ABC News
‘We are capable of winning,’ says Ukrainian parliament member
Kelly Livingston – April 24, 2022, 10:34 AM
As the people of Ukraine continue to defend against a Russian onslaught, Yevheniia Kravchuk, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, says the nation is still looking for three main things from the United States: heavy weapons, sanctions on Russia and financial aid.
“We need more weapons… Because right now Russians are putting artillery, tanks, everything they have, and also they bombed civilians to terrorize the whole country,” Kravchuk told “This Week” Co-Anchor Martha Raddatz. “As long as we’re getting more than we burn every day, we are capable of winning and we’re capable of kicking Russians out because that’s the way how to end this — to end this war.”
Last week, President Joe Biden announced another $800 million to aid Ukrainian military efforts in the Donbas region and said he will send a supplemental budget request to Congress to keep supporting the nation. The new aid includes artillery weapons, anti-air missiles and helicopters.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also announced Thursday the department would provide an additional $500 million in financial aid.
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Kravchuk, a member of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s party in the nation’s parliament, said it’s important that the U.S. provide the offensive weapons “because it’s sort of a green light to other countries in Europe, for example, to give these weapons as well.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that Russia had taken the eastern city of Mariupol, a claim Ukrainians have pushed back on with 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers holed up in a steel plant as they continue to fight.
There have also been reports of 120,000 civilians still trapped in the besieged city.
Last week, just four buses and a few private vehicles were able to escape the city — the first to leave in about two weeks.
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“Is there any chance for [a] humanitarian corridor at this point?” Raddatz asked.
“Yesterday Russians did not let the humanitarian corridor to work,” Kravchuk said. “Hundreds of people were gathered at one point to go out of Mariupol and Russian soldiers just came and said no, we’re not allowing this to happen.”
She said Russian soldiers are making “forcible deportations” out of Ukraine to Vladivostok, a Russian city thousands of miles away.
“And we do not know how to bring them back to Ukraine. They have pulled these people from Mariupol — they are put to filtration camps,” Kravchuk said. “It’s sort of something that can’t be happening in the 21st Century. And we really hope that maybe with help of other Western leaders, other leaders of similar worlds, we will be able to take out the kids and women who are still in the basements of this factory and inside of Mariupol.”
Zelenskyy has announced that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will arrive in Kyiv on Sunday to discuss the logistics of providing more military assistance. U.S. officials have yet to confirm the visit.
Asked by Raddatz about the significance of that visit, Kravchuk called it “a really, really symbolical and powerful signal to Russia that Ukraine will not be left alone with this war.”