Vasyl Myroshnychenko: Ukraine Ambassador to New Zealand and Australia on the signing of security declarations, need for US backing

Ukraine President, Volodymyr Zelensky's looking for further commitment on security guarantees after European nations have signed security declarations in Paris.  

The UK and France yesterday made a commitment to defend Ukraine at a meeting attended by 35 nations. 

Ukraine Ambassador to New Zealand and Australia, Vasyl Myroshnychenko told Andrew Dickens this hinges on the US.  

He says American leadership's instrumental – Ukraine can't achieve peace without US commitment to European security. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
All Right.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
Ukraine's European allies have agreed to provide post war security
for the country once a peace deal is reached. The
so called Coalition of the Willing have agreed to put
boots on the ground in Ukraine the day that peace
is struck. Question is what role would we have to
play because we're part of that Coalition of the Willing.
New Zealand and Australia's Ukrainian ambassador is with us. This

(00:39):
is Vasil mirosh Natchenko. Vasil, good morning to you, Good morning.
How big was the agreement of the Coalition of the Willing?

Speaker 2 (00:46):
For you? It was a milestone, a very important meeting.
Thirty eight countries where represented. Twenty seven of them were
at the level of the leaders, and New Zealand was
represented by its ambassador to France, which is very important.
Different elements were discussed, but definitely the most important one

(01:07):
was the deployment of British and French troops in Ukraine
conditional on a ceasefire, of course, and there were also
some discussions about what the contribution of other members of
the Coalition of the Willing could be and there are
certainly different options of what other countries could do by
providing material support or financial support, or you know, there

(01:30):
are a lot of other issues which have been on
the table and have been discussed. But certainly that was
an important and meeting. Progress is being made after that
a meeting of the Coalition of the Willing two days
in Row. Our Ukrainian team was negotiating with the representatives
of President then Donald Trump in Paris and they continued

(01:52):
that And certainly, but a lot depends on what Russia
is going to do.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
Okay, we'll talk more about what we can do a
bit later on. But first, in that whole meeting, as
Zelenski came out and said, we're ninety percent of the
way to a peace deal. So what is the extra
tamber sent we need to find?

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Security guarantees is probably the most important one. And because
it's not only about the truth, but it's also about
American involvement and all this, and it's important that US
government backset in many respects. Of course, it's it's crucial
because European securities aren't the pan by the US government

(02:35):
in this particular case, and certainly we as Ukraine, as
you know, we have made the biggest contribution to global
peace by once giving up our nuclear weapons. In nineteen
ninety four, we signed a deal which was a Memoran
and Budapest memorandum, and under that deal we received security

(02:55):
assurances from many countries, including Russia and the US and others,
and certainly, as we have seen it, it didn't really work.
So for US, it's important to have legally binding security guarantees,
those that would be take through Congress in America and
that would be real guarantees.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Okay, so well, you've got security guarantees from Europe, particularly
Britain and France. We've got that. That's that ninety percent.
So you're saying the ten percent is getting a similar
security guarantee from America. And considering how America has reacted
over the last year or so and everything that's in
play all over the world, how confident are you that
US will come to play.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
American leadership is instrumental and indispensable in this particular case,
we kind of achieve peace without American commitment to European security.
And certainly, I mean during the past year, Ukraine has
accepted all the offers coming from the US administration on
the peace stocks. As you remember, Ukraine has accepted the
initial proposal back in March on a ceasefire, unconditional ceasefire

(03:59):
before we could continue engaging in diplomatic negotiations. But it
was actually Russia which did not demonstrate any sign of
interest in ego sheating except for a Ukraine's surrender. Nevertheless,
we've gone through the ups and downs in the past
year as Russia has continued actually to shell Ukraine and
hammer our infrastructure, destroying civilian sites such as power generation,

(04:25):
power distribution, and really have not been negotiating in good faith. However,
the diplomatic track is open. There is still hope and
that Russians will accept the terms which are currently being discussed,
the twenty points on a table. Certainly there's a big
documents that are being out there.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
Okay, we're part of the Coalition of the Willing. We've
got representatives there of course in Paris as part of
these meetings. What could and what should we be asked
to do as a country as what should he zeal
to be doing and after a peace deal.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Firstly, i'm personally thankful to Prime Minister Christopher Luxan for
his un favor support and commitment to Ukraine an entire
security commedian of course, a coalition of three parties which
been step fast. And also you know, support for Ukraine
and New Zealand is biparties and we had as much
support from from from from the labor previously and it's

(05:24):
very important to maintain that bipartisan support. Be grateful for
their recent contribution to the Pearl program and pro program
is a prioritize the Ukraine's requirement list under which we
can procure ammunition which is so needed at the moment,
especially missiles for air defense. Russias now sent hundreds and
hundreds of drones and missiles almost every other day. It

(05:46):
doesn't get reported much because it's become a routine. So
probably in this particular case, will will continue appreciating any
military assistance, but as well as you know, military training,
which which New Zealand defense forces are doing under the
TIK program, but also other ways of how we can
work in a multi level system through New Zealand's advocacy

(06:11):
in the Pacific in this respect. But as you can see,
I mean there is so much connection between the security
in Europe and security in the Pacific. What's important is
that Russia has demonstrated that they can use the MC
to change borders and started the war which the world
has not seen since the Second World War. And certainly

(06:35):
Russia count really controls twenty percent of Ukraine's territory. The
fight is ongoing, it's really serious. The front line is
a thousand and kilometers over a thousand kil thousand and
two hundred kilometers, so it's pretty brutal.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
All right, Vasil, I thank you so much for your
time today. Vasila Moroshrinenko is the Ukrainian Ambasaday. He represents
the Ukraine too both New Zealand and Australia.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
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