Washington, United States:

Ukraine “will lose” its war against Russia if the United States cuts military funding to Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelensky told Fox News on Tuesday.

“If they cut, we will — I think we will lose,” Zelensky said in an interview with the US television network.

“We will fight. We have our production, but it’s not enough to prevail. And I think it’s not enough to survive,” he continued.

US President-elect Donald Trump is a vocal skeptic of the billions that the administration of President Joe Biden has given to Ukraine since the Russian invasion began in 2022.

Trump has repeatedly promised to end the war quickly, but has not provided details of how he would do so.

This week his allies voiced vehement criticism of Biden’s decision to let Ukraine use US-supplied long-range missiles for attacks inside Russia, accusing him of a dangerous escalation.

Zelensky told Fox that “unity” between Ukraine and the United States was “most important.”

Trump, he said, could influence Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war, “because he is much more stronger than Putin.”

Putin “can be willing and end this war, but it also depends on the United States of America much more. Putin is weaker than the United States of America,” he said.

With Russia gaining ground and increasing talk of negotiations, Ukraine is wary of being at a disadvantage when it comes to hashing out a peace settlement.

READ | Donald Trump Commits To Ending “All Wars” But Middle East Is A Complex Place

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed retribution for the attack, which happened in the middle of the day. File
| Photo Credit: AP

“A Russian strike on a supermarket in the eastern Ukrainian town of Kostyantynivka on Friday (August 9, 2024) killed at least 10 people and injured 35,” Ukraine’s interior minister said.

The town is about 13km from the nearest Russian positions and faces almost daily strikes. “10 were killed and 35 others were wounded,” Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said in a post on Telegram.

He published photos of firefighters working amid the smouldering rubble of the destroyed building. AFP journalists saw dozens of people fleeing as police officers warned of a potential second strike.

Plumes of black smoke rose from the building and police cordoned off nearby streets. Drones and an uptick in artillery fire in the area were also audible.

President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed retribution for the attack, which happened in the middle of the day and comes on the fourth day of a major Ukrainian cross-border incursion into Russia’s western Kursk region.

“Russia will be held accountable for this terror,” he said in a post on Telegram.

Vadym Filashkin, Ukraine’s governor of the Donetsk region, said Russian forces had led the town with cannon artillery. “This is another targeted attack on a crowded place,” he said.

The strike comes one day after two civilians were killed in the same town, Mr. Filashkin reported.