and economic assistance still urgently required. well, my guest is one of ukraine s deputy prime ministers, olha stefanishyna. is ukraine getting the backing it needs? deputy pm olha stefanishyna, in kyiv welcome to hardtalk. hello, stephen. thank you very much forjoining us. now, over the last few hours, you have been heavily involved in hosting the leaders of france, germany and italy in kyiv. the meeting, as we speak, is still ongoing. does the fact of this visit give you hope that you re finally going to get the levels of assistance from europe that you say you need? well, we have been very clear from the very beginning that regardless the outcomes of the negotiations, which are in fact are still ongoing for the third hour already between the leaders, regardless of these outcomes, this visit is already historical and it will be historical not only because of their physical presence here, but also because the historical issues on the agenda. first and foremost, these are
Text reading this text you are very well this text you are the United Nations says that israel has warned all palestinians in the northern portion of the gaza strip to relocate to the south of the territory in the next 2a hours. A spokesman for the un says the Military Warning was directed at more than a million palestinians. And it comes as Israeli Forces say they have dropped 6,000 bombs on targets within in gaza since fighting broke out. Israel has cut off fuel, water and electricity supplies to more than 2 Million People in an effort to force hamas to release some 150 israeli hostages. Amid the destruction on the ground, the un also warns some 50,000 pregnant women in gaza are unable to Access Essential Health services or clean water. Israeli tanks were seen gathering thursday along the boundary with gaza signs of a possible ground invasion. Meanwhile, the confirmed death toll continues to rise. Gazas Health Ministry says at least 1,537 palestinians have been killed in israels reta
so amount of suffering, which is unbearable, you cannot even imagine that which is happening on our soil these days. so nothing, nothing could be done to make sure that the beginning of the negotiations to start with understanding that we have no other way to overcome and to restore our territorial integrity and to make sure that russia is accountable, first and foremost, for the crimes. so nothing in this negotiations should lead to legitimization of this war, and this should be clear for everybody. 0lha stefanishyna, i thank you so much forjoining me on hardtalk from kyiv. thank you.
all right, but the spirit behind that question is also, look, he talks about brotherly love for the nation of ukraine, we have a common history, common roots, our languages are similar and so on why doesn t he take that approach with ukraine, to try to bring them a bit closer and have good neighbourly relations? well, he does, he does. he keeps talking about ukraine being a brother nation, etc. we have a disconnection of narratives. we have the russian narrative about ukraine, which sees ukraine as far right country that is trying to suppress russian ethnic rights, etc, etc, and then we have the ukrainian narrative about russia, which sees russia as an imperialist aggressor that is trying to swallow ukraine, etc. so what we have is a complete disconnection of the two narratives. the two sides are talking at each other, and not with one another. is that right, 0lha? absolutely right, and your question brought me back to the recent press conferences by putin,
for ukrainian people, we stand for their values, and if we don t, then we have double standards. kristina kvien, acting ambassador for washington here in ukraine, why should the us care about ukraine? first of all, we want a europe that s whole free and at peace, and we ve wanted that for a long time. it s in the us interest, it s in europe s interest, and it s in the global interest. i think that ukraine, any country has the right to choose its own path. ukraine has made very clear that its path is western integration. eu, nato and western integration and no other country outside of ukraine should be able to make that decision for them. carl bildt, maybe take 0lha s point what do you think is the point of the build up of the russian troops? is it a real danger orjust a way of getting attention from the world? well, both, absolutely. putin is clearly building up a lot of military forces and he has presented political demands that are impossible, i mean, very, very far reaching,