LONDON — In comments that caused a stir on the sidelines of this week's major NATO summit, the U.K.'s defense secretary said he believed Ukraine's allies wanted to "see gratitude" and that his country was "not Amazon" when it came to the delivery of weapons.
In Vilnius, Lithuania, Ben Wallace spoke about the military needs of Ukraine, which has been battling Russia's full-scale invasion since Feb. 2022.
According to widely reported comments, Wallace said that "whether we like it or not, people want to see gratitude."
"My counsel to the Ukrainians is sometimes you're persuading countries to give up their own stocks [of weapons] and yes, the war is a noble war and yes, we see it as you doing a war for not just yourself but our freedoms," Sky News quoted him as saying.
"I said to the Ukrainians last year, when I drove 11 hours to [Kyiv to] be given a list — I said, 'I am not Amazon'," he went on to add.
Persons:
Ben Wallace, Russia's, Wallace
Organizations:
NATO, Sky
Locations:
Vilnius, Lithuania, Ukraine, Kyiv