Zelensky says he’ll talk to Putin when Russian steps out of ‘alternative reality bubble’

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that he will only be able to talk to Vladimir Putin when the Russian president returns to the “real world”.

“When the president is ready to leave his bubble from this alternate reality to the real world and talk to us, understand that many people are being killed, including civilians, maybe he will understand that we should start talking and put an end to this war he launched.” , Zelensky said via videoconference at a breakfast event moderated by Fareed Zakaria at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

This is not the first time that world leaders have accused Putin of being out of touch with reality when it comes to his motives for the war in Ukraine.

Putin said the Kremlin invasion began to protect Russian speakers from genocide at the hands of “neo-Nazis”, despite the lack of any concrete evidence. Although Ukraine has a far-right battalion playing a role in the resistance, Putin has exploited the neo-Nazi ties to the fighting forces as a pretext for war.

Shortly after the invasion began, he referred to the country’s leaders in Kiev as a “gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis”, despite the fact that Zelensky is Jewish.

US intelligence assessed in March that Putin’s advisers were not properly briefing him on the status of the war, including Russia’s early battlefield failures.

Speaking to Zakaria on Wednesday, Zelensky said he could only speak to Putin directly, “without intermediaries, without brokers.”

The Ukrainian president also said that Russia must withdraw its troops and equipment as the first step in negotiations between the two countries and that Ukraine will fight until “it regains all its territory.”