After he gave remarks at the United Nations, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said US President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin all assured him that the “United States will stand by Ukraine, whatever happens.”
Biden, Blinken, Austin, and Kuleba all met in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, and the Ukrainian foreign minister spoke to reporters outside the General Assembly chamber after his remarks at the UN in New York City today.
Kuleba said the American leaders also assured him that the United States will continue to provide Ukraine with defensive weapons to build out their military capacity and that they would place more sanctions on Russia.
“I would like to assure you that we would be happy if we never have to pick up those weapons and use them in the battlefield. We want peace. But if Russia attacks, we have to be equipped to fight back,” Kuleba said. “We appreciate for example, the sanctions which were already imposed … but this is not enough. And our partners should not wait for Russian rockets to hit Ukrainian soil or Russian planes to cross into our airspace.”
He added that he “cannot fully be satisfied” until “the last Russian soldier withdraws from Ukrainian territory.”
Kuleba also called Russian criticism of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ statements on the conflict “unprecedented” and asserted that in doing so, Russia wants the United Nations to “become obsolete.”
“Today, Russia openly attacked the secretary-general of the United Nations, and by doing so, it demonstrated that it attacks the United Nations at a whole. And I believe that all member states who share the principles of this organization in good faith, should stand by Ukraine, and should stand by secretary-general,” Kuleba said. “If the United Nations tolerates such an attack, it will be only the United Nations who will suffer the most and…who will end up discredited and un-respected.”
The Ukrainian ambassador said he believes Guterres should continue to lead and that members of the United Nations should consider their “entire toolkit,” particularly those actions that do not require approval of the United Nations Security Council — of which Russia is a permanent member. Kuleba said actions such as increasing humanitarian efforts in the Donbas region could be among the tools the UN utilizes.
CNN’s Laura Studley contributed reporting to this post.
