Zelenskyy clarifies that number of peacekeepers should depend on size of Ukrainian army

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy clarified regarding the possible number of peacekeepers in Ukraine that it should depend on the size of the Ukrainian army.

Zelenskyy said this in an interview with Bloomberg, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

At the same time, he denied that he said that Ukraine needs 200,000 peacekeepers.

"I did not say, by the way, that we need 200,000... The journalist asked (about) 200,000. I said, it could be more, it could be less," Zelenskyy said.

Zelenskyy noted that Ukraine needs a million-strong army to stop the russians, and if Ukraine is not in NATO and there is no other security alliance for Ukraine, and if the US and Europe say about the need to reduce such an army due to the great need for funding, then other troops will be needed instead.

"If we reduce it by 200,000, by 300,000, by 500,000, it will say that other troops are needed instead in the same number that they were reduced by," he said.

Zelenskyy added that Ukraine is ready, that there will be a peacekeeping contingent, it can help. At the same time, he noted that this cannot be considered a purely European initiative, without the United States.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, Zelenskyy, during a conversation with representatives of the International Media Council at the World Economic Forum in Davos (Switzerland), when asked about, for example, 200,000 European peacekeepers, answered that this is the minimum. Zelenskyy said that he supports the idea of ​​introducing peacekeeping contingents to Ukraine as part of security guarantees to prevent a possible future attack by the aggressor country of russia.

Zelenskyy also said that he considers the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) security guarantees for Ukraine to be the cheapest for Ukraine, Europe, the United States and russia.