Zelenskyy on Flag Day: 'Ukraine will not give its land to occupier'

He stated this in Kyiv on August 23, 2025, during his address on the occasion of National Flag Day.

“This flag is the goal and the dream for many of our people in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. And they safeguard this flag, they keep it safe, because they know: we will not hand our land to the occupier. This flag represents everything dearest to hundreds of thousands of our warriors – men and women from all over Ukraine, who are defending not just one particular direction, not just Vovchansk or Dobropillia, but all our Ukraine, and who are risking their lives to win the right to life for our entire state,” the president noted.

During recent negotiations with Donald Trump in Washington, held with the participation of European leaders, Zelenskyy refused to discuss the possibility of territorial concessions to Russia, saying that this would be a matter for his personal meeting with Putin. The Kremlin, however, is currently refusing such a meeting.

• Information about Putin’s alleged proposal during his meeting with Trump in Anchorage, Alaska — to hand him the entire Donbas in exchange for a “freeze” of hostilities — was circulated by Western media. The U.S. Republican Party–aligned TV channel Fox News even reported on the American president’s initial personal consent to Russia’s gaining control of the whole Donbas, both the areas already occupied by Russian forces and those not yet occupied.
• On the eve of Zelenskyy’s visit to Washington on August 18, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also stated that “territories will have to be discussed.”