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Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has addressed Ukrainian student societies across the UK, saying his country will not give up or “concede” territory to Russia.
He likened Russia's attacks on Ukraine to the Second World War Blitz on London, Manchester, Coventry and other cities represented at the session.
Moderator Matt Frei asked Mr Zelenskyy whether there was a stage of the invasion in which he would need to cede territory to the Russians, given the loss of life in the eastern Donbas region.
“Throughout my presidency, I clearly understand and understood that every war has to finish at the table of negotiations and I understand that diplomacy can save lives — I understand this,” he said.
“But unfortunately, the president of Russian Federation doesn't understand this, and that's it. You need both parties willing to stop the war between their countries otherwise it's not going to work.
“The interpretation [of your question] sounded like, 'what are you ready to concede, or to give up' — I'd like to say that there's this independence of our country and there's not anything that we can concede.”
He said that 80 years ago, Manchester survived the Christmas bombing, and “this year, Ukraine had the Easter bombing — 80 years ago, Nazi invaders would ruin Coventry. This year, Russia's created in the territory of Ukraine tons of Coventries.”
Mr Zelenskyy spoke to student societies at Birmingham University, Coventry, London School of Economics, UCL, City of London, Oxford, Cambridge, Glasgow and Manchester by video linked and urged them to help to rebuild his country once victory was assured.
“First of all we have to restore our territory … because we want to rebuild our country,” he told Ukrainian students studying abroad.
“We will start rebuilding all the educational institutions … so that people can go back to school, back to kindergarten, school, university for the students”.
In response to UCL Ukrainian society's question about a “brain drain” of young people, Mr Zelenskyy said there were a lot of painful aspects to Ukrainian history and it was because of them that smart people were being lost.
“When we will be victorious, we will build a new country … you're something like 20 years old, 19 years old — you're a young person, a student — I can't build a comfortable state for you without you.
“You are representing our state — you are ambassadors of our academy here.”
