Zelensky:

Why do empires fall apart? Because people want to be free.

People live like fish in a fish tank.

The fish tank can be massive, like the Soviet Union, but it's still a fish tank.

North Korea is a smaller fish tank, but it's a fish tank.

Zelensky:

I don't know what President Trump is talking about.

They surrounded Kyiv. They reached Kyiv. They occupied towns on the way to Kyiv.

It wasn't a matter of some general being an idiot.

They needed around 300,000 to 400,000 troops to take Kyiv. They needed twice as many men.

They didn't even realize there would be resistance. That was their main mistake.

Zelensky:

The war really started with the occupation of Crimea.

It's just that it was slow, that occupation. It didn't look much like a war because Ukraine wasn't fighting back at that point.

The problem was that there were no clear orders from the Ukrainian authorities that you need to defend your land.

If there had been an order to defend the country, I'm sure a full-scale war in the form it has today wouldn't have happened.

Our mistake was not pushing them back.

Zelensky:

My grandfather went through World War II from start to finish.

He came from a family where there were several brothers, and all of them were killed by the Nazis.

I have very few relatives on both sides of my family. Many relatives were killed by the fascists.

That's why it always sounded so bizarre when Russia accused Ukraine of supposedly having Nazis.

It's bizarre and completely wild.

Zelensky:

Where Trump is right is that if Crimea hadn't been allowed to fall, there would be no war. I agree with President Trump.

Dozens of people went into Crimea. Dozens. For a country like this, that's zero. That's nothing. We handled hundreds of thousands.

If they'd been hit back then, there wouldn't have been a chance of a full-scale war.

Putin would have known there would be a blow, there would be a response.

Zelensky:

I don't think Putin will risk nuclear weapons.

I don't think they'll take the risk of using nuclear weapons.

I'm sure they won't have any allies left, including countries like America and China.

That's far too dangerous, even for nuclear powers.

Zelensky:

Trump decided to pin this problem not on Putin, but on me, explaining to his people that diesel prices in America are going up because of us.

That is completely untrue.

Zelensky:

I think it's wrong and unacceptable that Trump pins Russia's aggression and Russia's killings on me.

He is shifting the context, and that's not fair.

I think this is just deflecting the focus away from Iran, from what's happening in the Middle East.

The Strait of Hormuz is blocked. That's the root of the problem.

But everything gets shifted onto us, and I'm made the target as the leader of our country.

Zelensky:

When President Trump says we need to find a compromise, believe me, a ceasefire and sitting down at the negotiating table is a huge compromise.

That hatred isn't going anywhere. It takes time and justice.

I've tried many times to tell the president of the United States: Just understand us. This is a huge compromise just to hold the lines where we are.

Zelensky:

You have to be president, and you have to calm down and be more diplomatic.

But you can't just forgive everything and say, "Well, sorry, that's Putin, a powerful country. Let's just forget everything, forgive everything, and somehow we'll buy and sell gas or diesel or whatever."

That's difficult.

Zelensky:

I know so many people had their hearts ripped out, and there won't be a new heart.

You have to give them at least something. Some trial, some justice, at least some moral solace.

You can't just leave it because that hole inside them won't heal, and there will be revenge.

The guilty must be punished. At the very least, you have to show a path that it will happen.

It's totally impossible to simply forgive.

Zelensky:

I said, "Okay, you can't force Putin to stop the war and make an energy truce. Give me air defense missiles."

I won't fire at anyone. I'll protect our energy sector.

So where am I being unfair? In what way?

I asked Trump, "Give us missiles."

Not for free. Again, not even for free. Europeans are funding all of it.

There's an agreement, but they won't give them to us.

They say they can't. They have given everything to the Middle East.

Zelensky:

The way Trump talks about me, he needs to adopt that kind of rhetoric about Putin.

Congress voted for strong sanctions. He can do it.

I don't know why he is not doing it.

Maybe they have a special relationship. Maybe something else.

I can only guess.

Zelensky:

The children of Ukraine grew up during the war.

It's so sad that childhood passed during a war.

But nonetheless, we believe in peace. Peace will prevail anyway, 100%.

Netanyahu on Iran:

A year ago, Iran was about to destroy us with atomic bombs.

When I learned about this, I initiated an operation to go it alone. Alone.

Good people here told me, "Fine, but we need to get a green light from the United States."

I said, "No, no. There is no green light. We have no choice. Our existence is not a subject for negotiation."

Netanyahu on Iran:

I concluded that the only conceivable solution here is, of course, to overthrow this fanatical regime.

Just as the Allies went and destroyed the Nazi regime.

Hitler tried to obtain atomic bombs. He didn't succeed.

The only way to stop these Nazis, or these neo-Nazis in Iran today, is to eliminate the regime, to overthrow the regime.

Netanyahu on Gaza:

I told our American friends, "You say you can find some international force that will come and disarm Hamas. Be my guest. Bring it."

They searched for another month, another month, another month, another month.

And of course, they found nobody.

Therefore, that mission will fall to us. It will fall to us.

Netanyahu on Gaza:

Every Gazan should be free to leave.

What is this business of suddenly locking people in? What happened? Is this North Korea?

If you want to leave, leave. And they should be allowed to do so.

NEW: Netanyahu says he is working "a great deal" with third-party countries to facilitate the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.

"The problem is the countries that would receive them. We are working on that too. I am working on it a great deal, and there are beginnings. I don't want to go into detail."

Netanyahu on Gaza:

As for control, I said control will always be ours. We are not going to leave this territory.