President Biden
and other
world leaders are gathering in New Delhi
for the G20 summit.
And topping the agenda,
the war in Ukraine.
The summit comes
just as Ukraine's counter
offensive enters its fourth month.
CNN's Fareed
Zakaria sat down
exclusively with President
Volodymyr Zelensky this week
and asked him about concerns
over the pace of Ukraine's operations
Everyone is wondering
about the counteroffensive.
There was
a sense that it was slower than expected.
Now there is some hope
that it is speeding up.
Can you give us a sense
from your perspective,
what how is it going?
Depends on many directions.
On many cases.
And issues,
how to speed up counteroffensive.
But remember that we need the resolve,
the result we need.
We have to get our our land.
We have to get there compared to land.
And it's all also not about the land.
It's about the people.
Because the frozen war is not the peace.
We are speaking about Putin.
He want to take all our country
to destroyed all our families, houses
and it says here because because if
he understands why why he does
he understand it,
that Ukraine will never go back.
Go away from our land.
We'll never do it.
That's why he has to kill us.
He want to do it.
That's why when we
when we speak about the
counteroffensive,
it depends on many cases.
Of course,
we gave a lot of time for Russians.
We gave a lot of time to prepare to mind,
to put the minds
and the
minds on the hills,
on the on on on the big territory
and so you see the three defending lines.
And that's
because you were waiting for the weapons.
That's why I said yeah,
that's why that what I said.
It depends on many issues.
We wait.
Look, we waited too long.
It's true.
Now I'm thankful to partners
to the United States.
You are the partners.
I'm thankful.
Very much, President Biden.
And but we may have. And to Congress.
But we have to understand. We.
Because we waited too long.
They put mines.
Then when we been ready
from the point of view of our partners
because the decision
to give us, for example, Bradley
or another kind of weapon,
the decision, it doesn't mean the result.
You don't get them immediately
what's the.
Of course you don't. Of course you do. So
something still
on the way
till now
when we are sitting
and speaking about it,
when counteroffensive
and a lot of different people said
that is too slow,
but it's still on the way.
And you can catch Fareed's
whole interview tomorrow at 10 a.m.
on GPS.
For more on this now,
let's bring in retired Air Force
Colonel Cedric Leighton.
He's also a CNN military analyst.
Colonel great to see you.
So you heard President Zelensky
defending the counter
there amid suggestions
that it's going to slow.
What is your reaction to his comments and
and some of his expressed frustrations,
Fred?
Well, he's absolutely right.
I mean,
when you look at it
from his point of view,
he is in the middle of a war.
He's fighting for the very existence
of Ukraine, of his country, his culture,
his society, and the lack of urgency,
or at least to the perceived
lack of urgency
in the West, has caused Ukraine
a lot of grief.
It has caused Ukraine
to delay any counteroffensive.
They were able to do
magnificent things
in terms of military speed last year
when they were able
to recapture areas around Kharkiv
and later
in the south around Carcassonne.
And that particular part of Ukraine.
But at that point in time,
the Russians had no defensive positions
to speak of.
They didn't have the tank traffic.
They didn't have the dragon.
Steve
they didn't have the trenches,
they didn't have the mines.
And that's the kind of thing
that they were allowed to build up
during this period
that Zelinsky
was waiting for weapons to arrive.
From the West.
So this, in essence, the lack of urgency
on the part of the suppliers of that
that has created the slowness
in this counteroffensive
and this interview taking place
before world
leaders have been meeting now in India,
you know, for the G20 summit and Ukraine.
Now, you
know, blasting the group of 20
after they agreed on a joint statement
today that calls on states
to refrain
from the use of force to seize territory,
but stopped short of condemning Russia.
So is this declaration strong enough
No, it's not.
When you really think about it
and the Ukrainians
have a point here as well because,
you know, what we're looking at
is a war of conquest, a war of a
you know,
in essence that throws back us
back to the 1930s.
And that's the kind of war
that should be condemned
by all of the powers in the G20.
And the fact that
they went basically halfway,
they took steps to saying
that a war of aggression is wrong.
And that is correct.
The problem that you have
is that they didn't
specifically condemn Russia.
So Russia, China,
other countries
that are aligned with that can say,
well, look,
you know, this
hasn't really
doesn't really apply to us
because we are,
you know,
taking care of our people
or our populations
that are in other countries.
We're taking care of our own security,
things like that.
So they will find an excuse
to justify their actions.
And those excuses are, of course,
going to create problems
for the world order.
And in essence, they're not really.
The G20 nations
are not really defending the world order
as they should be defending it.
But of course, it's
not necessarily in their interest
in some cases to do so.
All right.
We're also learning this week
of some rather
stunning revelations
in a new biography about Elon Musk
detailing his impact
on the war in Ukraine.
The book
Elon Musk
alleges the owner disrupted
a Ukrainian sneak attack against Russia,
its naval fleet in Crimea by shutting off
Kiev's Internet
access via his StarLink satellites.
What do you make of those allegations?
Well, they're quite serious,
and it really shows
that one individual
in this case, Elon
Musk,
has a lot of power
to influence more outcomes.
You know, you
it was good that he allowed StarLink
to be used by the Ukrainians
That, in essence, saved Ukraine
because the communications that
are allowed through
StarLink,
the connectivity that it enables
that is analogous
to the kind of connectivity
that a great power
would have in their communications links.
And the Ukrainians
got that
as a commercial official type capability.
But when it was cut off,
that enabled the Russians
to, in essence,
protect their fleet
by a not being attacked
by the Ukrainians.
And so,
you know,
he's kind of playing a role in this.
He's worried about
the Russians
responding with nuclear weapons
to Ukrainian attacks.
But on the other hand, he's
not allowing the Ukrainians
to defend themselves fully.
He did
the right thing
at the beginning of this conflict.
But because he cut off
communications
at this particular juncture
for that sneak attack, it prolonged,
you know,
has the possibility of losing the war
at this point. Right.
All right, Colonel
Cedric Leighton, we'll leave it there.
For now. Thank you so much.
You bet, Fred.