On September 7, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba gave an interview via conference call to Central Asian media outlets.

Dmytro Kuleba stressed that Ukraine had always been determined to develop friendly relations with the states of Central Asia.

“To date, I only visited Kazakhstan and in a personal capacity. I have the warmest impressions about Kazakhstan. I always dreamed of visiting Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and enjoying your culture, your cuisine, trying to give new positive dynamics to relations with your tour. Then the war started,” he said.

He sincerely hopes that "after the war we would be able to implement all this, return contacts to their former level, restore communication between people, student exchanges, infrastructure projects and trade."

“That is, everything that normal countries do in peacetime to help each other and develop together based on the principles of mutual respect and national interests,” Dmytro Kuleba said.

He stressed that by attacking Ukraine, Russia committed a grave crime.

“I think you will agree that nothing can justify the murder of 382 children who died from Russian weapons in this war. That is how many children we have lost since February 24. This is not counting the 1,000 Ukrainian newborns that Russia had taken to inner Russia, they are forcibly distributed among Russian families. Ukrainian law enforcers have already registered more than 32 thousand cases of crimes committed by Russian troops of Russian soldiers during the aggression. And these numbers, to my greatest regret, continue to grow,” he said.

Dmytro Kuleba said that it was very difficult for Ukraine now.

“But the main thing is that we withstood the first and most terrible thrust, the thrust following which, according to all assessments, including our partners, Ukraine should have collapsed. But Ukraine held out, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin failed, and I assure you, Ukraine will never be crushed now, no matter how he fantasizes about it.”

“Why? Because the entire Ukrainian people rose up to fight the Russian invaders. And no one in history has ever won a war against the people. Instead of running away from the Russian tanks, the Ukrainians lined up at the military registration and enlistment offices. Our army has grown more than five times since the beginning of the full-scale war.”

“We have already managed to expel the invaders from the north of the country, we continue to expel them from our land in other directions, primarily in the south and east. Nobody says it will be easy. Each step is given with great difficulty, but we will go through this path,” he said.

The Minister stressed that Ukraine never wanted war.

“We never planned to attack anyone, no matter what they said on Russian television. Why would we attack someone? We have never needed foreign land or foreign resources. We have everything we need. And we will never, once again, never give up our lands to the invaders and will never forgive the murders, rapes, looting, torture and other terrible crimes that the Russian army brought to Ukrainian soil,” he said.

Dmytro Kuleba urged to be critical of information from Russian sources.

“Today, Russia is using propaganda to hide its operations in order to absolve itself of responsibility for crimes. But anyone who turns a blind eye to the Kremlin aggressive policy today or finds some justification for it, in fact, those are inviting Russia to their homeland. I am convinced that, despite all the trials, Ukraine will endure and win,” he said.

He also spoke about the stancr of the countries of Central Asia to the war in Ukraine.

“Why does President Putin remain shaking hands in Central Asia? Because, obviously, your leaders, your government understand that Russia is a threat, not a friend, and that you need to be as careful as possible with him. I have no moral right to give instructions on how to build ties with Russia to this or that country. But I can absolutely calmly, with full moral right, say that the first thing to do in order to protect your national interest is to cast aside the fear of Russia. We have passed this way. This is very painful. But we all need to understand this.

“I hope that you also understand this, that as soon as the first opportunity appears in Russia to destroy your state, as she tried to destroy ours, she will take advantage of this. They also believe that you are an artificial formation. Everything that Putin says about Ukraine, tomorrow he can start talking about Kazakhstan - you know what processes Russia is trying to spin in Kazakhstan - in Uzbekistan, in Kyrgyzstan, in Tajikistan. Your nations with a thousand-year-old culture, where centers of science and philosophy flourished, when Moscow was still an impenetrable forest - all this does not matter to them. So don't let Russia weaken you and don't let Russia use you," the Foreign Minister said.

In addition, he recalled Russia's attempts to establish mechanisms for circumventing sanctions through countries, including the countries of Central Asia.

“And we are working with your governments, both independently and with partners, so that in no case do you fall for this trick, so that Russia does not use you. Because the mechanism of sanctions pressure on Russia for its crimes will only intensify. And now we are placing special emphasis not only on the application of new sanctions, but also on tightening control over the circumvention of sanctions. Look: even reputable Chinese companies are refusing to deal with Russia, because they understand that they can fall under sanctions, lose much more.”

“In this area, you need to be very careful and understand that whatever the potential benefit from helping Russia to circumvent sanctions may be, the losses from the measures that will be taken in response to such actions will be much higher. I'm not saying right now that any of your countries are already helping Russia bypass sanctions. You just don’t have to let yourself be used,” Dmytro Kuleba concluded.