Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wants to spend up to $300 billion in seized Russian assets on US weapons purchases, which would grant a hearty boost to the American defense industry, he said in a new interview with podcaster Lex Fridman.
The US and its allies banned any transactions with Moscow’s central bank and finance ministry following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, freezing roughly $300 billion of Russian government assets in financial institutions in the West.
In the interview posted to YouTube on Sunday, Zelensky suggested that Ukraine could use those funds to purchase additional weapons from the US instead of waiting for donations.
“We don’t need gifts from the United States,” he said. “It will be very good for your industry, for the United States. We will put money there. Russian money, not Ukrainian, not European. Russian money, Russian assets. They have to pay for this.”
The Ukrainian president explained that such an endeavor would amount to a “security guarantee” to help push Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiation table.
Zelensky said he offered his idea to Trump, with whom he last met in Paris on Dec. 6 when they were in the French capital for the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral.
At the time, Trump demanded that “there should be an immediate ceasefire and negotiations should begin,” he said in a post to Truth Social.
“[The Ukraine war] should have never started, and could go on forever,” he said.
Zelensky further said he hoped Trump would be swift to implement tougher sanctions on Russia than his predecessor before a ceasefire agreement is reached.
“With all due respect to the United States and to the administration, I don’t want the same situation like we had with Biden,” he said. “I ask for sanctions now, please, and weapons now, and then we will see.”
He further said that it would deter Russia from re-invading after a potential ceasefire if Ukraine was armed with additional weapons even after the battleground fighting ends.
“It’s different when you have weapons. Putin wouldn’t have been able to occupy so much territory,” he said. “It was very difficult for us to push him out, but we didn’t have weapons before and that is the same situation. It can be the same situation.”
“I want to be very honest with you and with your audience. Yes, it’s true, if we do not have security guarantees, Putin will come again.”
The Ukrainian president lauded Trump in the interview, remarking that the president-elect showed he was “much stronger” than both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris — both “intellectually and physically.”
“It was an important point to show that if you want to have a strong country, you have to be strong. And he was strong,” Zelensky said of the 78-year-old soon-to-be president.
“And this number of rallies, what I said, is not a simple thing. He showed that he can. He’s strong. So he doesn’t have any questions with his, I mean his age, et cetera. Nothing,” he continued.
“He is young. He is young [mentally] and his brain works. So I think it’s important, very important.”
