In his first interview since leaving office, the former prime minister talked of his mediation efforts to try and arrange a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire in the early days of the war.
In his first interview since leaving office, former prime minister Naftali Bennett told Channel 12 that in his short-lived mediation effort after the Russia-Ukraine war began, he had received the important assurance from Russian President Vladimir Putin that he would not try to assassinate Ukraine’s leader.
“In the meeting, Putin made two huge concessions,” he told interviewer Hanoch Daum.
One was letting go of the condition of the complete demilitarization of Ukraine. The other was that “He gave up on denazification, which meant assassinating [President Volodymyr] Zelensky. That’s the most precious thing, the life of a leader [and] he was living in a bunker where nobody knew where he was.”
“At some point, three or four hours into the meeting, I said to Putin, “Listen, what’s the story here? Do you intend to kill [him]?’ and he said, ‘I won’t kill Zelensky.’ I told him, ‘I need to understand that you’re giving me your word that you will not kill Zelensky,’ and he repeated, ‘I’m not going to kill Zelensky.’”
This was not necessarily a simple promise to make for the Russian leader, because one of his main stated reasons for invading Ukraine was that the country was being ruled by fascists, which made it not only a danger to Russia but to the world. Invoking the Nazis repeatedly before the February 24 invasion made his military move acceptable to many in his country, since, as Bennett explained, the fight against Germany in what Russians call “The Great Patriotic War,” is “at the heart of the Russian ethos, and especially with Putin.”
photo credit: Sputnik/Kremlin/Reuters