“We see Russia’s strategy every day: it is scorched earth. They don’t conquer villages, they destroy them,” says Vasyl Khymynets, the Ukrainian ambassador to Austria, to OÖN. As terrible as this is, the diplomat sees the help that is available for Ukraine in Austria as positive. Yesterday in Linz he was able to collect a check with the head of emergency aid at Caritas, Marion Huber.
It was the daily proceeds from Café Traxlmayr’s third Ukraine Day in December. According to Ulrich Traxlmayr, the four Ukrainian employees prepared borscht soup and vareniki (filled dumplings) for the guests that day.
“We are grateful for any help from the neutral country Austria. It helps the people of Ukraine in their fight for survival,” says Khymynets. At the same time, he also welcomes “any initiative that helps to stop the aggressor Putin,” said the ambassador, responding to French President Emmanuel Macron’s statement.
The situation is difficult
On Tuesday, it was quite controversial that he did not rule out sending soldiers to Ukraine. The aggressor must be stopped in Ukraine and he must not advance any further into Europe.
Above all, Khymynets believes it is important to continually remind people in Europe that the “war in Ukraine is ongoing, we can win this war and Putin’s plans will not work.” The situation in Ukraine is difficult because “we have too few weapons and too little ammunition. But the will and willingness to fight for victory is still very strong.”
Europeans should see the recent territorial successes of the Russian attackers “as a signal that Putin is getting closer to Europe with every village. Anyone who doesn’t help now must know that the price of preserving the democratic world is getting higher and higher.”
“Funds are available”
Ukraine therefore urgently needs “longer-range missiles, ammunition, aircraft and means of electronic warfare. These are all available, they just need to be delivered quickly.”
Everyone, says Khymynets, “must know: There is a perpetrator and a victim. If this aggressor no longer exists, there will be no war.” Putin might stop the war immediately if he withdrew his troops.
Author
Eike-Clemens Kullmann
Foreign policy editor, Weltspiegel
Eike-Clemens Kullmann
