REPLAY: Ukraine's Zelensky holds presser in Brussels

And let's cross directly to Brussels, Vladimir Zelensky on the stage, speaking at the EU summit. The idea of using those frozen assets is back on the table. Do you see a shift in the positions, especially when we know that the Belgian Prime Minister, De Wever, is really reluctant in using those assets? Do you see a change? Thank you for your question. First of all, I would like to thank Belgium for hosting us here, myself and my team, and I'm grateful for the interview with the Prime Minister and the hearing or the audience with the King. We have been able to speak about the F-16 jets. We are very grateful for the agreements because by the end of the year, we await additional F-16 jets. We are using them defensively in order to shoot down Shahed drones. Our pilots are asking for very, very important and significant results. with regard to the frozen assets. Of course, we have raised this issue during the discussions and we are grateful to all the leaders of the European Union for the decision that was taken for the loan. $90 billion for 2026, it was $45 billion for Ukraine. This is very important. With regard to the assets, there is our signal. We want to deprive Russia of the opportunity to try to have any influence on the decision regarding these assets because we know very clearly that they want to recover all these assets. That is their goal. And Ukraine would like to have this certainty to have access to this money before Russia. Now, the question from Ukraine Public Television. Thank you, Mr. President. Valera Pashko from Suspilne. Everyone is saying that Ukraine no longer has any anti-missiles for the Patriots. Is this true? Can you confirm this? Did you speak with your European interlocutors about alternatives to Starlink, a French one? And have you spoken of alternatives for intelligence, if this question comes up, if it's relevant given the U.S. situation? Thank you very much for your questions. For us, it is very important to work together with the Europeans and American partners as well. We are receiving packs two and three through the PEARL program funded by the Europeans. So these are not gifts. These programs are funded by the Europeans. But, recently, all the deliveries within the framework of PAK-2 are the countries from the region. We know that for PAK-2 we are not a priority, but we are now counting on Pearl and some visibility, ability to predict what will happen in this program. How many missiles can we obtain? We are not only obtaining them from the Americans. We are also endeavoring to bring together everything that exists in stock, two, three or five. As soon as we find them on the market, we have them sent to Ukraine because it is essential for us in order to protect our energy infrastructure. You know what challenges we face. We are not talking about alternatives to Starlink, of course. We do have some preliminary agreements for cooperation with countries such as France in order to increase the range of possibilities. We are very grateful to our American partners for what they are providing, for the quality of their intelligence, but also grateful to European countries. Some dozen countries are sharing this intelligence. With regard to ballistics, with regard to launching ballistic missiles, only the United States can provide us these signals. However, we are working on an entire scope of possibilities to make Ukraine independent. Reuters, the Reuters agency, go ahead. Jim Lillibayer from Reuters. Two questions, Mr. President. The first is, has there been a resumption of U.S. early warning intelligence sharing and a complete restoration of Starlink services in Ukraine? So if you could clarify what the current status is. And second of all, are you worried about the deterioration of your relationship with President Trump? And what are the next steps to try to rebuild the conversation with Washington? Thank you. Давайте я спробую. I will endeavor now. Do you have translation? No, you don't have. I see. Good. Thank you so much. Yes. I will try to explain how Ukraine uses Starlink, how we use it and why do we need speed. Some think that Ukraine is using Starlink for the deep strikes. This is not the case. We use it defensively. We had asked the White House, therefore the American authorities, to use Starlink defensively, precisely for early warning. We very actively use Starlink to intercept Shaheds, these jet-powered Shaheds, which are very, very fast drones. The interceptor drones to intercept these jet-powered Shaheds use Starlink. So when the speed of Starlink was reduced, we were not able to intercept a certain number of Shaheds that had been launched. So we were not able to fully use the defense instrument to protect the civilian population. Especially these jet-powered Shaheds moved at a speed of over 120 kilometers, whereas others are slower, about 60 kilometers. We cannot hit certain military targets because of this speed. Third use, the military on the front line acting on the occupied territories. For instance, for those who are in the very first front line, they receive deliveries thanks to drones. And these drones that send logistics to the front lines use Starlink to do so. That is why we need it. And this slowing down is causing suffering for the front line. Our partners have told us. We have alerted them to this situation. and we were reassured, saying that the speed would be re-established, restored, but we will check to see whether this is underway. But we have not been able to recover former speed. Question from Poland. Alex Cadet for TVP World, Mr. President. Welcome back to Brussels. I wanted to ask you a follow-up on those interceptors. You said Ukraine is not a priority destination because of the situation in the Middle East, But some of your European partners are still sitting on stockpiles of the interceptors you need. Have you had any new pledges from those partners today of more interceptors for Ukraine? What is your level of sympathy for those European partners who are sitting on those interceptors that you say you need? And a quick second question, if I may. There's been a lot of discussion within the EU about Russian tourist visas being issued to Russian nationals. We've seen those being abused. In your assessment, how much of a security risk is the current tourist visa regime in the European Union? Thank you. Thank you. With regard to the winter package, these are Paks 2 and 3. And my European colleagues today received very specific numbers as to our needs. So, we will be using the missiles, the standard missiles, we're talking about minimum quantities in this one-on-one regime. It's true that European leaders do have a certain number of these interceptors. I do not yet know how many we will be able to receive. I do not know exactly what is in store in Europe. And we don't know if the European stocks will be sufficient for Ukraine to get to the winter. I've been clear on our needs. The figures are on the table. The partners have them. And then we will perhaps move forward quickly on the FREA project, which is our own anti-ballistic defense. And we hope that we will recreate this advantage. and we will have our own production which will be less costly and which we will consequently be able to share even at the European level because the entire European continent needs this security and we have very good, sound agreements with our partners. They have already received the licenses to produce them. that has produced these missiles from PAK-2. So I think that here again this will further buttress our capacity. Europe, if it can help at this point in time, would be easier going forward. Now, Ukrinform. Thank you very much, Mr. President. Mr. Mashinchenko from Ukrinform. Is Europe prepared to be more engaged in the negotiations on the conditions of peace? Is Europe speaking with one voice on this solution, a solution for peace? Thank you for your question. I think that Europe is taking some steps to open up its own track for negotiations where we could find a framework for negotiations acceptable to us to talk with the Russians. But this does not exclude any from this process, because even in the United States, there are several tracks in parallel. It would be even more advantageous to have several tracks in order to move forward toward a diplomatic solution regarding this war. And we are having these discussions with Europeans. Bloomberg. Mr. President, is Ukraine hitting refineries in Russia again? And can you give us an update on the strategy now for Ukraine about striking targets in Russia? Thank you. Thank you so much. Usually I don't communicate the details of our operations, so the main rule of our operation is to respond. Other things you will see. Thanks for the question, Mr. President. Some diplomats in this town think and tell us that it was a mistake or at least not a smart move how you responded to the U.S. and its president in recent days. I'm wondering whether you heard that same criticism from leaders in the room, how you respond to it. And if I may take up the question from my colleague Lily again, how do you think you could mend fences with President Trump moving forward? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I heard from my European colleagues only words of support, and I'm very, very grateful for that. I think that Ukraine's position is clear and transparent, absolutely transparent. There was this behind-the-scenes deal between the U.S. and Russia, the diesel deal, and yes, it did surprise some parts of this deal, but then we were subjected to attacks from our enemy, and it is our enemy. We're the ones being subjected to these attacks. We should be informed of them, of all the decisions. And we learned of things after this diesel deal was made, and our position was very simple. An energy ceasefire is one When we had accepted, we heard the announcement, we said we were ready to align ourselves with this on this principle, an energy ceasefire, this or any other proposal for de-escalation. But from the Russians we got no signal, no such signal. So if there is no such reaction, I say that we, Ukraine and the U.S., are partners. You need this deal, even if the situation we don't think was one where such a deal was necessary. But if there is no ceasefire on energy infrastructure, okay. But give us more anti-ballistic missiles and more missiles so we can protect these energy sites for this diesel deal period. Give us something and we have not received anything, nothing at all. And so it seems strange. With regard to speaking of good relations, we are constantly searching for contact, and I think this is what will be happening in the days to come. We will continue our struggle, but we need to live in dignity. You know, war is so horrible and we have to protect life. Freedom Vitaly Sizo, I would like to ask a question with regard to your first interview with the Hungarian Prime Minister. have you been able to reach some agreements, not just political ones, but also on energy? The press had written that you were invited to Budapest. The prime minister said he wanted to go. So how will things work? Well, I think that what is important is not who makes what visit. It's the steps to getting closer. We are very grateful for the support of all our partners, including Hungary's support for having lifted the blockade and proposed negotiations. There are also recommendations on reforms, and we are moving forward in this direction. I think that we had a very good conversation. We broached many topics, bilateral discussions, ballistics, etc. We are on the right track. Would you go to Budapest? I would have nothing against that. Next question. We've just been listening to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, taking questions there in Brussels. Joining me on the set is our international affairs commentator, Douglas Herbert. Hello to you, Doug. I want to get your take on whatever you thought the highlights were of what he was addressing there. One of them, notably Starlink and a lot of concern in Brussels about Ukraine's dependence on the satellite communications for its battlefield operations. Absolutely. Absolutely. There were a host of issues there. It was a sober Zelensky. You could see we were talking earlier how he's there at a very grim time for Ukraine ahead of a winter that's expected to feature intense, intense aerial bombardments just across the power grid. So that, you know, with a funding gap on top of it. So that's the sort of context. But yeah, he was asked very pointed questions. you know, Starlink is important, but he was very clear what it is. Starlink, first of all, Ukraine uses sort of a military version of Starlink. It's called Starshield. According to Elon Musk, who owns the company that owns Starlink, SpaceX, he says it's actually the U.S. government, i.e., I guess the Pentagon, that controls the way in which Ukraine is able to access the Starshield system. And what Zelensky was very clear about is, A, he wanted to let people know, they don't use it for long-range targets on Russian territory. And one of the reasons is simply technical, practical, because Starlink, it doesn't work over Russian territory. It's only used within Ukraine, in Russian-occupied, illegally annexed territory of Ukraine. And what it's really done is to try to intercept incoming drones, to try to—the technology is used as an interception sort of technology. He said that the problem is these very, very fast jet-powered Shahed drones that are being rained upon vast swathes of Ukraine by the Russians, they travel, as Zelensky said, up to 400 kilometers an hour. And the reports have it recently that the reason they were having so much trouble with using Starshield is the speeds were reduced for the system to about 70 kilometers an hour. You can imagine 70 versus 400, which means that all of these drones coming in presumably were not able to be intercepted or even picked up by the Starshield system. Were they, have they been able to restore it? It has not been restored yet. They're working on it. They're getting it back up to speed. But according to these latest remarks, it's not completely been reestablished. They're trying to restore that. On another interesting issue is the interceptor missiles that Ukraine needs for its Patriot missiles, the U.S., once U.S.-supplied Patriots, now via Europe, those Patriots in very, very short demand because of the Iran war, and Zelensky acknowledging that Ukraine's not the top priority for a lot of these missiles right now, so he gets them where he can. But the interceptor missiles, he says he's confident that Europe will be able to, you know, have enough to get Ukraine through the winter. So you could say trying to strike an upbeat note. But that also depends on the cadence and the rhythm of the Russian bombardments, you know, whether or not he will, in fact, have enough of those interceptor missiles and the intelligence. Well, let me let me ask you there. We heard him. He didn't answer the first question. He was asked about mending ties with the U.S. president. It took a second journalist to pose that question, and he only addressed it late on in his answer. Is Europe going to be able to fill the gap left by a lack of U.S. support? A tiny part of the gap. Look, this is the reason that Zelensky is literally walking on eggshells here. Because, look, the fact that he gave this interview and was critical of Donald Trump shows just how exasperated he is, because he's ultimately very reliant on the United States. And Europe just doesn't have the same tech capabilities, just factually does not have the same intelligence capabilities. You don't have as clear and as extensive a vision with as much pinpoint precision of what's coming in and what's happening. Yes, he mentioned France as an intelligence partner who can help a lot with a lot of its intel systems and give a pretty good picture of what's coming in. So filling part of that gap, but no. And in terms of weapons procurement, we were talking, he used the lingo there, PEARL, which is the Prioritized Ukrainian Requirements List. It's the program under which the U.S. sells to Europe weapons and then Europe gives those weapons to Ukraine. The U.S. is not directly, as it did under the Biden administration, now sending weapons to Ukraine. It's indirect. But even those who are in short supply, no one, and I can emphasize that, no one in Europe has the ability or the capability to fill the weapons gap in those Patriot missiles to the extent and the ability that the United States have. So that would be an enormous loss if that relationship were to be severed. Intelligence and weapons procurement. All right, Doug. Thank you very much, Douglas Roberta, International Affairs Commentator. That's it from the team here on Paris Direct. Stay tuned to France 24. Thank you.