-21d0b63c17f6020e4df75f6c6f9a2f4f.jpg "Photo of Ivan Khomenko")
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has responded to recent remarks by US President Donald Trump, who compared the war between Ukraine and Russia to a fight between children on a playground.
Speaking to ABC News on June 6, Zelenskyy emphasized the gravity of the war and stated that those not in Ukraine cannot fully understand its impact.
According to Zelenskyy, equating the war to a playground quarrel distorts the reality of Russia’s aggression. “We are not kids with Putin at a playground,” he said. “Putin is a murderer who came to this park to kill the kids.”
🔴 Zelenskyy: "We are not kids with Putin at a playground. He is a murderer who came to this park to kill the kids." pic.twitter.com/2ntsSOYVot
— UNITED24 Media (@United24media) June 7, 2025
Zelenskyy responded to Trump’s comments made earlier this week, in which the US president said Ukraine and Russia should be allowed to “fight it out” before he would intervene, suggesting potential sanctions against both parties.
The Ukrainian president stated that the issue is not about Trump personally but about the general distance—both physical and emotional—between those observing the war from abroad and those living through it. “It’s not about President Trump.
It’s about anyone thousands of miles away who cannot fully feel or understand this pain,” Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy illustrated the human cost of the war by recounting a conversation with a Ukrainian father who lost his wife and three children in a Russian missile strike. While the man’s name was not mentioned, it is likely he referred to Yaroslav Bazylevych, whose family was killed in a Russian attack last year.
The father, Zelenskyy said, told him: “Every morning when I wake up, I look for my family all over the apartment… It still feels like a nightmare… a bad dream.”
Zelenskyy concluded that such pain is impossible to grasp for those not experiencing it directly and reiterated the need for stronger international pressure on Russia.
Earlier, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned that some US senators are unaware of the scale of Russia’s rearmament, following his June 5 meeting with President Trump in Washington. Speaking in Berlin, Merz urged US lawmakers to recognize the threat posed by Russia’s military buildup and backed Trump’s call for NATO countries to raise defense spending to 5% of GDP.
