’t know – it’s difficult for me to say. I don’t know what relationships he’s got, I don’t know how many conversations he’s had.”

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Zelenskyy hopes US won’t yield to Kremlin’s demands