Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov has said that Western countries could have prevented a full-scale Russian offensive against Ukraine. If they had imposed preventive sanctions against the aggressor country and provided Kyiv with enough necessary weapons.
Reznikov wrote this in an article for The Wall Street Journal.
He recalled that Russia attacked Ukraine in 2014, and the world chose not to intervene, and now "Russian bombs are wiping our cities from the ground, and the world couldn't stop them."
"All this could have been prevented. If the West had imposed preventive sanctions against Russia and provided Kyiv with enough defensive weapons, primarily air defense and missile defense systems, tens of thousands of Ukrainians would be alive today," the minister said.
Reznikov stressed that the reaction of Western countries to the Russian invasion of Ukraine was too slow.
"As President Volodymyr Zelensky said, a global response to a crisis of this kind should be immediate, within 24 hours, not weeks or months," the minister added.
And now Ukraine needs heavy weapons to liberate Russian-occupied territory. Otherwise, Russian President Vladimir Putin will not stop.
Oleksiy Reznikov said this in an article for the NYT.
"First of all, we need heavy weapons to defend and liberate Russian-occupied territories. I know that these weapons can be obtained quickly from various countries. All it takes is the will to do it. If you give us these weapons, you will show the world that you are not afraid to confront evil," he said.
Along with weapons, he said, a global embargo on Russian oil and gas, as well as real sanctions against the Russian banking system and trade, should be imposed.
"If you give us all this, in a few months the Russian occupiers will disappear from Ukraine. If not, the war will drag on, and the terrorist state of the Russian Federation will ruin the reputation of world leaders and encourage other renegades to test their strength. The flames of war could spill over to other countries at any moment, because Vladimir Putin will not stop at Ukraine," Reznikov added.
