Why should you die, Zelensky says as he urges Russian troops to surrender

TEXAS • Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on Russian troops to surrender in a video posted online yesterday.

"On behalf of the Ukrainian people, I give you a chance," he said in a translation of his address shared by his office. "If you surrender to our forces, we will treat you the way people are supposed to be treated - as people, decently."

Mr Zelensky said Russia had already lost 90 warplanes and that Russian troops "did not expect such resistance".

"They believed in their propaganda, which has been lying about us for decades," he said.

The Ukrainian leader had said last Saturday that thousands of Russian soldiers had either been captured or had surrendered.

In his address yesterday, he expressed gratitude to the Russians fighting disinformation about the war, singling out a woman who walked in on a live broadcast of a Russian state-run news show on Monday, holding up a sign that said: "They're lying to you here."

The woman, Ms Marina Ovsyannikova, was later detained.

"To those who are not afraid to protest: As long as your country has not completely closed itself off from the whole world... you must fight," Mr Zelensky said.

He added that some Russian troops were fleeing battlefields and abandoning equipment.

"Today, Russian troops are, in fact, one of the suppliers of equipment to our army," he said.

Addressing Russian conscripts and officers, he said: "Why should you die? What for? I know that you want to survive. We hear your conversations in the intercepts. We hear what you really think about this senseless war."

Mr Zelensky is due today to address the US Congress, as American lawmakers pressure the White House to take a tougher stance on Russia's invasion.

An adviser to the president's chief of staff, Mr Oleksiy Arestovich, on Monday said that the war in Ukraine was likely to be over by early May, when Russia runs out of resources to continue its attack.

The exact timing would depend on how much resources the Kremlin was willing to commit to its campaign, he said in a video published by several Ukrainian media.

"I think that no later than in May, early May, we should have a peace agreement, maybe much earlier," Mr Arestovich said.

"We are at a fork in the road now: there will either be a peace deal struck very quickly, within a week or two, with troop withdrawal and everything; or there will be an attempt to scrape together some, say, Syrians for a round two and, when we grind them too, an agreement by mid-April or late April."

A "completely crazy" scenario could involve Russia sending fresh conscripts after a month of training. Still, even once peace is agreed, small tactical clashes could remain possible for a year, Mr Arestovich added.

NYTIMES, REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE