'You allow me to die': West failing to stand up to 'new Hitler', says ex-Ukrainian PM

4 April 2022, 18:39 | Updated: 4 April 2022, 20:24

Ukraine needs greater support from the West

"Scared" western leaders are allowing Ukrainians to die, the country's former prime minister has declared, as he called Vladimir Putin "a new Hitler".

Oleksiy Honcharuk told LBC's Tonight with Andrew Pierce: "We are ready to fight until the end, but we don't have enough weapons. And you guys have weapons, and you don't provide us weapons.

"You allow us to die, personally me, personally you allow me to die because you are scared. This is a pity.

"We have the same values, we are Europeans and now what we understand about you, you are going to absorb our deaths... you will be next. Putin will go to your homes and will destroy your homes."

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He called Russian president Mr Putin "a new Hitler" who "will go as far as we let him go."

"He is going to destroy a nation, one of the biggest nations in Europe," he said.

Ukrainian forces have been moving into areas around Kyiv in recent days as Russian troops withdraw to focus on attacking other parts of the country.

This led to the revelation that hundreds of civilians have been killed, sparking widespread international outrage.

Ukraine said earlier the bodies of 410 civilians have been found in Kyiv-area towns that have recently been retaken.

Ex-Ukrainian PM demands greater sanctions package

Dead civilians have been found on the streets of the town of Bucha and the Kyiv suburb of Irpin.

Mr Honcharuk said: "This is genocide because for Putin and for Russians the main goal is to destroy Ukrainian state and to kill all possible Ukrainians."

"As they previously mentioned, their main goal is to solve Ukrainian question", he said, adding this "means to kill all Ukrainians they can and to destroy everything Ukrainian... this is exactly what's happening."

He said Russia was "acting like a terrorist organisation, killing civilians" because its war plan was failing.

He urged the West to "stop talking about military support and start providing military support."

Tonight with Andrew Pierce 04/04

Ukraine needs "heavy weapons, anti-aircraft systems, maybe aircraft" to deal with the threat "from the sky", he said, calling the "light weapons" currently being provided "peanuts" and "window dressing".

Mr Honcharuk said eight years ago, when Russia first sent troops into the Donbas region of Ukraine, the West "showed to Mr Putin that he can go as far as he wants to go and now we have this terrible war in the middle of Europe in the 21st century.

"This is a result of your mistake, of the mistake of western leaders... Biden, Obama, Merkel and all these scared people. Now we need to see real leadership in the western world."

He accused the West of "moral decay", saying if it does not stand up to Russia now "they are going to go further, they are going to go to Europe and you will have a war on your territory in a couple of months, maybe years."

He said "what really Mr Putin is scared of is democracy in Russia", adding "they will try to kill all free nations."

"We understand that freedom is a value and we are ready to fight for this value and not only for us, for whole free world," he added. "This is a full scale war in the 21st century against democracy."