“Zelensky about the US President: “The problem is first and foremost that I don’t know why he does it. Does he not understand that Putin is unreliable? ” UA.news made a complete Ukrainian translation of the article of the famous French philosopher Bernard-Anri Levi. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accepts me in a safe basement. Now Wednesday, February 26, two days before his meeting in white”, – WRITE ON: ua.news
Zelensky about the US President: “The problem is first and foremost that I don’t know why he does it. Does he not understand that Putin is unreliable? ” Edition Ua.news The full Ukrainian translation of the article by the famous French philosopher Bernard-Anri Levi made.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accepts me in a safe basement. Now Wednesday, February 26, two days before his meeting in the White House. How does he feel? “Good. But nothing is resolved. I still don’t know what President Trump wants and whether I really make this trip. “
Because he doesn’t trust him? Because he does not believe in the goodwill of the ally, who called him a “dictator”? Mr. Zelensky laughed. “No. The problem, above all, is that I don’t know why he does it. Does he not understand that Putin is unreliable and that … ”. He hesitates. “At the same time, fortunately, there is a Senate and House. It’s on them. I rely on their support for both parties and strong public opinion. How two years ago do you remember? When Congress asked questions, he listened to our answers and eventually unlocked a military assistance package for months. “
I raise the worst scenario: will Ukraine be able to continue without America? “It would be difficult,” says Mr. Zelensky. “They have technologies. Intelligence. Suppose, for example, that Germany will agree to deliver us “petriots” – they will need American permission. ” And Europe? Does he not believe in a European alternative? “Yes, of course. For example, I believe in Emanuel. ” He refers to the President of France Emmanuel Macron, but he utters it with the sound of “ee”, as if it is written with the letter I. In his accent, a real sociable tone is felt. “If this meeting in Washington takes place, then thanks to him, Immanuel. I thank him for that; He is a true friend as well as … Do you know he’s a military expert? He knows the smallest details about our front line from afar. “
If we talk about the front line, does Mr. Zelensky know that I soon go to Pokrovsk of Donetsk region? If he signs a deal with Mr. Trump, does it make sense to go? He does not hesitate: “Of course. Your presence will please the fighters. It will warm their hearts. And if it went … ”. He seems to think aloud. “I think I’m going to do it, this trip. I am not sure of anything, but I’m going to do it. ”
***
I feel it happened suddenly. I didn’t go back to the front for eight months. I understand that the drone war truly replaced the trenches. We are in the team center on the approaches to the Pokrovsk, eastern stronghold, where the Russians throw all their forces to break. In the underground bunker, the former plant, a dozen Ukrainian gyics are sitting in front of the walls of computers. Some without face. Others, in sports shirts and balaclava, communicate through a microphone with men whose voices can be heard when they control intelligence and attacking drones.
Suddenly, on one of the screens there are three silhouettes that go on a snow -covered landscape, littered with rare trees. There is silence in the hopper. The man in Balaklava randomly chooses one of the silhouettes. Follows him. Loses it. Increases the scale of the image. Again finds. Conveys coordinates. The silhouette disappears in the cloud of gray, bad pixel snow. But the cloud is scattered. And again appears, getting up, shaking. Is he injured? Just stunned with a blow? The other two silhouettes join it. They continue, also stumbling, in the direction of a thicker cluster of trees.
The man in Balaklava gives a new order to the microphone. The first silhouette is forever destroyed in a short convulsion, and the other two are huddled between birch. An hour passes. “They will freeze and die there,” says the man in Balaklava. When they try to escape, he is in no hurry, follows them, whispers the last order. When the smoke is scattered, there are two fixed figures similar to cut down trees.
***
When the hunter becomes the object of hunting, there are no 36 ways to escape. In order to avoid ordinary drones, it is necessary to have conical antennas placed on the roof of the car that block the connection between the drone and its pilot, as it was. But for drones connected to their pilot fiber-optic cable a few kilometers (which make up a large part of the Russian arsenal), there is no other solution but to go without stopping at full speed by icy routes, which are almost not visible in the snow; And then, when arriving, to run in shelter for landing, one of these peculiar forests without undergrowth, only slender, almost bare alder, planted in Soviet times to keep the rich black soil of Donbass from strong winds.
There are not three dead Russian soldiers, but 50 miners from the closed Pokrovsk mine, which have eight days and eight nights to create one of these fortifications from dug and raised land, buried metal nets dug in the snow or cones. The ballet of miners transformed into loggers. The boat of cut down trees, cut as far as possible by electric saws, then carried on the backs of men. The accumulation of thicker trunks where we find shelter when the drone is buzzing. We sit around a campfire, which is fueled with chips, cut out of a log. Watching the ingenuity of Ukrainians, I cannot help but think about those Russians who are sent for slaughter as cannon.
***
Oleksandr Syrsky, Commander -in -Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, has not changed since our last meeting, eight months ago, at the Kharkiv Front. He has tall skinny cheeks and a little bit of laughing eyes, barely noticeable, as they fell into the depleted plows, and the posture of a silent centurion. He avoids interviews and feels comfortable only here in a makeshift and icy team tent near Pokrovsk, where I was summoned.
The winner of the battle for Kiev, then the Liberator Izium, who in Kharkiv region, Mr Syrsky has a reputation of a rigid officer who does not spare the life of his troops. I am always amazed by his rough brotherhood and sociability with my people; Its method when they wait for him, as today, in 15-degree weather, frozen in a statue salute, order them to come immediately to hide from it; His tendency to move from an outpatient to an outpatient, never moving away from the battlefield. As always, he informs me about his needs-today, if Americans are derived, the French-Italian SAMP-T missiles.
Then, as always, Mr Macron’s message: “It’s good, our pilots trained, and your mirage planes this morning, this morning, work and are in the sky.” He explodes with a loud laugh that narrows his look even more – he cannot tell me more, but for the Western defeaters who believe that Ukraine is on his knees, he prepares a surprise. Last I heard him say so and laughed, a few days before him of a glass offensive in the Kursk region of Russia.
***
Oksana Rybaniak 21 years, she is thin, weak. But with her childhood physique and long red hair, braided into the tail, she is a commander of a detachment of drones, which consists only of men, and helps the infantrymen block the offensive of the Russians on Pokrovsk.
“I have been in the war for three years,” she says. “I commanded the artillery unit, was seriously injured, and now I command this unit of drones, but at my heart I am a poet.” She has two collections, ready for printing, only the war was detained. Is there another country other than Taras Shevchenko (1814-61), where would the commander say something like that?
She suddenly shakes his voice, looks away. Her big, relentless green eyes were filled with tears, and cute mouths were pulled in a half -mix. She had a bridegroom Maxim Yemets. He was also a poet. They met at work. They imagined a common future. But he died in battle a few weeks ago. And her goal is now one, or more precisely two: the protection of Ukraine and the protection of Maxim’s creativity.
***
What remains to say about Anna Kyivska, created in 2024, equipped with France, trained in France and named by Mr. Zelensky and Macron during the 80th anniversary of landing in Normandy in honor of the Ukrainian princess, who married King Henry and to become a royal of France from 1051 to 1051.
Dissertation, corruption, disorganization – everything is said. And so I decided to make sure myself. Initially, I went north of Pokrovskaya, an abandoned mine, which is his headquarters. Since the beginning of 2025, a solid officer with 27 years of experience, a veteran of terrible battles under Sumy. He says simply: “The team lacked little – maybe a conductor. Let’s say I was like that. It was not a rocket science. “
Then, further south and closer to the front, among the rows of a reconnaissance unit consisting of four men, dogs and a new Renault Vab, which is instructed to find on a huge white space of this desperately flat terrain, where nightly and subsequent days, the operators of the mitigation can be made.
“All this dispute was very unfair,” says the head of the unit, whom I know only in the name – Dmitry. “You are in the hottest front zone. How could someone expect that we were adapting instantly? We are men, not the North Koreans. ” In the meantime, he found the perfect landing. He parks the car and shows me when the drones fly under the bright blue sky, they can be confused with a machine gun.
The great pride of the brigade of Anna of Kyiv is Caesar SAU – ultramovilic, on wheels, accurate and effective. We and I commander Taras Maximov are going with inspection. We take about an hour on the iced primer on a regular car, without armor and muffling systems, because the Russians are so close. We get not in the landing, but in a funnel, dug so deep that only the muzzle of the gun comes – and barely – under white, like snow, camouflage nets.
Men are waiting for us. Six of them. They spend time smoking cigarettes and reading poems to each other.
WARNING. The projectile in the state. Loading a bag with white powder. Calculation of atmospheric pressure and wind speed. Everything is ready? Scout the scout on the spot? Fire! We wait a minute or two to ask the drone and make sure that the Russian position is destroyed on the other hand.
When the cannon, now the enemy identified, goes to a new position in a few kilometers, we also go, in a hurry between dry bare branches that cling to our clothes and scratch our face. The brigade of Anna Kiev did not always justify the legends that preceded her. But he did not lose any of the 18 guns “Caesar” delivered to her by France.
***
This scene had to happen earlier in history, but I tell things when they come to me. We are under Pokrovsk, in a giant hangar, transformed into a repair workshop of tanks and other equipment. Pale light. Rust metal frames. Dilapidated or simply disassembled machines. Mechanics work in greased gloves, experts explore the residues of the engine, the undamaged armored stove, or a still suitable steel rivet. Then everything stops.
On both ends of the hangar, computers are installed so that men can watch a live conversation between Mr Trump and their president, which is broadcast around the world. Initially, when Mr. Zelensky says, tank surgeons rejoice, because they feel that he is controlling, a good messenger of their suffering and heroism.
Then Jay Di Vation and Mr. Trump drowned out Mr. Zelensky’s voice and offend him. Men in Pokrovsk do not say anything. A mixture of stunning (such vulgarity) and horror (they, in oil and blood, understand how much foreign help is needed), but also pride. The confrontation of this young president in the world in the world is the image arrogance and in the language you are – arrogance. This pride is noticeable on their faces.
I do not know if Mr Zelensky’s associates will climb to his level. I do not know if the Americans will understand that Mr. Zelensky’s dignity lies their credo of the city on the hill and that American leaders, from the founding parents to Kennedy and Reagan, would be proud of a deep connection with this leader.
I really do not know if all this will be clear after the incident, demonstration, fiasco, fiasco, horror – call it as you want – in the oval office. But I know that this mixture of irony, morality, coolness and disdain for the human nitsy, from which Mr. Zelensky did not give up for a moment, he again entered the legend of this century.
