Mr. President, thank you for the time today, especially on this day, to continue to do this interview.

President Trump said after your meeting that you disrespected him and the Vice President and all of America in the Oval Office.

Do you think you did, and do you think you owe an apology to President Trump?

Thank you so much.

First of all, thank you for the invitation, for this dialogue, and good evening to all your country, to all Americans.

I'm very thankful to Americans for all your support.

You did a lot.

I'm thankful to President Trump and to Congress, bipartisan support.

And I was always very thankful from all our people.

You helped us a lot from the very beginning, during three years of full-scale innovation.

You helped us to survive.

And anyway, we are strategic partners.

And even in such tough dialogue, and I think we have to be very honest and we have to be very direct to understand each other, because it's very, for us, very necessary to President Trump.

And I'm with all respect that he wants to finish this war, but nobody wants to finish more than we.

Because we in Ukraine, we are in this war, we are in this battle, a battle for freedom, for our lives.

So I'm just telling that I think that we have to be on the same side.

And I hope that the President on our side together with us, and that is very important, to stop Putin.

And I heard from President Trump a lot of times that he will stop the war, and I hope he will, and we need to pressure him with Europe, with all the partners.

And I think this dialogue had to be a little bit earlier to understand where we are.

Like, you know, I don't remember exactly, but like President Reagan said that peace is not just an absent war.

Yes, we are speaking about just and lasting peace, about freedom, about justice, about human rights.

And that's why I said that I think so, that ceasefire, and you know Putin, he broken 25 times, ceasefire during all these years, 10 years.

So I'm not hearing from you, Mr. President, a thought that you owe the President an apology.

No, I respect President, and I respect American people, and if, I don't know, if, I think that we have to be very open and very honest.

And I'm not sure that we did something bad.

I think maybe sometimes some things we have to discuss out of media, with all respect to democracy and to free media.

But there are things where we have to understand the position of Ukraine and Ukrainians.

And I think that is the most important thing.

Yes, we are partners, you know, we are very close partners.

We have to be fair.

We have to be, we have to be very free.

I'm told that you were told multiple times from lawmakers on Capitol Hill and the White House to make today about the minerals deal and the economic deal, and then get it signed and let negotiations play out over security guarantees step by step.

Is that true?

I said that we have to sign this document, and we are ready for this.

And this will be the first step to security guarantees.

But it's not enough.

I think so.

Maybe I don't know something.

I don't know some details.

That's why I wanted to share it with the president, my thoughts, and to hear him again, because he has a plan how to stop Putin.

And maybe, as I said, maybe it's out of big conversations, but we have to share it.

You know, this is so sensitive.

You know, just a ceasefire without security guarantees, this is so sensitive for our people.

I'm speaking like a president of a people who are in this struggle three years, and they just want to hear that America on our side and that America will stay with us, not with Russia, with us.

That's it.

But I'm sure that it will be.

This is the first step to security guarantees.

Europeans, we don't need to lose them.

They are good allies for the United States.

United States is the most or the biggest denator of support and of peace.

But we don't need to lose Europe.

And they also want to know next steps.

We have to be very open to understand how to stop the war.

Right.

But do you think the public spat in the Oval Office, in front of the media, served Ukrainians well today?

I think this kind of spat is, I mean, this is not good for both sides anyway.

And I'm very open, but I can't, you know, change our Ukrainian attitude to Russian.

And I don't want they kill us for us.

You know, this is very, very clear that Americans are the best of our friends, Europeans are the best of our friends, and Putin with Russian, they are enemies.

And it doesn't mean that we don't want peace.

We just want to recognize the reality, the real situation.

President Trump is convinced that you will never sign a deal with Vladimir Putin.

Is he right?

No.

I think so.

What I think, Ukraine wants peace and we will have, we will have anyway, diplomacy.

We will have negotiations.

I only said that I think so.

It's about just and lasting peace.

It means that we have to be very strong at the table of negotiations.

And at these negotiations, Ukraine and Russia, like sides of this war, have to be, and United States and Europe.

That's what I said.

So we are ready for peace, but we have to be in strong position.

What does it mean?

Just to know that our army is strong, that our partners with us, and that we have security guarantees.

Am I not right?

Leaving the White House today, President Trump said this.

He's looking to go on and fight, fight, fight.

He wants to come back right now, but I can't do that.

What do you make of that?

Do you want to continue fighting?

Do you want peace?

And if he had the opportunity to go back to the White House right now, would you do it?

No.

First of all, we want peace.

That's why I'm in the United States.

That's why I visited President Trump.

And thanks for invitation again.

The deal on minerals is the first step to security guarantees.

It's mean for the peace, closer to peace.

That's why I'm here.

And I have, we have tough situation.

To understand it is to be in Ukraine.

You saw it, Brad.

You was once.

Thank you again.

So I think that's very important to understand what's going on.

But I respect my soldiers and our people, our civilians who work and support our warriors.

I can't say just stop.

Nobody will stop.

Because everybody afraid that Putin will come back tomorrow.

We want just and lasting peace.

It's true.

We want security guarantees.

We raised this topic about NATO, the quickest way.

But not all the countries are on this side.

I said, OK, if not NATO, nobody is pushing.

If not NATO, let's build NATO in Ukraine.

That's my position.

Europeans are ready to have contingents on our territory, boots on the ground.

United States thinks maybe to help, maybe USA backstop.

Have to be just to guarantee that they are with Europeans.

Look at Europe.

It's strong.

It became stronger.

But they also want to have allies like the United States.

That's what I said.

I just want to understand what the peace.

It's not my question, Brad.

This is the question from all our people.

You mentioned when I traveled to the front lines with you last year to see the situation, to mark the anniversary of the war.

And this is what you told me back then.

Will Ukrainians survive without Congress support?

Of course.

But not all of us.

It will be a tragedy for all of us, not only for Ukraine, not only for Ukrainians, for all Europe.

So the question today is, can Ukraine win this war or hold off Russia without continued U.S. support?

It will be difficult for us.

That's why I'm here.

That's why we speak about the future negotiations.

It will be difficult without your support.

But we can't lose our values, our people.

We can't lose our freedom.

So a lot of people, Russians came to our territory.

You know it.

Russians came to our houses.

And everybody saw it, video images, a lot of things.

They killed so many people.

Just to forget it?

Just to say that Putin is a great guy?

No, without us.

We don't want it.

That's why we speak about, you know, everybody remembers how it was the first days of the war, how they came.

Nobody wants in Ukraine, yes, of course, nobody will forget it, but nobody wants to have again new wave of occupation.

That's why when we say, no NATO, what security guarantees can we have?

I'm not pushing.

We are not pressuring.

We're just asking.

We are just sharing very clear messages to our friends, to Americans.

If you stay with us, thank you so much.

But let's do the infrastructure of security guarantees.

Let's just share with our people, just with our people that America stay with us.

That's great.

We count on it.

But just to share it and to say it, that's all.

How does the war end?

How do you get to a deal?

You're at a place right now where there is no deal.

How do you get it back on track?

I think that Europe is ready for contingents and to help us with financing of big army, such big as we have now.

This is our army, the part of security guarantees.

Now we want to just to find the place for our biggest strategic partner for the United States or United States will propose where and how United States will give us security guarantees, what kind of and what part of volume of security guarantees.

And when we will be ready with this, we will come to diplomacy.

To diplomacy, yes, with Russians, Europeans, United States and we, four of us.

I think this is real way because with weapon it's too long, it's not enough.

We don't have enough weapon to push them out.

And we don't see now, for now.

We don't see really big volume of new support from the United States, but with all respect again.

So for today, we'll be ready with security guarantees.

Really when I say NATO, it's not about that we, I mean, we are focusing on this war.

It's about very understandable infrastructure of security guarantees.

And you see that no NATO countries for today, no NATO countries been under attacks.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican from South Carolina.

He has been a big proponent of you and of Ukraine, said this today after the meeting.

I have never been more proud of the president.

I was very proud of J.D.

Vance, standing up for our country.

We want to be helpful.

What I saw in the Oval Office was disrespectful.

And I don't know if we can ever do business with Zelensky again.

He either needs to resign and send somebody over that we can do business with, or he needs to change.

So he says you need to continue, consider resigning.

Is that on the table?

I don't know if he will be happy after my words.

This decision can do only people of Ukraine.

You're not going to step down to do a peace deal?

No, no, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was always ready.

I'm not, I'm not sure that is a good idea for, for, I mean, this, such proposals.

But, but anyway, I always said if United States will support NATO, so I think that it's enough for Ukraine.

So I think we, I did all I had to do.

And if somebody is not, I mean, this happy with me, OK, OK.

But between us, yes, Americans vote for American president.

Each European country vote for their president and only Ukraine.

With all respect to Lindsey, if I can say Lindsey, we know each other.

Yes.

And only Ukrainians vote for their president.

Democrats have had the opposite reaction to the Oval Office meeting.

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut posted this.

What just happened in the Oval Office was a planned ambush designed to help a brutal Russian dictator and hurt America's security.

Trump has become Putin's lapdog and America's global power is hemorrhaging as America sides with dictators over democracy.

What an embarrassment.

Do you think the confrontation in the Oval Office today was preplanned, like Senator Murphy suggests?

I don't know.

You don't know?

You think maybe?

I don't know.

No, no, no.