Zelensky shares with 60 Minutes Ukraine's evidence of Russian war crimes

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has no plans to leave Kyiv, telling 60 Minutes' Scott Pelley that while he doesn't "want to make myself out to be a hero," when it comes down to "choosing between running or being with my people, of course I'm ready to give my life for my country."

Pelley traveled to Kyiv to meet face-to-face with Zelensky on Wednesday, with their interview airing Sunday night. Zelensky, in English and Ukrainian, discussed everything from NATO to whether he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin should be prosecuted for war crimes.

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Zelensky said that in terms of war crimes evidence, the Ukrainian Security Service has intercepted communications of Russian soldiers "talking with their parents [about] what they stole and who they abducted. There are recordings of [Russian] prisoners of war who admitted to killing people. There are pilots in prison who had maps with civilian targets to bomb. There are also investigations being done based on the remains of the dead."

If world leaders want to help, "they have to supply weapons to Ukraine as if they were defending themselves and their own people," Zelensky said. "They need to understand this: If they don't speed up, it will be very hard for us to hold on against this pressure."

Ukraine has already given up too many lives, Zelensky said, and is not ready to lose any territory to Russia or recognize Crimea as Russian territory. What is sustaining Ukraine is the fact that "we united as a nation," Zelensky told Pelley. "Even though [our people] understood that they would be outnumbered tenfold, and there would be no way out, just no way out, we fought for our existence and for survival. That's the combined heroism of everyone — of the people, of the authorities, of the armed forces. We became a single fist."

Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.