Some countries give weapons under pressure but drag out the process for months - Zelenskyy

Sevgil Musaiieva, Aliona Mazurenko - Saturday, 16 April, 19:20

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that some countries have unblocked the supply of weapons to Ukraine under the pressure of their own people, but the process is being dragged out for 2-3 weeks.

Source: Zelenskyy in an interview to Ukrainian online media

Direct speech: Regarding weapons. In a way, it could be said that there has been a turnaround in the attitude of Western countries with respect to arms supplies to Ukraine.

First, it must be said honestly that from the moment when a particular state openly defends - I mean, defends itself - because at the beginning no one acted quickly… 

And then, when the people themselves, inside this state, ordinary people started putting pressure on them, and they started changing their attitude and giving us weapons or accelerating these processes, then from the moment when they say the decision has been made by their government or parliament (the issue of confirming the supply of weapons to Ukraine has been dealt with in different ways), till the moment when these weapons reach our arsenal, that can take two or three weeks. That is a very long process.

For example, our guys in the Joint Forces Operation or the battle in Mariupol, when people say, we need help now. And it’s a matter of one, two or three days. And people say, that’s all fine, we’ll give it to you in May.

What do they expect? That we have to go on fighting for months, or years? Perhaps some of them do expect that. Nevertheless, for us, speeding up weapons supply is a very important issue.

The rhetoric of some states has definitely changed. It has warmed up, if you can use such a word about armament, about the supply of weapons; it has warmed up in our favour. We have changed this rhetoric.

Some have made changes precisely because of that pressure from their people, and they do not treat us well, they grit their teeth, due to our public rhetoric. And because of that pressure they have also changed the process itself and unblocked supplies in principle.

They didn’t supply anything. They unblocked it in principle. We are getting arms now. We’re not getting much, in my opinion.

Russia thinks we’re getting too much. That’s not a bad result either. I think that the United States, UK, Poland and some other countries are supporting us quite well now. But they could do more. They could do more for sure.