Volodymyr Zelensky held a briefing following the Crimean Platform summit. Main points:

📍On the counteroffensive in the southern direction: "Everything is mined there. Very often, people are walking to avoid losing the scarce armored vehicles. If we had it in reserve, we could take the risk. First of all, people are important, then equipment. [...] No one is complaining, everyone is fighting."

📍Zelensky rejected the idea of redeploying troops from east to south, as some American media reported, citing military experts.

"Does anyone realize how many people there are, how many occupiers there are in the east? Approximately 200 thousand. [...] Let's take our armed forces from there and move them somewhere. But after that, a couple of days, and [the Russians will take] Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, then they will go to Pavlohrad, Dnipro, cut off the banks. But we will not allow this, and let all the analysts in the world not even count on it."

📍On more intensive mobilization. "To be honest, the military asked me to do this to give them the opportunity to mobilize more. I can't tell you anything else. The issue of military registration and enlistment offices, the very important issue of medical commissions at military registration and enlistment offices - we need to speed up the processes as quickly as possible, put things in order, and then start talking about increasing the number of people to be mobilized."

📍 When asked how long Ukraine "can still hold out," Zelensky replied: "We have no chance to do anything else but continue to defend our state and de-occupy our territory. We are fighting for what is ours."

@liveukraine_media