to prevail, ukraine needs more western weapons, in particular modern battle tanks. but germany remains reluctant to send in the leopards. well, my guest is ukraine s foreign minister, dmytro kuleba. are ukraine s strategic options being narrowed by wavering amongst western allies? foreign minister dmytro kuleba in kyiv, welcome to hardtalk. it s my pleasure to be with you. it s great to have you back on the show. i m sure you watched very closely what happened in ramstein, germany, when ukraine s allies met at defence minister level to discuss new weapons supplies to ukraine. what appears to have emerged is yet more uncertainty, particularly about whether you re going to get tanks. how damaging is that uncertainty? the meeting in ramstein itself was the quintessential moment of weeks of different talks and negotiations and also public appeals, so everything that was not decided in ramstein, including main battle tanks, will be decided within a short term perspective. i m abso
an official request to the german government. now on bbc news, hardtalk s stephen sackur speaks to ukraine s foreign minister dmytro kuleba. welcome to hardtalk. i m stephen sackur. in deep mid winter, ukraine is taking stock of wartime options. in the short run, kyiv is trying to repel relentless russian attacks around bakhmut in the east. but very soon, other more significant thrusts and counter thrusts are likely. to prevail, ukraine needs more western weapons, in particular modern battle tanks. but germany remains reluctant to send in the leopards. well, my guest is ukraine s foreign minister, dmytro kuleba. are ukraine s strategic options being narrowed by wavering amongst western allies? foreign minister dmytro kuleba in kyiv, welcome to hardtalk. it s my pleasure to be with you. it s great to have you back on the show. i m sure you watched very closely what happened in ramstein, germany, when ukraine s allies met at defence minister level to discuss new weapons supplie
to send in the leopards. well, my guest is ukraine s foreign minister, dmytro kuleba. are ukraine s strategic options being narrowed by wavering amongst western allies? foreign minister dmytro kuleba in kyiv, welcome to hardtalk. it s my pleasure to be with you. it s great to have you back on the show. i m sure you watched very closely what happened in ramstein, germany, when ukraine s allies met at defence minister level to discuss new weapons supplies to ukraine. what appears to have emerged is yet more uncertainty, particularly about whether you re going to get tanks. how damaging is that uncertainty? the meeting in ramstein itself was the quintessential moment of weeks of different talks and negotiations and also public appeals, so everything that was not decided in ramstein, including main battle tanks, will be decided within a short term perspective. i m absolutely confident about that because we continue our work. we hear more and more important messages coming from di
fine. while they are making decisions, we continue our fight. and it s true, it s a sad truth, but i have to say that every day of a protracted discussion in one of the capitals, or in some capitals, means that more ukrainian soldiers will die because of the lack of weapons and more. hang on. that s important. are you saying those deaths are germany s responsibility, that ukrainian blood right now is on german hands? i think it would be unfair to put all the responsibility on berlin and cover their hands with ukrainian blood. germany has done a lot to support us militarily, including with state of the art air defence systems. but it will be fair to say that
ukrainian soldiers will die because of the lack of weapons and more. hang on. that s important. are you saying those deaths are germany s responsibility, that ukrainian blood right now is on german hands? i think it would be unfair to put all the responsibility on berlin and cover their hands with ukrainian blood. germany has done a lot to support us militarily, including with state of the art air defence systems. but it will be fair to say that if germany makes decision on tanks, it will save many lives of ukrainian soldiers, it will speed up liberation of ukrainian territories and, therefore, also ukrainian civilians living under occupation and suffering from russian presence.