Ukrainian official ups urgency for more weapons: ‘Nice and quiet diplomacy didn’t work’

Ukraine’s top diplomat said in an interview published Wednesday that he plans to sharpen his rhetoric in requests to Western allies for more weapons.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba stressed the urgency of getting military aid to the front lines and resolved to change his approach.

“Nice and quiet diplomacy didn’t work,” he said to the Post.

Kuleba said he hopes a tougher approach will break through with Western allies, whose aid to the war-torn country has declined in recent months. In the United States, Congress has been sitting on a roughly $60 billion aid package for Ukraine that President Biden requested at the end of last year.

“Yes, people may hate me, and I may ruin the relationship,” Kuleba told the Post. “The other part of me is saying diplomacy is all about private relations. But then I told that part to shut up, and the part of me that wanted to speak out started speaking up. We’ve tried everything, and nothing seems to work.”

Kuleba said the U.S.-designed Patriot air defense system is the country’s top priority. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tasked Kuleba with trying to convince countries to give Ukraine its spare systems.

Kuleba’s sharper rhetoric has been evident in some of his recent interviews.

Late last month, in an interview with Politico, Kuleba said, “Give us the damn Patriots.”

“If we had enough air defense systems, namely Patriots, we would be able to protect not only the lives of our people, but also our economy from destruction,” he added.

Congress returned to Washington this week after a two-week holiday recess. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has said he plans on putting a Ukraine aid package on the floor for a vote, but he has yet to say publicly what that package would include.