The Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States on Sunday said it’s time for the rest of the world to “step up” as Russia presses its invasion of Ukraine.
In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Ambassador Oksana Markarova, called for more sanctions and a “full embargo on oil and gas.”
“The events of the past 11 days clearly shows that we have to act together, and that Russia can attack anyone being totally unprovoked like they did with Ukraine, so it's time for all of us to step up,” Markarova said.
“I think the focus right now should be ‘what do we do to stop them,’ because unfortunately every large war in the past started locally and we know from the past that all of them could have been stopped locally, so it's time for all democratic civilized world who together with us, stand together with us today, act together with us.”
According to Markarova, the sanctions slapped on Russia haven’t yet stopped the invasion, and instead the aggression has been “escalating.”
“The sanctions should toughen up, so we are asking for full embargo on oil and gas,” she declared. “This is a terrorist state and we should treat Russia as terrorist state, and of course we are also asking to protect the civilians. That's why we need all the support that NATO allies, or individual countries can provide to us.”
“It’s not about Ukraine or it's not only about Ukraine, and it's not even about [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's state of mind,” she said.
“Russia will do everything possible … to get Ukraine back. This is nothing new to us. We live with us for the past 400 years,” she said. “They attacked us, they always supported the pro-Russian government, they tried to install them in Ukraine previously, that's where we had two revolutions of dignity... because we are a democracy — essentially said ‘no, we want to be free, we want to be European, we want to live like we want to live.’That's why they attacked us militarily, that's why they illegally grabbed Crimea… that's why they are killing us now or trying to kill. And they're trying to attack us.”
Fran Beyer ✉
Fran Beyer is a writer with Newsmax and covers national politics.
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