Makeiev in “Early Start”
“We need the fighter jets”
05/30/2023, 09:49 am
Will Germany end up delivering Eurofighters to Ukraine? Ukrainian Ambassador Oleksii Makeiev says: Nothing is unrealistic. In addition, a clear plan is needed for Ukraine’s full membership of NATO.
The Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany, Oleksii Makeiev, has renewed his call for Western fighter jets and also commented on German Eurofighter fighter jets. “We need everything to protect our people. For three weeks we have been experiencing the worst attacks by Russian drones and missiles in Ukraine,” said Makeiev in ntv’s “early start”.
“Every day, every night, Kiev is shelled,” Makeiev said. “You can imagine: the city of three million hasn’t slept at all for three weeks.” Asked if it is realistic that Germany could deliver Eurofighters to Ukraine in the future, Makeiev said: “There is nothing unrealistic for Ukraine and we need the jets.”
Ukraine is currently talking to its German partners about the training of Ukrainian pilots: “What this coalition will look like and what aircraft our allies will make available to us can be clarified during the negotiations, but it is understood in every capital in Europe and the United States States that Ukraine needs this support,” Makeiev said. The Ukrainian Defense Minister Resnikov said in a newspaper interview that Germany and Great Britain could pool their Eurofighter capacities.
“We protect Europe from imperialist aggression”
Asked about the NATO summit in Lithuania in July, Makeiev said: “We also expect Germany to play a leading role here in Vilnius in July.” He assumes “that Germany will be among the active countries so that Ukraine gets a precise plan for NATO membership. We are still living in the formulations of 2008.” At the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008, Ukraine’s accession to the alliance was put off, also at the instigation of then Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Asked what a plan for his country’s NATO membership could look like, Makeiev said: “This plan clearly states what steps Ukraine still has to take so that at the end of this path Ukraine will be a full NATO member We are waiting for this clear political message in Vilnius.” After the war, Ukraine’s NATO membership is seen as the only real way to protect the country from further Russian incursions.
With regard to the defense alliance, the Ukrainian ambassador also emphasized: “Today, Ukraine is actually doing what NATO was created to do one day: We protect Europe from Russian, Soviet, imperialist aggression.”
“Russia must leave all the occupied territories”
Makeiev emphasized that the war could only end if Russia left all the occupied territories: “Russia has to leave all the occupied territories. Then we’ll also negotiate how Russia will pay reparations.”
Asked about the Russian-occupied Crimea, Makeiev said: “Crimea is part of Ukraine, as are Luhansk and Donetsk and the newly occupied areas of Russia. We have to liberate our people from this occupation.” Makeiev stressed: “Crimea is part of Ukraine, we are not giving a single piece of land to the Russians.”