Zelenskyy urges Trump to visit Ukraine in speech marking invasion anniversary

Leader says Vladimir Putin has not achieved his goals and visit by Trump might make clear ‘who the aggressor is’

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has appealed to Donald Trump to visit Kyiv, in a video address on the fourth anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion, and said Ukraine would not betray its people in any negotiations with Russia.

Zelenskyy said Putin had not achieved his original war goals or “broken the Ukrainian people”. “He has not won this war,” he said. “We have preserved Ukraine, and we will do everything to achieve peace. And to ensure justice.”

European leaders echoed the Ukrainian president’s comments, with Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, declaring: “Moscow is not as strong as it would like the world to think.” The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said he was “very sceptical” that the war would finish soon because there was “no willingness” from Russia to stop.

On Tuesday, Zelenskyy welcomed a group of European leaders to Kyiv including the British foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen. Also attending were prime ministers from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Estonia and Latvia, as well as Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb.

Keir Starmer and Macron chaired a meeting of the “coalition of the willing”, joining by video. Zelenskyy said his country had survived a “terrible” winter and was grateful to its allies for a delivery this week of an air defence package.

In comments to state media, Putin claimed Ukraine had sabotaged the peace process with the help of western intelligence agencies. He said Kyiv and its allies were so determined to defeat Russia they were pushing themselves to the edge, something he said they would regret.

Zelenskyy’s 18-minute video address included footage released for the first time from the underground bunker in Kyiv’s Bankova Street where Zelenskyy and his advisers worked and slept during the first hours after Putin’s 2022 attack.

Zelenskyy recalled receiving a phone call from Joe Biden, who offered to help him leave the country “urgently”. “Here I replied that I need ammunition, not a ride,” Zelenskyy said, recalling one of the most famous moments of his presidency.

The video showed Zelenskyy leaving roses at a memorial in Maidan Square in Kyiv to the thousands of Ukrainian servicemen and women who have died over the past four years. There were shots of world leaders touring Kyiv, including Starmer and Boris Johnson.

Zelenskyy said: “I really want to come here with the president of the United States one day. I know for certain: only by coming to Ukraine, and seeing with one’s own eyes our life and our struggle, feeling our people and the enormity of this pain – only then can one understand what this war is really about.”

A trip to Ukraine might make it clear to Trump “who the aggressor is here and who must be pressured”, Zelenskyy suggested. He continued: “This is not a street fight – it is an attack by a sick state on a sovereign one. He [Putin] is the cause of its beginning and the obstacle to its end. And it is Russia that must be put in its place. So that there can be real peace.”

Trump has not taken up an invitation from Zelenskyy to visit Ukraine. During their notorious Oval Office meeting last year, JD Vance, the US vice-president, accused the Ukrainian government of taking visiting dignitaries on “propaganda tours” – a charge Kyiv denies.

In peace talks with Russia brokered by the US, Trump has sided repeatedly with Putin. Zelenskyy has rejected Kremlin demands, seemingly endorsed by US envoys, that Ukraine hand over territory in the eastern Donbas region that Russian troops have been unable to seize.

“We want peace. Strong, dignified, lasting peace,” Zelenskyy said. He added that he had told Ukraine’s negotiators meeting in Geneva this week: “Do not nullify all these years, do not devalue all the struggle, courage, dignity, everything that Ukraine has gone through. We cannot, we must not, give it away, forget it, betray it.”

The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow would press ahead with its war aims in Ukraine. He said the events of the past four years were “extremely significant in Russia’s life”, adding: “The goals haven’t been fully achieved yet, which is why the military operation continues.”

Ukrainians who have lost loved ones laid flowers at the memorial in central Kyiv. Svitlana Sverydko said her husband, Yurii, defended the capital at the start of the invasion and was killed in May 2023 while fighting in the Kharkiv region. “I feel hatred towards Russia and Russians. We will never forgive them,” she said.

Elmira Kuzikova, 17, described how she had fled to Kyiv from the eastern city of Pokrovsk, now occupied by Russia. “I feel empty inside. The war destroyed my life, my future, and everything that I love. I don’t have a home. I have nothing for now,” she said.

A delegation of British MPs, as well as Johnson, were also in Kyiv. Johnson said he supported Ukraine’s membership of the EU and Nato, adding that Brexit had caused a “pretty big vacancy”. The UK should deploy troops inside Ukraine before a peace deal in order to show Putin he had “lost geo-strategically”, Johnson added.

The only American listed among the official guests was Lt Gen Curtis Buzzard, a US officer who represents Nato in Ukraine. The European leaders visited an energy infrastructure facility damaged during Russia’s recent drone and missile attacks that have left millions of Ukrainians without power during one of the coldest winters for years.

In his anniversary address, Zelenskyy decried Putin’s aerial onslaught against civilians. He said pointedly that since Putin was not “capable of defeating Ukraine on the battlefield”, he was instead “fighting against apartment buildings and power plants”.

He added: “And now Ukrainians are enduring the hardest winter in history. And terror almost every night. I do not know who else could withstand this without collapsing or wavering.”

There was a swipe at the “spineless” International Olympic Committee, which banned the Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych from the Winter Games for refusing to race without his “helmet of remembrance” featuring portraits of athletes killed by Russia.

Zelenskyy also celebrated his nation’s international achievements, from gaining EU candidate status to winning the Eurovision song contest, as well as an Oscar and a Bafta. “From all such steps, achievements and small victories, the great Ukraine is formed. Great, because it has you. People who inspire the planet,” he said.