https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/world/europe/zelensky-speech-video.

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In Video, a Defiant Zelensky Says, ‘We Are Here’

The 44-year-old president of Ukraine videotaped himself in Kyiv as Russian forces
closed in on the capital, vowing to fight them to the end.

By Valerie Hopkins

Published Feb. 25, 2022 Updated Feb. 27, 2022

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KYIV, Ukraine — As Russian missiles bombarded the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Friday,
President Volodymyr Zelensky seemed to go missing. Italy’s prime minister even told
his own parliament, in a tremulous voice, that Mr. Zelensky had missed a planned call
with him.

Later as Russian forces announced they had cut the city off from the western part of
the country and captured strategic locations to Kyiv’s north, the Ukrainian leader
emerged with one message:

“We are here,” he said in a recorded video on Friday night, standing in front of the
presidency building flanked by his top advisers. “We are in Kyiv. We are protecting
Ukraine.”

On Day 2 of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Mr. Zelensky was still standing, and seemed
to be more than holding his own in the information war with his country’s giant
neighbor.

The embattled leader, 44, who said on Thursday that his country’s intelligence services
believe that he is Russia’s “number one target,” and his family the second, said he
would not back down.
“Our army is here, our civil society is here, we are all here,” he said in the video,
holding the camera himself and wearing military green. “We are defending our
independence, our state, and we will continue to do so.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky early Friday in Kyiv, in a photo provided by Ukraine’s government. Ukraine
Presidency, via AFP/— Getty Imagess

Mr. Zelensky also signaled openness to diplomacy to end the war, even as he sought to
rally his country. He imposed martial law and forbade men 18 to 60 to leave so they
could be enlisted in the fight. The capital was bracing for pitched street battles Friday
night into Saturday, as Russian forces closed in.

Mr. Zelensky’s government handed out 70,000 AK-47 rifles to citizens on Thursday
alone, one of the aides in the video told The New York Times, and radio stations were
broadcasting instructions for how to make Molotov cocktails.

“The president will stay until the very end,” said David Arakhamia, a leader of Mr.
Zelensky’s Servant of the People Party in the parliament.

And so, Mr. Zelensky, a comedian who became the president after having played one on
television, has shown himself as a determined commander in chief who was not going
anywhere.

He even had the audacity to throw some sarcasm at the Italian prime minister, Mario
Draghi, for having publicly expressed worry about him. The reason Mr. Zelensky
missed the phone call, the Ukrainian leader said in a Twitter post, was that people were
dying in heavy fighting nearby.

“Next time I’ll try to move the war schedule to talk to #MarioDraghi at a specific time,”
Mr. Zelensky said. “Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to fight for its people.”

Ukrainian soldiers near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

But he did have time to speak to President Biden and other European leaders, urging
increased sanctions on Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin, and building an
“anti-Putin coalition.”

Live Updates: Russia-Ukraine War ›

March 1, 2022, 8:18 p.m. ET
Updated 2 hours ago
 Videos verified by The Times show devastated apartment buildings in a
town just northwest of Kyiv.

Russian aircraft will be banned from American airspace, U.S. officials say.

Figure skating, tennis, track and cycling add to sports penalties against
Russians.

Mr. Zelensky’s bravado in the face of lethal Russian danger did not go unnoticed by the
Biden administration. Jen Psaki, the White House spokeswoman, told reporters on
Friday that he was “an important partner” and that “we support him.” She declined to
answer questions on what steps, if any, the administration may be planning to rescue
him from possible arrest by the Russians.

Talk of his disappearance was a tactic used by the Russians to portray Mr. Zelensky as
cowardly, decrease confidence in the government and make people lose hope, said
Anna Kovalenko, a former aide to Mr. Zelensky.

“The enemy is trying to convince people that there is no government, there is nothing
left for them,” she said. “But of course there is. And he went on the air and broadcast
this video, and we saw where he was, who with him, and that he was guarded by the
state.”

Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to Know

Civilians under fire. Russian forces targeted Ukrainian cities with increasingly
powerful weapons on the sixth day of the invasion, inflicting a heavy toll on
civilians. Explosions shook Kyiv and Kharkiv, while Russian troops moved to
capture Mariupol in the south, a critical port city.

Mr. Putin, who fulminated against Ukraine’s government Monday night in a fiery
speech that effectively denied the former Soviet republic’s right to be independent, said
Friday that Kyiv was being ruled by a “gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis” that had
made the Ukrainian people hostages.
 Fragments of a downed aircraft in Kyiv on Friday. Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

But many Ukrainians expressed fury at what the Kremlin was trying to do to their
country of 44 million.

“Putin made a statement that we do not exist as a people, as a nation, as a country,”

Ms. Kovalenko said. “Well, the whole country is resisting. In reality, Ukraine should
erect a monument to Putin because he has so united the nation against him,” she said,
adding that all political bickering has been set aside.

Mr. Zelensky’s spokesman, Sergei Nikoforov, said he was still trying to negotiate with
the Kremlin, which has refused to engage with him directly.

“Ukraine was and remains ready to talk about a cease-fire and peace,” Mr. Nikoforov
said on Facebook. “This is our permanent position.”

He said that the government in Kyiv had agreed to Mr. Putin’s proposal for talks, both
sides were consulting about the negotiation process, and that “the sooner negotiations
begin, the more chances there will be to resume normal life.”

But if the negotiations failed, Mr. Zelensky and his team have been clear that they will
never flee.
In the late hours of Friday night, Mr. Zelensky appealed to his people again in another
video, posted on his Telegram social media channel, warning them of difficult times
ahead.

“Tonight the enemy will use all their forces to break our resistance,” he said. “It is
despicable, cruel, and inhumane. Tonight they will storm. We must all understand what
awaits us.”