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Vladimir Putin will expand his war in Ukraine by attacking another European country, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has predicted, and accused Russia of recent drone incursions that he said were an attempt to test Nato’s defences.
Speaking in Kyiv after his meeting with Donald Trump at the UN in New York, the Ukrainian president said Russia was preparing for a bigger conflict. “Putin will not wait to finish his war in Ukraine. He will open up some other direction. Nobody knows where. He wants that,” he said.
Ukraine’s president said the Kremlin was deliberately checking Europe’s capacity to protect its skies, after drone sightings in Denmark, Poland and Romania and the violation of Estonian airspace by Russian fighter jets. More drones were spotted on Friday night above a Danish military base, and over a Norwegian base on Saturday.
Zelenskyy suggested EU governments were struggling to deal with this new and dangerous threat. Earlier this month, Ukraine spotted 92 drones flying towards Poland in a “choreographed” way. It intercepted most of them. Nineteen crossed into Polish territory, where the Poles shot four down.
“I am not comparing our forces. We are at war and they [Poland] are not,” he said. Zelenskyy said representatives from several unnamed countries would travel to Ukraine to receive “practical training” in how to repel Russian aerial attacks. “We are ready to share our experience,” he added.
Zelenskyy’s remarks follow what he said were “very nice” talks with Trump on the sidelines of the UN general assembly. After the meeting, the US president said he believed Ukraine could win back all the territory it has lost since 2022, with the support of Europe and Nato.
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Trump also said Russia’s economy was in big trouble and described its military as a “paper tiger”. Asked to explain this apparent warmer tone towards Ukraine, Zelenskyy said he had briefed Trump about the realities on the battlefield. He told him Russia’s advances were often fleeting: “It’s not success. It’s temporary presence.”
The US president now had greater “faith” in Ukraine and has discovered that Russia treated him and everyone else with “disrespect”, Zelenskyy said. He declined to comment on reports that he had asked the White House for US Tomahawk cruise missiles capable of striking Moscow, saying: “It’s a sensitive issue.”
In recent months Kyiv has carried out a series of successful strikes against Russian oil refineries using domestically produced long-range drones. Zelenskyy said that if the Kremlin tried to destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure again this winter its own capital will experience retaliatory blackouts.
