A cropped video of Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying that the United States will have to send their "sons and daughters" to war, is viral online with a false claim that the Ukrainian president wants the US to send its troops to fight for Ukraine in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
BOOM found that the viral video is cropped and misleading. The viral clip has left out the part where Zelenskyy hypothesizes that if Ukraine loses the war then Russia might enter
Baltic states, NATO states thus drawing the US to get involved as they are a part of NATO.
On February 24, 2023, Zelensky held a press conference on the first anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The viral video has been culled from this interaction.
Twitter user @JamesPhillips00 tweeted the 19 seconds video with the caption, "Zelinsky: Ukraine needs fresh young Americans to help fight on the ground war. "The US will have to send their Son's & Daughter's... to WAR..." "....and they will be DYING."""
Another Twitter user @hodgetwins tweeted the same video with the caption, "Is this real? Zelensky saying Americans will send their sons and daughters to war for Ukraine and potentially die. Oh hell no"
FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the viral video has been cropped from a longer conversation during a press conference where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy mentioned a hypothetical scenario of Ukraine losing the war and Russia invading other NATO countries including the Baltic states in Eastern Europe which would force the US to get involved and send troops.
The part where Zelenskyy states this hypothetical situation has been edited out to make the misleading claim that he is saying the US will have to send their "sons and daughters" to war to fight for Ukraine.
The Baltic states are part of the NATO alliance which is founded on the principle of collective defence, meaning that if one NATO ally is attacked, then all NATO allies are attacked.
We checked the full conversation from the press conference of Zelenskyy's on February 24, 2023. The conversation has been live-translated to English through a translator.
On a question regarding opinion polls in the US that show a growing number of Americans think that their government was giving too much support to Ukraine, Zelenskyy replied by saying that he is, "very happy that we have bipartisan support but we keep hearing those messages from time to time and they're dangerous".
At the 1.39.42 minutes timestamp, he goes on to say, "Who wants the Third World War? Would anyone risk, would anyone be willing to accept that risk? The US is never going to give up on the NATO member states. If it happens that Ukraine due to various opinions and weakening and depleting of assistance, loses, then Russia is going to enter Baltic states, NATO member states, and then the US will have to send their sons and daughters, exactly the same way as we are sending our sons and daughters to war, and they will have to fight because it's NATO that we're talking about and they will be dying. God forbid, because it's a horrible thing. I wish peace and Ukrainian support to the United States."