Zelensky tells BBC Putin has started WW3 and must be stopped

When we met this weekend in the government headquarters in Kyiv, he said that far from losing, Ukraine would end the war victorious.

He was firmly against paying the price for a ceasefire deal demanded by President Vladimir Putin, which is withdrawing from strategic ground that Russia has failed to capture despite sacrificing tens of thousands of soldiers.

"I believe that Putin has already started it.

The question is how much territory he will be able to seize and how to stop him. Russia wants to impose on the world a different way of life and change the lives people have chosen for themselves. " What about Russia's demand for Ukraine to hand over the 20% of the eastern region of Donetsk that it still holds - a line of towns Ukraine calls "fortress cities" - as well as more land in the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia? Isn't that, I asked, a reasonable request if it produces a ceasefire?

"I see this differently.

I don't look at it simply as land. I see it as abandonment - weakening our positions, abandoning hundreds of thousands of our people who live there. And I am sure that this 'withdrawal' would divide our society. "

"It would probably satisfy him for a while.

but once he recovers, our European partners say it could take three to five years. In my opinion, he could recover in no more than a couple of years. Where would he go next? We do not know, but that he would want to continue [the war] is a fact. "

Despite all that, the man who started as an entertainer, who won the Ukrainian version of Strictly Come Dancing in 2006, and played the role of an unexpected president of Ukraine in a TV comedy, before becoming the real-life president of Ukraine, seems to be remarkably resilient.

"Where are you now?"

Zelensky asked in return. "Today you are in Kyiv, you are in the capital of our homeland, you are in Ukraine. I am very grateful for this. Will we lose? Of course not, because we are fighting for Ukraine's independence. " Of course, he said, victory meant restoring normal lives for Ukrainians and ending the killing.

But the wider view of victory he presented was all about a global threat that he says comes from Putin.

That is absolutely clear.

It is only a matter of time.

To do it today would mean losing a huge number of people - millions of people - because the [Russian] army is large, and we understand the cost of such steps.

You would not have enough people, you would be losing them.

And what is land without people? Honestly, nothing. "

"And we also don't have enough weapons.

That depends not just on us, but on our partners. So as of now that's not possible but returning to the just borders of 1991 [the year Ukraine declared its independence, precipitating the final collapse of the Soviet Union] without a doubt, is not only a victory, it's justice.

Ukraine's victory is the preservation of our independence, and a victory of justice for the whole world is the return of all our lands. "

Trump, just inaugurated as president for the second time, was sending the strongest possible signal that the era of support Zelensky and Ukraine had relied on from President Joe Biden was over.

Nato members were already on notice from the new administration.

Vance had just got back from shattering Western European illusions about the strength of the trans-Atlantic alliance.

But can you trust President Trump?

If you extract a security guarantee from him, I asked, would he keep his word? He is after all a man who changes his mind.

"It is not only President Trump, we're talking about America.

We are all presidents for the appropriate terms. We want guarantees for 30 years for example. Political elites will change, leaders will change. "

Zelensky says those security guarantees would have to be in place before he could consider another American demand - the US demand for Ukraine to hold a general election by the summer, echoing another Russian talking point that Zelensky is an illegitimate president.

Trump has not demanded elections in Russia, where Putin became leader for the first time on the last day of the 20th Century.

He went on to raise so many potential problems about holding an election with millions of Ukrainians abroad as refugees and significant tracts of the country occupied by Russia that I suggested that in reality he was against the idea.

"If this is a condition for ending the war, let's do it.

I said, 'honestly, you constantly raise the issue of elections'. I told the partners, 'you need to decide one thing: you want to get rid of me or you want to hold elections? If you want to hold elections, (even if you are not ready to tell me honestly even now), then hold these elections honestly. Hold them in a way that the Ukrainian people will recognise, first of all. And you yourself must recognise that these are legitimate elections'". Given everything he had said, I asked him whether we needed to get ready for an even longer war in Ukraine.

"No, no, no, it's two parallel tracks.

you are playing chess with a lot of leaders, not with Russia. There is not one right way. You have to choose a lot of parallel steps, parallel directions. And one of these parallel ways will, I think, bring success. For us, success is to stop Putin. "

But Vladimir Putin isn't going to end this war, is he?

Unless he's under massive pressure and he doesn't seem to be. He doesn't want, but doesn't want doesn't mean he will not. God bless, we will be successful