KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s foreign minister said Sunday that
Kyiv would not buckle at
talks with Russia over its invasion, accusing President Vladimir Putin of
seeking to increase “pressure” by ordering his nuclear forces on high alert.
اضافة اعلان
“We will not
surrender, we will not capitulate, we will not give up a single inch of our
territory,” Dmytro Kuleba said at a press conference broadcast online.
Fighting raged
Sunday in
Ukraine on day four of a Russian invasion that has sent shockwaves
around the world.
Ukraine said it
would hold talks with Russia “without preconditions” at its
Belarus border
after Moscow had earlier demanded Kyiv’s military lay down their arms before
negotiations could begin.
Ukraine’s forces
have put up fierce resistance and claim to have inflicted heavy damages on the
Russian military.
Kuleba said that
after it “suffered losses and realized their plan did not go as it was
designed, their blitzkrieg failed, Russia started speaking with the language of
ultimatums, saying they are ready to talk with preconditions.”
“As the Russian
army experienced one defeat after another, the preconditions, the ultimatums of
Russia were put aside and they conveyed the message to us that they just want
to talk,” he said.
Kuleba said that an
announcement by
Putin ahead of the talks that he was putting Moscow’s nuclear
“deterrence forces” on high alert was meant to rattle Kyiv.
“We see this
announcement and this order... as an attempt to raise the stakes and to put
pressure on the Ukrainian delegation,” Kuleba said.
He said the threat
of nuclear weapons “will be a catastrophe for the world but it will not break
us down”.
Ukraine has
launched a major diplomatic offensive to rally international allies as Russia
bombards cities across the country.
The efforts have
helped prompt a string of
NATO countries commit to sending weapons and push the
West to impose draconian sanctions on Moscow.
A coalition
including the EU,
US and Britain announced Saturday that it would cut some
Russian banks off from the SWIFT global banking system and “paralyze” the
assets of
Moscow’s Central Bank.
Kuleba insisted the measures should be as sweeping as
possible and that the international community should go after Russia’s major
exports oil and gas. “We need immediate
steps to impose full financial isolation on Russia,” he said. “We also demand to impose a full oil and gas
embargo on Russia.
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