Zelensky tells CNN talks on Ukraine cannot wait until after the war in Iran is over

By Christiane Amanpour, Ivana Kottasová, CNN

(CNN) — Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky admitted the war in Iran has taken the focus away from Russia’s aggression against his country, telling CNN it was a “big risk” to think that efforts to end the fighting in Ukraine can’t restart until the conflict in Iran ends.

Speaking to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour from the presidential office in Kyiv, Zelensky said Wednesday that while technical talks with the United States are still happening, he doesn’t “see the opportunity to meet … until the question, the case of Iran will be closed.”

Zelensky pointed out that it was a “challenge” that the same team of US negotiators – led by US envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner – was leading both the talks about the war in Iran and in Ukraine.

And he said that while he understands the United States is currently focused on its war on Iran, it was important not to forget about Ukraine where fighting continues.

The Ukrainian leader said it was not an option to say that “we will speak about (Ukraine) a little bit later. … Ukraine is not ‘a little bit later.’ Ukraine is already in such a big tragedy, we have to find a way to manage this in a parallel way.”

Zelesnky also told CNN that the war has meant some supplies of key weapons for Ukraine have been derailed – especially anti-ballistic missiles, of which he said Ukraine was not getting enough because of limited production capacity in the US.

Question of life and survival

Speaking to CNN just hours after the European Union finally approved a key 90 billion euros loan for Ukraine, Zelensky said getting the money was a question of “life and surviving” for his country.

The loan, promised to Kyiv months ago, has been long delayed because Hungary’s outgoing Prime Minister Victor Orbán was blocking it, demanding Ukraine restarts the flow of Russian oil into Europe. His landslide defeat in the Hungarian parliamentary election last week cleared one of the hurdles and on Wednesday, oil transit via the Ukrainian section ⁠of the Druzhba ​pipeline resumed, and EU ambassadors gave a preliminary agreement to the loan.

Zelensky told CNN that without the funds, Ukraine was struggling to manufacture the amount of weapons it was capable of producing.

He gave an example of drone interceptors, saying Ukraine is currently producing roughly 1,000 units a day – even though it has the capacity to make 2,000 a day. “But we don’t have the funding. It’s really a question of our life, of surviving, for defending, we need this money very much,” he told CNN

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CNN’s Alicia Lloyd, Ana Bickford, Adam Pourahmadi and Victoria Butenko contributed to this report.