Photo via @CNN/Twitter
February 25, 2022, 12:27 pm
Video of a CNN interview with former Ukraine president Petro Poroshenko from the middle of the war-torn nation is moving people across the world as horrifying reports of casualties roll in from the Russian invasion. One part in particular shows CNN correspondent John Berman asks him how long he thinks the Ukrainian resistance to the attack can hold out.
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After a pause, and as Poroshenko seems to try to hold back his emotion, he gives a single-word answer: “Forever.”
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“I think Putin will never catch Ukraine, no matter how many soldiers has, how many missiles he has, how many nuclear weapons he has. We Ukrainians are free people with a great European future.”
Unfortunately, the ex-president also highlighted the fact that Ukrainian resistance forces are currently suffering from a severe shortage of weapons, showing Berman some of the guns that were being used by both the army and volunteers. He claimed that they didn’t have enough arms to pass out to all the people who he said are lining up to join the fight, and are lacking the kind of heavy artillery that Russia is rolling up to their doorstep.
“We don’t have any heavy artillery, we don’t have any tanks, we don’t have an armed personal carrier because we launched this process just a couple days ago.”
He further claimed that many of the new volunteers have no experience in armed combat, saying that this was evidence of how much the Ukrainian people “hate Putin.”
Poroshenko only returned to Ukraine a month ago after facing charges of high treason for allegedly selling millions of dollars worth of coal to help finance Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk and Lugansk in 2014 and 2015. He is a businessman and one of the richest people in all of Ukraine, and led the country through years of fighting between his country and Russia as he attempted to join the European Union. However, in spite of making motions to combat corruption in government, he soon faced severe accusations of exactly that crime.
In 2019, he lost his presidency in a landslide upset election to current Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
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Perhaps trying to prove his loyalty to Ukraine, he is now back and involving himself in the resistance to the most recent Russian aggression against his country. He may be relieved to hear that for the first time in history, the NATO Response Force has been activated in order to assist Ukraine with defense forces and weapons as Russian forces advance on Kyiv.
“I just want to declare Putin will not stop Ukraine in our movement to the European Union,” Poroshenko said in another part of the CNN interview. “That is exactly why we shall secure Ukraine today, to support Ukraine we will stand tomorrow.”
Many who are supporting Ukraine have been moved by his statements and show of emotion.
You have admire these brave Ukrainians
— RAM (@ron_rmac) February 25, 2022
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This is so sad. So scary. So unwarranted and avoidable. I was 5 when civil war broke out in my country. I was 12, when we finally fled. The horrors still live with me today at 35. My heart goes out to the children of Ukraine
— Chantal.F
(@Chantal1010) February 25, 2022
*First Published: February 25, 2022, 12:27 pm
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