WASHINGTON – While U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande were discussing how to resolve the crisis in Ukraine with Ukrainian and Russian leaders in Kyiv and Moscow during the first week of February, Patriarch Filaret, the leader of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate, was in Washington calling on the United States to help his country protect itself against Russian aggression not only with humanitarian assistance but military aid as well.
The patriarch came to the U.S. capital at this time – as he did a year earlier – to participate in the National Prayer Breakfast, a large annual gathering of the world’s religious and other leaders. And he used the occasion of his four-day visit here to speak about his country’s critical needs during his meetings with prominent senators and congressmen, State Department officials and representatives of Washington organizations.
On the first day of his visit here, February 3, the Embassy of Ukraine organized a press conference for him, at which he presented his “religious and moral point of view” about the developments in his country.
He said he came to the National Prayer Breakfast “to pray together for world peace” and to interact and remind American leaders that Ukraine is asking the United States to fulfill its duty as a signatory of the Budapest Memorandum to help Ukraine defend its territory.
Ukraine has proven its peaceful intentions by signing that memorandum and giving up its nuclear weapons, he said. And now the question is “do we have the right to defend our territory or not,” and are not the other signatories of that memorandum – the United States, Great Britain and Russia – obligated to guarantee Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
“We did not attack Russia,” Patriarch Filaret said. “Quite the contrary. Russia intruded into Ukrainian affairs. We are defending our territory and are asking those guarantors to show the world that they will do what they are obliged to do.”
He said, “We came here, on the one hand, to thank the United States for its assistance in defending our territorial integrity, and on the other hand, to ask that it defend this guarantee to the end – that Russia return Crimea to Ukraine and stop the war on the territory of Ukraine.” Patriarch Filaret said that Ukraine is asking the United States to provide it with modern weapons, because at this stage of the war Ukraine is not able to produce them by itself.
He also appealed to Ukrainians living in the United States and elsewhere in the West for their help with donations to help cover the costs of Ukraine’s defense and humanitarian aid for those now suffering from the aggression in the Donbas region. “And to pray to God in their behalf,” he added.
Visiting Capitol Hill, Patriarch Filaret met with Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), and noted for their support of Ukraine in Washington. He awarded Sen. McCain with the Order of St. Volodymyr, First Degree, for his continuous work on behalf of Ukraine.
Patriarch Filaret also focused on Ukraine’s need for American military aid during a meeting on February 6 at the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation with representatives of Ukrainian American organizations in Washington and with two former U.S. ambassadors to the post-Soviet region: William Green Miller, the second U.S. ambassador to Ukraine (1993-1998), and William Courtney, who was the first U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan (1992-1995) and then served as ambassador to Georgia (1995-1997).
During that discussion, Patriarch Filaret suggested that with ample modern weapons and other military equipment received from the West, Ukraine will have the upper hand in fighting against Russia’s aggression in eastern Ukraine. And that is because Ukrainian soldiers are willing to die in their fight to protect their native land, he said – something the Russian soldiers are not willing to do for the sake of acquiring foreign land.