Ukraine’s Ambassador to Australia discusses latest summit in Europe, welcomes any peacekeeping support

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The UK and France have announced they will send forces to Ukraine in the event of a peace deal after the Coalition of the Willing reached a new agreement on security guarantees in Paris. Australia has previously signalled it would consider sending its soldiers to join in any peacekeeping process in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Ambassador to Australia says his country will welcome any support on offer.

Transcript

00:00it's been a great summit hosted by president macron in paris 35 countries represented 27

00:09at the level of the leaders australia was represented there at the level of an ambassador

00:15it was an important meeting because we were discussing and came up with a plan

00:20of the security guarantees and on the deployment of british and french troops on the ukrainian

00:27territory and we were discussing and our defense people were discussing what kind of weapons will

00:33be put in place the troops and numbers and also what could be the contribution from other members

00:39of the coalition of the willing because of course the key priority is to end this war enforce russia

00:45into ending this war but what was discussed in paris what kind of deterrence we can build to

00:52uh make sure that russians don't reinvade even if they agree to some sort of ceasefire in the

00:58region armistice uh anytime if it happens right but but there is always a talk and what could be the

01:04role of america and how america can support and back this uh security guarantees so i mean given

01:11these developments we did see uh the u.s special envoy for peace steve whitkoff saying the negotiations

01:17over security protocols have largely finished so i guess flowing from that how quickly could we see

01:22peace uh it all depends on russia now and uh and certainly the the negotiations that we will

01:30been engaging in good faith for the past uh year uh have demonstrated that ukraine is a country that

01:37wants to achieve peace as soon as possible but it was russia which has demonstrated many times that

01:42they're not interested in peace they've been continuing the war uh just overnight they've

01:47sent over 60 different drones and missiles to different targets uh they they've been hitting a big

01:55hospital uh just over the weekend in kiev so the you know attacks from russia are incessant uh they

02:02are ongoing it's now winter and uh of course we rely on the leadership of president trump and on the

02:08negotiations we've had with americans and the europeans including this summit in paris and we

02:14hope we can force russia into peace and have them end this war it all depends on russia certainly so

02:20if moscow ends up bowing to this enormous uh international pressure that we're now seeing

02:26both britain and france have declared that they will send peacekeeping troops to ukraine in the

02:31aftermath of a peace deal would you like to see a similar move from australia as well

02:36uh it's what this is exactly what was discussed yesterday in paris what could be the contribution

02:43of other countries of the coalition of the willing and uh and when the right time comes there will be

02:49requests made for any of the australian troops for now the key priority is of course for those based

02:55in europe which includes france and britain and their deployment uh which which which is now on the

03:01table uh australia can certainly contribute to the coalition and willing by supplying air defense

03:07missiles or providing more equipment or making contributions to the pearl program which is

03:12prioritize ukraine's requirements list which australia has recently done and as you know on monday

03:18president zelensky had a phone call with prime minister anthony albanese they he was able to brief

03:23the prime minister on the developments around the peace negotiations uh he briefed him on this upcoming

03:30summit and they had a very good discussion and they have discussed of what else we could do on a

03:36bilateral level to enhance uh the security of both countries because certainly that security of europe

03:44will define the security of the india pacific and there is a clear connection about the regional

03:49security of of australia and we must make sure that a grassroots uh does not it's not rewarded with

03:54any territory or is not seen as being rewarded uh hence we deter any other authoritarian leader in the

04:02region from doing anything similar or following ukraine you know russia's uh path

04:16you

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