Kiev: ON A TRAIN FROM SUMY TO KYIV, UKRAINE: A group of AP journalists spent two days travelling by train with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as he visited the northern towns in the Sumy region that were liberated soon after the war started a year ago as well as the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, which is still regularly shelled by Russian forces.

Since the start of the war, Zelensky has only travelled extensively with The AP. Here are some key points from a conversation I had with Zelensky on his late-night Tuesday flight back to Kiev.

The military of Ukraine has received billions of dollars' worth of ammunition and equipment from Western countries throughout the majority of the war. Zelensky acknowledged the assistance but noted that some of the promised weapons had not yet arrived. With regard to Patriots, the US-made air defence system, he said, "We have great decisions, but we don't have them for real.

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Although the Patriot system has been trained on by Ukrainian soldiers in the US since January, it has not yet been used in Ukraine. Zelensky stated that Ukraine needs 20 Patriot batteries to defend itself from Russian missiles, though even those may not be sufficient because "no country in the world was attacked with so many ballistic rockets."

Another air defence system was sent to Ukraine by a European country, Zelensky continued, but it wasn't effective, so they "had to change it again and again." He made no mention of the nation.

Zelensky added that "we still don't have anything when it comes to modern warplanes," repeating his long-standing demand for fighter jets. Although Poland and Slovakia have chosen to donate Soviet-era fighter jets to Ukraine, no Western nation has so far agreed to donate contemporary warplanes out of fear that doing so could intensify the conflict and ensnare them further.

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Vladimir Putin was harshly criticised by Zelensky, who called him a "informationally isolated person" who had "lost everything" during the previous year of hostilities.

Zelenskky declared, "He doesn't have allies," adding that it was evident that not even China, the world's largest economy and a longtime ally of Moscow, was prepared to support Moscow any longer. Recently, Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a visit to Putin in Russia, but he didn't publicly declare his support for Moscow's offensive against Ukraine.

Zelensky contended that Putin's declaration that he would transfer tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, closer to NATO territory, shortly after Xi's visit was an attempt to divert attention away from the fact that the Chinese leader's visit had not gone well. Putin claimed that the action was a retaliation for Britain's decision to give Ukraine more depleted uranium ammunition.

Zelenskky stated that despite Putin's nuclear provocations, he does not think the Russian president is ready to use the bomb. He declared, "If a person really wants to save himself, he... will use these." "I don't know if he's prepared to do it."

Meeting with Rafael Mariano Grossi, the visiting head of the UN's atomic energy agency, was on Zelensky's agenda for this week. Grossi visited the area to assess the situation at the nearby Zaporizhizhia Nuclear Power Plant, which Russia seized last year.

The largest plant in Europe has been the target of fierce fighting that has seriously endangered both the facility and the surrounding area. In his Monday meeting with Zelensky, Grossi claimed that nothing was changing.

Although Grossi has called for a "protection zone" to be set up around the plant, he has been unable to come up with solutions that would please both Russia and Ukraine. On Tuesday, Grossi told the AP that he thought a deal was "close." Zelensky, who is against any plan that would validate Russia's control over the facility, expressed less optimism about a deal being close. He stated, "I don't feel it today.

The longest battle of the conflict has been going on for seven months in the eastern city of Bakhmut between Ukrainian and Russian forces.

Some Western military analysts have argued that the city is not strategically important, which raises the question of why Ukraine is willing to suffer so many losses to defend the area. Zelensky disagreed, claiming that any defeat in the conflict would give Russia a tactical advantage. If Russia defeats Ukraine in Bakhmut, he predicted that Putin will try to "sell" a victory to the rest of the world.

Zelensky predicted that pressure would come from both the international community and within his own country. "If he will feel some blood, smell that we are weak, he will push, push, push," he said.

Our society will become weary," he predicted. My society will pressure me to make a concession to them. Zelensky recently visited troops fighting in the severely damaged city of Bakhmut to boost their morale.

Zelensky argued that the sanctions imposed by the West on Russia don't go far enough and demanded that more severe actions be taken against Putin's close associates.

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Sanctions against Russia have been put in place by more than 30 nations, which together make up more than half of the global economy. These sanctions include price caps on Russian oil and limitations on access to international financial transactions.

A total of 2,000 Russian businesses, government employees, oligarchs, and their families have also been directly sanctioned by the West. According to a recent report from the US Treasury Department, assets belonging to Russians who have been sanctioned have been blocked or frozen worldwide to the tune of more than $58 billion.

More should be done, according to Zelensky, to target Putin's supporters because they "have to know that they will lose all their money... all of their properties, whether in Europe or elsewhere,

Zelensky travels by train the majority of the time in Ukraine. There are not many other choices: Road travel in Ukraine is challenging due to the country's size, the suspension of commercial air travel, and the unpredictability of life in a war-torn nation.

However, despite the constant barrage of Russian missiles, the state railway system has remained remarkably stable throughout the conflict. The bombing of the crowded Kramatorsk train station in April 2022, which left dozens of people dead, is one notable exception.

Zelensky travels on a train reserved for him and his delegation, but from the outside it is hard to tell it apart from the blue-and-yellow trains transporting other passengers and cargo across the nation. The majority of Ukrainians barely glanced up as Zelensky's train zipped through towns.