JAKARTA - Former heavyweight boxing champion who is now the mayor of Kiev Vitali Klitschko said Ukraine would fight for its future amid the heated situation on the border with Russia. He was also speechless with the offer of helmet assistance from Germany, compared to arms assistance from the United States and Britain.
Germany will supply 5,000 military helmets to Ukraine to help defend against a possible Russian invasion. Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said Berlin, which faces growing criticism for its refusal to supply weapons to Ukraine as other Western countries have done, was responding to requests for military equipment, particularly helmets.
"The German government agrees that we don't send lethal weapons to a crisis area because we don't want to fuel the situation, we want to contribute in other ways," Minister Lambrecht said at a joint news conference with British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, citing Reuters January 27.
He added that Germany was also supplying field hospitals to Ukraine and was still seeking a peaceful solution. Earlier, the Ukrainian Ambassador in Berlin had urged the German Government to at least help by sending 100,000 helmets and protective vests.
Meanwhile, Britain's Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said he was not judging other people's decisions.
"Obviously the UK has taken the view that lethal aid of a tactical defensive nature is something that Ukraine needs. But we are not sitting here judging other countries," he said during a visit to Berlin.
In response to this, Klitschko, who lived for many years in Germany and is now mayor of the Ukrainian capital, was not impressed by the offer of a helmet.
"The behavior of the German government left me speechless. The Ministry of Defense does not seem to have realized that we are faced with a perfectly equipped Russian army that could start another invasion of Ukraine at any moment," he told the Bild daily.
"What kind of support will Germany send next?" he was joking. "Pillow?"
He further said Ukrainians would find themselves living in a 'nightmare' if Russia attacked, but insisted that its citizens would fight for their future.
Klitschko thanked Britain for offering military and political support to Ukraine, saying "it would be very difficult to survive" if that aid were to drop in the event of an invasion.
In an interview with the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, he painted a picture of strong defiance among Ukrainians.
"We are not aggressive towards anyone, but if someone comes to Ukraine, we have no other choice (but to fight)," Klitschko said, as reported by The National News.
"We have to defend our country, defend our independence, defend our territorial integrity and we have to fight for our country, for our values, for our future," he said.
Asked how Ukraine would respond if foreign troops appeared on their streets, he said: "It will be a nightmare, it will be an aggressive attack on Ukraine. We don't want to do that but we have no other choice."
He added that Ukraine is a friendly country that has a vision to build itself into a modern European country.
To note, before entering politics, Klitschko was the world heavyweight boxing champion. He is the only boxer to hold the world title in three different decades.
Together with his younger brother Wladimir, they were considered the dominant world heavyweight boxers of their time, when their careers reached their peak between 2004 and 2015.
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