Volodymyr Zelenskyj appearing at the Munich Security Conference.Image: keystone
Ukrainian head of state Volodymyr Zelensky is counting on reliable security guarantees from the United States for his country, which do not depend solely on the will of the US President.
February 23, 2026, 05:00February 23, 2026, 05:00
“For good reasons, Congress will vote on them (the security guarantees),” Zelensky told the British broadcaster BBC in Kiev. It’s not just about President Donald Trump, parliament is also needed, he emphasized, according to the translation from Ukrainian. “Because presidents come and go, but institutions remain.”
According to the BBC, Zelensky gave the interview over the weekend in a strictly secured room at the government headquarters in Kiev. He was also asked whether he could trust Trump and whether the US President’s promises about security guarantees were reliable.
Zelensky’s answer:
“It’s not just about President Trump, we’re talking about America. We are all presidents for a reasonable period of time. For example, we (as Ukrainians) want guarantees for 30 years. The political elites will be different in the future, the leaders will be different.”
Trump’s second and final term in office according to the US Constitution ends in just under three years. Trump has openly flirted with another term in office on several occasions. Critics of the US President, such as California Governor Gavin Newsom, are convinced that Trump is no longer willing to give up power in the country through democratic means.
The BBC journalist who conducted the interview with Zelensky summed up the tenor of the president’s statements as follows:
“Donald Trump may be unreliable, but he won’t be around forever.”
Zelensky answered the reporter’s questions in Ukrainian, after which the BBC published a written summary with quotes in English and a short video excerpt of the conversation.
Zelenskyj: Complete reconquest is just a “matter of time”
In the interview, Zelensky left it open whether he would run for president again in any new elections. In any case, reliable security guarantees are needed before such a vote in order to prevent the election from being manipulated and to permanently protect Ukraine from Russian annexation desires, said Zelensky.
In the long term, the aim is to recapture the entire occupied territory and return to the borders of Ukraine established in the year of independence in 1991, he said. That’s just a matter of time, but it’s not possible at the moment. The Russian army is too powerful and the loss of human life – Zelensky spoke of millions of deaths to be feared – would be too great. Ukraine does not have enough weapons to achieve the same level of success on the battlefield, Zelensky said.
Zelensky once again categorically rejected the transfer of further areas of land in the areas of Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, which Russia has not yet been able to fully conquer.
“I don’t just look at it as a country. For me that would mean giving up – a weakening of our positions that would leave hundreds of thousands of our fellow human beings who live there in the lurch. That’s how I see it. And I’m sure that this “withdrawal” would divide our society.”
(sda/dpa/con)