Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky predicts the death of Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin “soon”, stating the invasion of his country would then have to end.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could not survive the death of the country’s head of state, Ukraine’s President Zelensky has told French television. This will happen soon, he said, asserting he would outlive the Russian leader.
Victory in the Ukraine war is simply a matter of out-waiting Russia, Zelensky told Eurovision News, and if America allows Russia to return to the global fold now it would hand Putin victory at “one of the most dangerous moments”.
He said: “He will die soon, that’s a fact, and everything will be over. This may all end before then… I’m younger than Putin, so put your bets on me. My prospects are better.”
The remarks speak to the European perspective on the war, that if it can be sustained just a little bit longer Ukraine will inevitably win. This perspective is predicated on the view that Russia, while outwardly strong on the battlefield, is essentially hollow and prone to collapsing at any moment.
Repeated claims have been made about Putin’s health over the course of the war, with assertions that he has a range of diseases from Parkinson’s to Cancer. At 72 years old, anything is possible, but these claims have been made without hard evidence so far.
It is not the first time President Zelensky has directly linked the outcome of the war to the death of President Putin. Breitbart News reported in 2022, in the very early days of the conflict, that Zelensky was speaking in interview to David Letterman, who asked the Ukrainian leader: “Let’s just say that Putin got a really bad cold and died… would this [the invasion] continue?”.
Then as now, Zelensky made clear his view that Russia’s government is one that relies on, presumably, Putin’s force of personality and if he personally were removed from the equation then Russia would suddenly and fundementally change. He said in 2022: “No. There would be no war… when such a person is gone, institutions come to a halt.
“That’s what happened back in the Soviet Union. Everything collapsed. And that’s why I think if he’s gone, it will be hard for them. They will have to deal with their internal policy rather than foreign issues.”
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