The former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett has said in an interview that Vladimir Putin told him he would not try to kill Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a promise made during a trip to Moscow shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking on a podcast with the Israeli journalist Hanoch Daum, published on Sunday, Bennett said he received assurance from Putin that the Ukrainian president\u2019s life was not at risk during a secretive visit to the Russian capital last March aimed at mediation during the war\u2019s early days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI asked: \u2018Are you planning to kill Zelenskiy?\u2019 He said: \u2018I won\u2019t kill Zelenskiy.\u2019 I then said to him: \u2018I have to understand that you\u2019re giving me your word that you won\u2019t kill Zelenskiy.\u2019 He said: \u2018I\u2019m not going to kill Zelenskiy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bennett said he then called the Ukrainian leader on his way to Moscow\u2019s airport, who asked: \u201c\u2018Are you sure?\u2019 and I told him: \u2018Yes, 100%, he won\u2019t kill you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bennett\u2019s comments come after claims to the BBC last week from the former British prime minister Boris Johnson, who said Putin had threatened him with a missile strike that would \u201conly take a minute\u201d. The Kremlin said Johnson was lying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Also on Sunday, the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that Putin \u201chas not made any threats against me or Germany\u201d despite Scholz\u2019s repeated and direct criticism of the invasion to the Russian leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Bennett, during his mediation efforts Zelenskiy agreed to give up the idea that Ukraine would join Nato, and Putin dropped a vow to seek Ukraine\u2019s disarmament in order to end the war. \u201cEverything I did was coordinated with the US, Germany and France,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ultimately the Israeli leader\u2019s efforts did little to stop the bloodshed in Ukraine, where the war is now approaching its first anniversary. He is now a private citizen, having stepped away from politics before November\u2019s election, but his comments shed light on early backchannel efforts to de-escalate the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bennett \u2013 a prime minister largely untested on the international stage and whose government lasted just a year before collapsing in June 2022 \u2013 became an unlikely mediator at the beginning of the conflict. He was the first western-aligned leader to meet Putin in Moscow, seeking to balance Israel\u2019s need for Russian cooperation for its military operations in Syria while mediating on behalf of western allies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The country\u2019s current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who returned from a brief stint in opposition after his far-right and religious bloc won last year\u2019s election, has largely continued with Bennett\u2019s policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Israel has repeatedly rebuffed requests from US and Ukrainian officials to send weaponry and air defence systems to Kyiv, focusing instead on humanitarian and medical aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Russia\u2019s deployment of Iranian armed drones in Ukraine, however, was met with anger in Israel, where Tehran is viewed as an existential threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Israel has reportedly shared intelligence on Iran\u2019s drone programme with Ukrainian officials, and has offered to assist Kyiv in creating a \u201clifesaving civilian early-warning system\u201d to protect against aerial attack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett has said in an interview that Vladimir Putin told him he would not try to kill Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a promise made during a trip to Moscow shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine last year. Speaking on a podcast with the Israeli journalist Hanoch Daum, published on Sunday, Bennett said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":29499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[6850,5754,5304,2735,9778,5090,157,5268,11583,1425,11254,10767,9506,7445,9478,911,5575,66,2264,10954,11493,5252,3095,6030,1152,5342,5572,5254,5340,7029,4802,7202,2627,5424,3805,3174,4625,6421,71,5807,3457,5217,5818,3349,7444,5180,5555,6348,694,6886,5251,594,6874,7932],"class_list":["post-29498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-aid","tag-airport","tag-attack","tag-bbc","tag-bloodshed","tag-boris","tag-boris-johnson","tag-british","tag-capital","tag-chancellor","tag-citizen","tag-conflict","tag-drone","tag-drones","tag-dropped","tag-election","tag-france","tag-germany","tag-government","tag-international","tag-interview","tag-invasion","tag-israel","tag-journalist","tag-kremlin","tag-kyiv","tag-military","tag-missile","tag-moscow","tag-naftali-bennett","tag-nato","tag-olaf-scholz","tag-pm","tag-politics","tag-president","tag-prime-minister","tag-prime-minister-boris-johnson","tag-prime-minister-naftali-bennett","tag-putin","tag-risk","tag-russia","tag-russian","tag-strike","tag-syria","tag-tehran","tag-ukraine","tag-ukrainian","tag-us","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-volodymyr-zelenskiy","tag-war","tag-who","tag-zelenskiy","tag-zelenskyy"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}