Volodymyr Zelenskiy: Russian troops are laughing at and ‘hunting’ Ukrainians

Exclusive interview: Ukrainian president says US delaying use of western weapons on targets inside Russia has cost lives

Joe Biden's delay in sanctioning the use of western weapons against targets in Russia has left the Kremlin's forces laughing at Ukraine and able to hunt" its people, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has told the Guardian.

In a wide-ranging interview in Kyiv, the Ukrainian president said that the White House's equivocation had cost lives and he urged the US president to overcome his perennial worries about possible nuclear escalation" with Moscow.

New US weapons had still not arrived in sufficient quantities to equip additional Ukrainian brigades in the north-east, where Russia is advancing.

Vladimir Putin was similar to Adolf Hitler, saying: Putin is not crazy. He's dangerous, which is much scarier."

He had asked the former British prime minister Boris Johnson to lobby Donald Trump in the run-up to a vote in the US Congress in April to approve $61bn in aid to Ukraine, which hard-right Republicans had opposed.

The UK Labour leader, Keir Starmer, whom he met in Kyiv last year, was a good guy". He added, after a pause: Rishi [Sunak] is also a good guy."