Ukraine’s top diplomat in Canberra has declared the Russian Ambassador should be “expelled” from Australia.
The Ukrainian Charge d’Affaires Volodymyr Shalkivskyi says he would like the Morrison government to take a diplomatic stand against Aleksey Pavlovsky to deliver a message to Vladimir Putin.
Fifteen days have passed since the Russian President began a broad attack on his country’s smaller neighbour, which has been met with fierce resistance from Ukrainians.
Mr Shalkivskyi spoke of the conflict in an address to the National Press Club on Thursday afternoon before he took questions from Australian journalists.
He said he was not in a position to be “diplomatically polite” while his parents were spending their nights in a bomb shelter in Kyiv.
“I’m a diplomat. I have to play along my diplomatic narratives. I do what I can in order to play it,” he said.
“But when you have more than 50 children killed in your country due to the shelling, yes, I’d like Russian ambassador to be expelled.”
Mr Shalkivskyi declared his home country would not surrender, saying there was high morale on the ground even though people were preparing for a long term war.
“Putin truly believed people would greet (Russians) with flowers. Instead, they were met with Molotov cocktails,” he said.
“You cannot win a war against a free people determined to fight for their freedom. There is no way we will give up.”
In a rare media appearance in January, the Kremlin’s envoy to Canberra told Australian journalists the amassing of Russian military forces on the Ukrainian border was not a threat of invasion.
“Our troops are not a threat … They are a warning to Ukraine not to take any reckless military adventures,” Dr Pavlovsky claimed at the time.
Dr Pavlovsky has held the Russian ambassadorship to Australia since May 2019.
Mr Shalkivskyi, who has been in his diplomatic post since last year, called on the federal government to do more to support Ukraine.
“I‘d like to have a boycott of all the Russian supplied goods and services in Australia, I’d like to stop any shipping companies to enter Australia’s territorial waters,” he said on Thursday.
“We have to use all means that we have in our power, in our disposal, in order to fight back including in the diplomatic field.”
However, he stopped short of criticising the Morrison government and said it was its decision to make regarding Dr Pavlovsky’s position.
The federal governmxjmtzywent has committed to $70m in military aid and $35m in humanitarian aid to Ukraine in the wake of the conflict, and indicated additional financial support is possible.
NCA NewsWire has contacted Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne and the Russian Embassy in Australia for comment.
