Vasyl Myroshnychenko: Ukrainian Ambassador to New Zealand and Australia ahead of Zelenskyy's visit to the White House

European leaders are flocking to the White House to present an iron-clad defence of Ukraine's interests. 

The US is scaling up pressure for the war-battered Ukraine to agree to terms with Russia for ending the war, after this past weekend's Alaska summit. 

This could involve ceding territory to Russia, including Crimea - and ending its pursuit of NATO membership.  

Ukraine's Ambassador to New Zealand, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, says NATO would provide security guarantees, and possibly boots on the ground. 

He also explained we need to create conventional strategic weapons, other equipment and a strong army to deter Russia from future invasions. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Killer duper see Allen.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
We are only hours away from the big Ukraine meeting
at the White House. Selenski is set to meet with
Trump and he's bringing with a hype squad of European leaders.
This has obviously discussed Putin's demand. Vessel Mroshnichenko is the
Ukrainian ambassador to Australia and New Zealand and with US
now Vessel welcome back.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Hi.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Are you guys prepared to give up? Don bess.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Well, I think it's the wrong question, because it's not
about the giving up, it's about the people who live
there and about their future. And you have to understand
that Russians have invaded Ukraine eleven years ago and they
came back with much bigger war because they got emboldened
by the very weak reaction and they wanted to finish
the job. They wanted to take over a Kiev in
three days and occupy Ukraine in three weeks. They failed miserably.

(00:47):
We defeated Russians as a approaching Kiev and three and
a half years later overwhelm million casualties later, mostly on
the Russian side, but many Ukrainians have suffered a lot
as well. The only control thirty percent of the territory.
So what can we achieve by rewarding an aggrasser. But
rewarding a grasser, we're going to get more aggression. Of course,

(01:09):
we want peace more than anybody else, but we didn't
start the war. Russian studied the war. So we have
to work together with America, with Europe, with New Zealand
and Australia in forcing Russia to stop this war. And
Russia understands it is only hard power, and we have
to demonstrate the power which is in unity, because unity
is with strengths.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Okay, how do you think, I mean, how much of
a make or break is it not belonging to NATO,
because that's off the table according to Trump.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Well, what we are talking about is about security guarantees
because Russian has invaded US twice already in the past
eleventy years. And you know, majority of Russians support this war.
They won't put him to finish the job, but he
cannot deliver, so he cannot subjugate entire Ukraine. Now he
will probably get inspired to do that later. For us

(01:59):
to prevent that from happening, we need to have strong
military and we need to have strong economy. But on
the military side, we need to create conventional strategic have
conventional strategic weapons and other equipment and strong army to
deter Russia from the invasion in the future. Of course,
we'll need support of the Europeans, perhaps you know, boots

(02:22):
on the ground from France in Britain. That would be
kind of like stabilization forces which will deter Russians from
an invasion in the future. And Americans must be committed
as well.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Does this not frustrate you? It frustrates me endlessly that
the Europeans have such strong opinions about what Ukraine needs
to do on Europe's behalf, and they're prepared to drop
everything and fly over to the White House to make
sure that Zelinsky does the right thing, but when it
comes to actually putting boots on the ground, they failed
to do it.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Well, it's not really true, to be frank, because European
Union is the biggest donor of Ukraine. They have provided
over one hundred and billion euros in assistance. They continue
supporting Ukraine very heavily. We are on the pass towards
European integration. But what is at stake for New Zealand
Because Look, Russia is a permanent member of the UN
Security Council. Russia has nuclear weapons, and they decided to

(03:08):
destroy democracy next door because the fact that Ukraine is
on the map as an independent country is the root
cause of war. This is what Putin is saying, because
the only threat that Ukraine has is that we are
democracy and he's the dictatorship, and that was a threat
to his regime, which I agree with, right, But the
fact that he could do it and he could invade
the country open up a Pandora box. Because other dictators

(03:31):
are watching that and they're going to use it as
a president. They're going to use it as a blueprint.
And they also have nuclear weapons and they have large armies,
and they will be changing borders because if Russians can
get away with even technically controlling twenty percent of Ukrainian territory,
which we may end up with, you know, we will
never see the territory, but they may end up controlling

(03:52):
that land, just as Soviet Union controlled lith and Estonia
during the Soviet Union. Right. But it's very dangerous for
New Zealand because for a small democracy, you know, you
don't have any protection except for rules based international system,
which is this mental I understand.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
The argument, yep, I understand the argument, Vessel. I appreciate
your time as it always do. Thanks so much, Vessel Maroshnichenko,
who is the ambassador of Ukraine to Ozzie and New Zealand.
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