Kyslytsya: If Europe doesn’t fund a strong Ukrainian army, it will pay triple the price

Ukraine's First Deputy Foreign Minister Sergiy Kyslytsya stated this in an interview with Ukrinform.

“If they bury their heads in the sand, the same thing that happened to Ukraine will happen to them. History is cyclical—Europe has seen this in various centuries, though the level of technological sophistication in warfare and politics was different,” he said.

Kyslytsya cited historical examples such as the Soviet Union’s invasions of Finland and Poland, and the deployment of Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia.

“That’s why, if some hedonistically inclined European citizens hope this will simply pass… If they do nothing, it won’t pass. They’ll have to pay double or triple the price, because if they don’t want to fund a strong Ukrainian army and help us defend them, they’ll have to build up their own,” he emphasized.

The First Deputy Minister expressed his belief that Europe in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s had sunk into a state of “deep hedonism,” enjoying the benefits of social welfare, partly at the expense of responsible attention to its own security.

As previously reported, Finnish President Alexander Stubb stated that security guarantees for Ukraine would signify the readiness of European countries to confront Russia if it launches military action against Kyiv again in the future.