The Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, addressed Europeans asking them to take specific actions and named the three shortest ways to achieve peace.
"We appreciate all the words of admiration, but we ask for particular actions: providing Ukraine with heavy weapons, imposing tough sanctions against russia, and granting Ukraine EU candidate status. These are the three shortest ways to peace," - said the Head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine during the Vienna Conference "Time to Decide on Europe," which addressed the problems of war and post-war reconstruction of Ukraine.
At the same time, Kuleba noted that political will in key capitals is the only thing needed for these steps to work.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine (MFA) emphasized that russia's war against Ukraine concerns not only our country but the whole world and Europe in particular. Therefore, he appealed to Europeans to work together against russia.
"If hypothetically, Putin succeeds, he will go further. So help us stop him now so that you don't have to deal with him on your own later," - he said.
The Vienna Conference "Time to Decide on Europe" was organized with the support of the ERSTE Foundation and the Institute for the Humanities (IWM).
There were five critical issues of the event:
- How to rebuild Ukraine after the war?
- What lessons can we learn from the Balkans?
- Is it the time of Central Europe in Europe?
- How will the European Union be transformed?
- What will be the future of russia?
The President of Austria, Alexander Van der Bellen, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, Harvard University professor Serhiy Plohiy, former Deputy Prime Minister of Macedonia, Nikola Dimitrov, the Head of European Stability Initiative (ESI) in Berlin Gerald Knaus and others took part in the conference.