The West does not provide Kyiv with all the supplies it needs because the former has "long lived in the dogma of not provoking Russia," Ukraine's defense minister said.
In an interview with the Spanish daily La Razon, Oleksii Reznikov said that this was also the reason behind the decision not to give Ukraine membership in NATO during the alliance's 2008 summit in the Romanian capital Bucharest.
According to him, the US and the majority of European states were in favor of giving membership to Kyiv, but then German Chancellor Angela Merkel opposed the idea and persuaded other states in this regard, which Reznikov said resulted in the annexation of regions in Ukraine and Georgia by Russia.
"The second mistake was believing that if there was a military clash, a small Soviet Army would face a much larger one and be defeated. Well, we are not a Soviet country with a Soviet Army," the Ukrainian defense minister said.
With regards to what the Ukrainian army currently needs, Reznikov said that weapons, especially air defense systems, are a priority in order to break Russian "air dominance."
He further said that he thinks the threat of nuclear war by Russia is a bluff.
In response to a question on whether Ukraine is a de-facto member of NATO, he said that Kyiv is using NATO standards and weapons in their military, as well as "great interoperability" in terms of intelligence and training among other technicalities.
"After this war, only the political decision to be a de jure member will remain. Russia is NATO's greatest threat for the next 10 years, as established at the Madrid summit, and no one like us has had direct experience in fighting and defeating them. What better reason than that? They need us," he said.
Reznikov also touched upon the leak of Pentagon documents related to the war in Ukraine, saying that the documents are a mixture of truth and lies, and are part of a "special disinformation operation."
"I don't know who made it, but it benefits Russia. The main objective of the operation is to undermine trust between the allies," he said.
