President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a July 20 interview that no one can force Ukraine to give up territory in order to achieve peace.
Zelensky was responding to former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's comments that he could end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours.
As Trump's victory in the Nov. 5 presidential election becomes more likely, his proposal for a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia is coming under close scrutiny.
"If one person in the world, and this person is Donald Trump, can stop the war in 24 hours, the question is at what price, and who will pay?" Zelensky said in an interview with BBC.
A simple way to achieve a 24-hour peace would be to force Ukraine to make territorial concessions and drop its sanctions on Russia, but "no one in the world" could force Ukraine to do this, Zelensky said.
Zelensky added that the war is not about one president or ten people, but a whole nation, and noted that after so many Ukrainians had been killed by Russians, "we can't forget it, and we can't forgive it."
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