The Prime minister of Ukraine has warned that there will be a “Third World War” should it lose its ongoing conflict with Russia even as he called on the US Congress to pass a long-stalled foreign aid bill.
Denys Shmyhal when speaking to newsmen on Wednesday expressed “careful optimism” that US lawmakers would pass the hotly contested measure, which has $61bn (£49bn) earmarked for Kyiv.
Africa Today News, New York can confirm that the House of Representatives is set to vote on the package this Saturday.
The proposal includes funding for Israel as well as the Indo-Pacific.
Speaking to reporters yesterday, Prime Minister Shmyhal said of the US security assistance: “We need this money yesterday, not tomorrow, not today.”
“If we will not protect… Ukraine will fall,” he added. “So the global, the global system of security will be destroyed… and all the world will need to find… a new system of security.
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“Or, there will be many conflicts, many such kinds of wars, and in the end of the day, it could lead to the Third World War.”
This is not the first time Ukraine has issued such an alarming warning about the consequences of its potential defeat.
Last year, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that if Russia won the conflict, it could next invade Poland, triggering World War Three.
But Kremlin officials have ridiculed such claims as Western scaremongering. Last month President Vladimir Putin dismissed suggestions that Russia might one day attack Eastern Europe as “complete nonsense”.
Russia has never attacked a country within Nato, which includes Poland. Nato’s collective defence pact means that an attack on one member constitutes an attack on all.
In Wednesday’s interview, Prime Minister Shmyhal was asked about a recent claim by Republican House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul that members of his own party were being “infected” by Russian propaganda.
Some of those lawmakers have objected to sending tens of billions of dollars in aid overseas, without first passing funds for US-Mexico border security.
These conservatives have also dismissed as smears any suggestion that they could be Kremlin dupes.