Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba urged Western partners to lock Russia "in its borders under lock and key" The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmitry Kuleba gave an interview to RBC-Ukraine.
In it, he said that the Russians should be pushed "into their borders and locked up." The Ukrainian Foreign Minister also expressed the opinion that the approval of the transfer of the Patriot air defense system to Kiev was a "psychological turning point." The diplomat believes that it looks like a computer game - Ukraine seems to be going through "levels", receiving weapons that were previously denied.
The head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Dmitry Kuleba, called on the West to isolate Russia instead of trying to change it. He stated this in an interview with RBC-Ukraine.
"The main thing for me now is to confirm in the partners the understanding that no matter what the government in Russia is, Russia will not change in its essence, our task is not to turn an orc into an elf, but to extinguish this aggression," he said.
Kuleba believes that it is necessary to push the Russians "into their borders and lock them up." To do this, the Ukrainian authorities have recently been increasingly calling for Russia to be excluded from the UN Security Council. But since the country remains a permanent member of the council, this is impossible - Russia has the right of veto, Moscow reminded earlier.
In the same interview, Kuleba said that the supply of Patriot air defense to Kiev from the United States is a "psychological turning point."
He stressed that the Ukrainian authorities fought "for more than a year for Patriot, and they got it."
"Providing Patriot is not just another decision, it is a psychological turning point. For from the first days when we started talking about Patriot with Americans, we heard "no". And the fact that this happened is another evidence that another taboo has been lifted, another wall has fallen," the diplomat is sure.
On December 21, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky visited Washington, where he met with his American counterpart Joe Biden. Against the background of this meeting, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced that a new package of military assistance worth $ 1.85 billion will include one installation of the Patriot system, RIA Novosti writes.
Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the American side had informed Russia through diplomatic channels that it did not plan to send specialists to Ukraine to train the military to manage Patriot systems.
"We asked the Americans through channels that our embassy still has, whether the decision to transfer the Patriot battery, given the complexity in its use, means that American specialists will be there. They explained to us at length enough that this is not planned," Lavrov said in the Big Game program on Channel One.
He stressed that Washington made such a decision "precisely because the Americans do not want and will not fight directly against Russia."
According to US representatives, Patriot complexes will be put into operation for several months until the Ukrainian military masters this technology, the minister added.
"The limited number of Patriot batteries that will be sent to Kiev, with the rapid depletion of other Ukrainian air defenses, means that they may be extremely vulnerable, and the absence of American or other NATO forces accompanying the systems leaves them unprotected," the article notes.
Patriot is one of the key elements of the integrated US air defense system. Various variants of the complexes differ in range - from 30 to 160 km, as well as in their purpose. There are modifications that are designed to intercept ballistic missiles.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier that the supply of Patriot air defense systems is delaying the conflict in Ukraine.
"Those who oppose us proceed from the fact that this is supposedly a defensive weapon. Well, we'll just keep that in mind. And there is always an antidote. So those who do it are doing it in vain. It's just a prolongation of the conflict, that's all," the head of state told reporters after a meeting of the State Council on December 22.
He also noted that Patriot is "a fairly old system." "It doesn't work like, say, our S-300," Putin says. He also believes that the Russian troops will "snap and Patriot."
New weapons for new levels
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmitry Kuleba compared the supply of weapons from Washington with a computer game, where the next levels are other weapons that the United States refuses to supply.
"Patriot, of course, is good, but what do we have there with tanks and ATACMS? When we get tanks and ATACMS, I think they will say that this is, of course, good, but what about aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines when we get them?" - the diplomat asked in a conversation with RBC-Ukraine.
On December 21, Zelensky asked Biden during negotiations to hand over ATACMS long-range missiles to the APU, but he only heard a refusal, Politico writes, citing a source.
At the same time, ATACMS is not the only weapon that Ukrainian representatives demand. On December 30, Kuleba also stated that the Ukrainian military lacks Western IRIS-T air defense missiles supplied by Germany. According to the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, stocks have run out in the warehouses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine "due to the fact that this is a completely new system," RIA Novosti writes.
Kuleba's statement was made despite the fact that on December 15, the German government reported on the transfer to Kiev of additional missiles for IRIS-T (their number was not specified), as well as 30 thousand shells of 40 mm caliber.
Angelina Milchenko
