Joint press conference with Ambassador of Ukraine to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko, RAAF Base Amberley

PETER DUTTON: 

 

I’m really proud to be here at Amberley today. I want to say thank you very much to you Ambassador; thank you very much for being with us. It’s a great honour to have you here. You’re a great friend of Australia and we’re very proud that you’re here and we’re able to work very closely with the Ukrainians and to answer the call of the Ukrainian President Zelenskyy to have these Bushmasters despatched to Ukraine as quickly as possible. Ambassador Myroshnychenko has been a very significant presence already. He has conveyed the messages of the Ukrainian Government in a very effective way. So we’re very happy to work with him. I’m also very pleased to be here with Major General Scott Winter, who’s been instrumental in pulling all this together.

 

We’re going to gift 20 Bushmasters to Ukraine and the idea will be to provide that support to keep people safe and to repel the Russians as quickly as possible from the Ukrainian territory. I might hand you over to the Ambassador now and then we’re happy to take any questions from there. 

 

VASYL MYROSHNYCHENKO: 

 

On behalf of President Zelenskyy and on behalf of all the Ukrainian people, I’d like to thank the Australian Government and the Australian people for this gift of 20 Bushmasters. It’s going to be of great help to our personnel, military personnel in Ukraine, as well as one ambulance vehicle which will be extremely helpful for us. 

 

Ukraine is a like minded country for Australia. We do now understand, and myself – I’ve just arrived two weeks ago – the concept of mateship. I think that the President’s call to help us with these kind of vehicles was received in less than a day, and in the Ukraine it was still the same day he asked for the Bushmasters in the morning; he got a confirmation by the end of the day that he will get them. And I think this is really, this mateship that we now understand and the support we appreciate. 

 

Ukraine is going through very difficult times. The number of military and civilian casualties is staggering. The war crimes of the Russian military is appalling and we, too, need to prop up our military capabilities to be able to repel the Russians to be able to protect the sovereignty and integrity of our country, and we are very pleased that Australia is helping us with that. We do hope that we’ll be able to force Russians out of the country, that we can get back to normal life, that we can get back to the reconstruction of the country and we can focus on rebuilding the country. Thank you. 

 

PETER DUTTON: 

 

Happy to take any questions. 

 

QUESTION: 

 

Minister, exactly what will these Bushmasters do? What do they do for our forces usually and what will they do for the Ukrainian forces? 

 

PETER DUTTON: 

 

The strength of the Bushmaster is its design, and the V-shaped hull as you know was very beneficial to us in the Middle East for 20 years when we were involved there. We watched a lot of tragedy unfold, soldiers injured in theatre, American soldiers for example and others in vehicles that weren’t just up to what was required, and the Bushmaster with the V-shaped hull allows an explosion for that energy to be dispersed and for the crew inside to have the best possible chance of survival. 

 

It’s not a tank. It can’t fully deploy to the frontline, but it can move people around, particularly as we’re seeing reports of Russian forces laying landmines etc, this will be a very crucial element of keeping the troops safe and movements of people etc. It’s served us very well. 

 

We have got a great relationship with Thales and I want to thank you very much to the men and women of Thales who have quickly painted and prepared 20 of these vehicles to be despatched and the first three will be in the air today.  

 

QUESTION: 

 

How much do they cost?  

 

PETER DUTTON: 

 

Overall it’ll cost about $50 million – over north of $2 million a piece – and again the technology and the design, the structural steel that’s involved, it’s quite phenomenal. 

 

QUESTION: 

 

I understand Australia has a surplus of them.  

 

PETER DUTTON: 

 

In our fleet we have about 1,000 Bushmasters and we can work with Thales to replace these that are being sent away, so there’s no impact on our operational needs or requirements. It’s just fortuitous that we had a number that we could get quickly painted and despatched.  

 

QUESTION: 

 

How will the Bushmasters be getting from where they’re dropped in Europe to the Ukraine?  

 

PETER DUTTON: 

 

Not something that we would comment on. As I said before, we’ve already sent a number of loads of defence material, of support and equipment to Ukraine, and we’re able to stage that into Europe and get it into the country from there with our partners. 

 

QUESTION: 

 

Is there much training required to operate them?  

 

PETER DUTTON: 

 

No, there’s not. Ideally we would have trainers there and we’d go through a program with the Ukrainian forces, but that’s not possible during of the conflict. So Defence I think has shown their usual ingenuity and innovation. They’ve put together a video in their language – in the Ukrainian language – and they’ve allowed the training to take place virtually. So I think that’s pretty remarkable, and people will be trained up within a matter of hours to be able to drive these vehicles. 

 

QUESTION: 

 

Can you tell us much about what happened I guess behind the scenes after the request was made Minister?  How was that able to happen so quickly and how did that proceed?  

 

PETER DUTTON: 

 

Well, obviously we had been talking within the National Security Committee about what additional support we could provide. We want the Russians out of Ukraine as quickly as possible. We want to protect and defend the women and children of Ukraine. We want the war crimes to stop and the equipment that we’ve been able to provide over a number of weeks now has met the requests of the Ukrainian Government. It’s also dovetailed into the support that’s been provided by our allies, and we’ve coordinated very closely with them. 

 

We looked, once President Zelenskyy had made the request, at what stocks we had available. I spoke to the Chief of the Defence Force and we were able to identify that we could send 20. The Prime Minister and I worked very closely together on what the number should be, how quickly we could send them, and we just determined to get them out of the country into Ukraine as quickly as possible. 

 

QUESTION: 

 

When will the rest be delivered to Ukraine do you expect?  

 

PETER DUTTON: 

 

There are three, not four on this flight and that’s to do I’m told with other equipment on board, with fuel load etc. So we’ll have a drum beat probably of about every four or five days, and there may be other commercial options that become available to us, that aren’t there at the moment, but the 20 will be over the next few weeks.  

 

QUESTION:

 

Will you expect more weapons to be sent to Ukraine as well?  

 

PETER DUTTON: 

 

If there’s a requirement to provide more support, then Australia is prepared to consider all of that. There’s obviously been a lot of humanitarian support that we’ve provided. It’ll also be a big ask of the developed world to contribute to the rebuild within the Ukraine. The shelling of residential areas, the destruction of facilities, of government buildings, of all of that infrastructure – which has been the second tragedy followed obviously by the human tragedy – it will take a lot of money and support to rebuild, and Australia will be there with Ukraine during that stage as well. We hope that we get through the war stage into the rebuild stage as quickly as humanly possible. 

 

QUESTION:

 

What [inaudible] Australia holding Putin accountable for war crimes we’re seeing over there?  

 

PETER DUTTON: 

 

Australia, as I said before, is a country that’s benefited greatly from working with allies and sticking together with countries of similar values around the world. We’ve fought alongside our allies over many decades and we’ll continue to do that because we can’t take what we have in our country for granted, and war criminals need to be held to account. 

 

The ICC and other bodies have the potential to investigate. I’m sure that that evidence is being put together at the moment. So all we would urge is that if there is evidence of war crimes, then action is taken against Russia as quickly as possible. We want to see the Ukraine back to normal as the Ambassador says, we want to see women and children and men getting back to their way of life in Ukraine. That’s the want of Australia. 

 

QUESTION:

 

Ambassador, we know that this sort of capability has allowed Ukraine to pivot from a defensive operation to an offensive operation that’s already claimed some of the Ukrainian forces [inaudible] what is your understanding as to what is happening with all of that?  

 

VASYL MYROSHNYCHENKO: 

 

I’m not sure that I completely understand it correctly…this is not used for…we have Major General Winter here who can comment on how this vehicle is being used, but it’s commonly used for the transport of personnel and that’s protected against the landmines which are out there and, of course, because there is one which is an ambulance, we’ll be able to transport those who are wounded from the battlefield. 

 

You know the Russian military has mined big parts of Ukraine as they have withdrawn from the northern part of Kyiv. This whole area is now very dangerous. I have to tell you that as they were withdrawing from Bucha [inaudible] laying booby traps in private houses where they stayed. They’ve left some explosives with the dead bodies, so that more casualties out there. And we have to deal with that, we have to demine it. So these kind of vehicles will be very handy for this in terms of these purposes. 

 

QUESTION:

 

What kind of support like this – what kind of an impact does that have on the Ukrainian people and morale?

  

VASYL MYROSHNYCHENKO: 

 

It’s a very strong sign of support. Many countries are now sending weapons, equipment, their defence systems; some even have sent their tanks to Ukraine. We of course need more of them, but every time there is a shipment like this, that’s received very well within the Ukrainian armed forces. It boosts their morale. It helps them see that the world is supporting them and it really, really feels good to be here right now with you to be witnessing this. 

 

QUESTION:

 

Would you like to see more support from us?

 

VASYL MYROSHNYCHENKO: 

 

I have to tell you, yes, and the reason is very simple; Ukraine cannot change its geography. We are always going to have Russia next door. We now of course have to protect our integrity and sovereignty, so we need to keep them out of Ukraine, but to move forward, we really need to have very strong and capable military forces to be able to defend ourselves in the future.

 

[ends]