Zelenskyy on NATO and Crimea: I said it to Putin at the first meeting, I could have said it at the last one

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that during his first meeting with Vladimir Putin could have told the Russian dictator about Kyiv's desire to join NATO and Crimea's belonging to Ukraine. The head of state said this during a conversation with the media, commenting on a new statement by his American counterpart Donald Trump.

Earlier, he claimed in an interview with Politico that when Zelenskyy first met with Putin, he said he wanted to return Crimea and that Ukraine would be a NATO member: "He didn't say it very nicely either, you know." The Ukrainian president was asked if this was true, and if not, where the head of the United States "could have taken it at all."

"Look, we are realists, we really want to join NATO. In my opinion, this is fair. But we know for sure that neither the United States nor a few other countries, to be frank, see Ukraine in NATO yet. And Russia will certainly never see us there" Zelenskyy replied.

Regarding Crimea, he noted that currently "we do not have we have the strength to return absolutely our Ukrainian peninsula."

"And maybe I said that at the first meeting [with the Russian dictator]. And I believe I was right. And I'll be honest: yes, we don't have the strength for all this today, we don't have enough support for all this. But I said it at the first meeting, and I think I could have confirmed it at the last meeting with Putin," the head of state added.

• The first and last meeting between the Ukrainian president and the Russian dictator took place at the Normandy Format summit in December 2019.
• During the same conversation with media, Zelenskyy responded to Trump's statement about the need to hold elections in Ukraine. The president declared his readiness to do so, calling on the United States to ensure appropriate security conditions.