Stefano Leanza

When Putin seized Crimea, both Europe and America were quite openly making calls, holding meetings, and sending signals to the Ukrainians who were in power at the time that there should be no escalation – let's just keep things friendly and leave things as they are for now. And we lost Crimea. After that, we lost part of Donbas. But the shooting in the east continued. There was no peace. People think we were always helped. That is not true. Help started coming after the full-scale invasion, but that was after eight years of Russia occupying our territory. That is a long time to figure things out and understand that Putin has no intention of giving anything back to us. At one point, some Europeans asked me: “Why do you think that if you withdraw from Donbas, he will go further?” And I answered: “Because at the beginning of the war, he wasn't seizing Donbas. He came to the capital. He seized parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, Kherson itself, and Kharkiv region.” We have retaken a lot of territory, but he had seized different parts of our country. And now they want us to give them something because they are unable to seize it. We may have a smaller territory, less money, and fewer weapons, but we still have more dignity than many others. We will do everything we can to end this war, but it must end in a way that preserves our dignity. From an interview with ZDF. (2/3)