From the Liveblog of
Saturday, February 4, 2023
Former PM Bennett: Putin assured me he wouldn’t kill Zelensky
Former prime minister Naftali Bennett says Russian President Vladimir Putin assured him, in the early days of the war when he flew to Russia in a mediation effort, that he wouldn’t kill Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
“He gave me two great concessions,” says Zelensky of his meeting with Putin in Moscow on March 5, 2022. “I knew Zelensky was under threat, in a bunker… I said to him [Putin], ‘Do you intend to kill Zelensky?’ He said, ‘I won’t kill Zelensky,'” Bennett says in the interview, conducted with journalist Hanoch Daum and self-published on Bennett’s own Youtube channel.
“I need to understand, are you giving me your word that you won’t kill Zelensky?” Bennett recalls asking Putin. “He said, ‘I won’t kill Zelensky.'”
Bennett says he called Zelensky immediately after the meeting, and told him, “I’ve just come out of a meeting, he is not going to kill you. He asked me, ‘Are you sure?’ I said 100 percent. He’s not going to kill you.”
“Two hours later, Zelensky went to his office, and did a selfie in the office, [in which the Ukrainian president said,] ‘I’m not afraid’ and everything.”
Bennett says Putin also agreed not to push for the disarming of Ukraine, and Zelensky that same weekend dropped his push to join NATO.
“Everything I did [in the mediation effort] was coordinated with the US,” Bennett adds.
The full interview (with English subtitles) can be watched at the link below.
