Putin: Ukraine Would Have 'Week to Live' if West Cut Off Supplies

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, October 5, that Ukraine would have a “week to live” if arms supplies from Western countries were to end the next day.

Putin made the remarks during an hours-long live-streamed press conference at the annual Valdai Discussion Club event in Sochi, Russia, while responding to a question from Mikhail Rostovsky, a long-time columnist for Russian state media outlets, about whether Putin would object to Ukraine joining the European Union.

Putin said he would not object, as the EU is an economic alliance and not a military alliance like NATO.

He went on to say that neither Ukraine’s economy nor its military defenses could exist without foreign support.

“Imagine, if deliveries stop tomorrow, they would only have a week to live until the ammunition runs out,” Putin said, according to machine translations of a Kremlin-published transcript and an English translation voice-over on the Kremlin’s footage.

Putin also suggested that Ukraine would be a large financial burden for the European Union. “They would have to feed 19 million people in Ukraine,” he said. “That’s not an easy task. The European countries: are they ready to accept such an economy? They’re welcome to do so. We’ve never objected to that.” Credit: Kremlin.ru via Storyful

Video Transcript

VLADIMIR PUTIN: Opening the Ukrainian market for the European goods would be detrimental to the real economy of Ukraine itself. And involvement of Ukraine in the energy structures of the European Union would have also deprived Ukraine of certain competitive edge. So if you analyze, just analyze that text, Yanukovych was right, and this was used as a pretext for the coup d'etat, just merely a pretext. That's a real crime. But now, this is irrelevant.

The Ukrainian economy cannot exist without external support. The situation is different today. Everything is balanced on the outside. The budget of Ukraine is balanced, the macroeconomic indicators are more or less even. But what helped them do that, it is all thanks to the multi-billion aid, 4 or 5 billion comes every month in loans, grants, and assistance coming to Ukraine. As soon as they stop that, snap, and it all goes down, everything.

The same goes for their defense system. If they stop the assistance, Ukraine would only have one week left, when they run out of ammunition. Even the West is running out of ammo. The US produces 14,000 of shells for 145 millimeter caliber. But Ukraine spends up to 5,000 a month and they can only produce 14,000. Sure, they're trying to expand the production up to 75,000 by the end of next year, but they have to leave to the end of the next year.

The situation in Europe is almost the same. They say it themselves. They say that they have shipped everything. They've delivered all the armored vehicles, all the ammunition, they did everything for Ukraine. That's their own words. They did everything for that. Now it was up to Ukraine. Ukraine should start the counteroffensive. And then closed doors, they say at any price, trust me, I know what I'm talking about. That's what they're doing. They're doing what they can at any price.

So coming back to the issue of the demilitarization of Ukraine, Ukraine is still trying to produce some military equipment but it cannot really do that. Even the unmanned vehicles, the aerial and the submersible vehicles, are all produced thanks to the Western experts and mediators. The European Union is ready to accept such an economy as its member. Well, they are welcome to do so if they believe it necessary.

But in order to support the life of the people, the population that has gone down from 31 million or rather from 41 million to 19.5 million or even less, still, they have to feed 19 million people in Ukraine. That's not an easy task. The European countries, are they ready to accept such an economy? They are welcome to do so. We've never objected to that.