{"id":2371,"date":"2025-09-04T22:38:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T22:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/2371\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T22:38:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T22:38:10","slug":"western-allies-pledge-troops-to-ukraine-nzs-role-unclear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/2371\/","title":{"rendered":"Western allies pledge troops to Ukraine; NZ\u2019s role unclear"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cAnd it definitely hasn\u2019t gone through Cabinet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PrimePrime Minister Christopher Luxon attended a Paris summit virtually overnight on “coalition of the willing” support for Ukraine. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n

Asked if Luxon would be in a position at the meeting to say \u201cdue process included, we\u2019re part of it, could be part of it, or not\u201d, Collins said Hosking was \u201cspeculating\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Prime Minister\u2019s \u2026 been very clear to me that any such decision would have to go through Cabinet. And he said, it hasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collins held formal talks with Ukrainian Defence Minister Denys Shmyhal, and had engagements with Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, the Office of the President, and Deputy Minister of Defence Oleksandr Kozenko during her time to Kyiv this week, with the public only told after her visit for security reasons.<\/p>\n

Collins \u2013 who travelled with Defence Force<\/a> Chief, Air Marshal Tony Davies \u2013 also paid her respects at the Wall of Remembrance in Mykhailivska Square and visited the site of an apartment building hit by a Russian ballistic missile on June 17, killing at least 23.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeeing the devastating impact of Russia\u2019s illegal war \u2013 the disruption to everyday life, the human cost, the impact on children, the physical destruction \u2013 was heartbreaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DefenceDefence Minister Judith Collins and Tymur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv\u2019s city military administration, view the destruction in Kyiv. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

That what Russia thought would be a three-day war continued more than three-and-a-half years on showed Ukrainians were not giving in, Collins told Hosking.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey do however want this stopped \u2026 they do care about their people, unlike [Russian president Vladimir] Putin.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd as I saw in Kyiv, people being killed in residential properties, apartment blocks, with missiles coming in, just appalling behaviour from Russia and frankly war crime after war crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"UkrainianUkrainian Deputy Minister of Defence Oleksandr Kozenko welcomes Defence Minister Judith Collins to Ukraine. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

Ukrainians loved that they had support from places as far away as New Zealand, but they\u2019ve also listened to US President Donald Trump, Macron and others \u201cand they want to get this sorted\u201d.<\/p>\n

The problem was Putin had let deadlines pass, now had troops from North Korea and \u201che\u2019s clearly supported in the war in many ways by China\u201d, Collins said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean it\u2019s a difficult situation and I think there\u2019s a lot riding on those discussions between the US and the Nato partners, plus also countries like Australia and ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cherie Howie is an Auckland-based reporter who joined the Herald in 2011. She has been a journalist for more than 20 years and specialises in general news and features.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAnd it definitely hasn\u2019t gone through Cabinet.\u201d Prime Minister Christopher Luxon attended a Paris summit virtually overnight on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2372,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,3469,3458,3471,3467,3470,3465,3468,3463,3464,305,302,120,130,111,43,139,69,3272,3459,205,3466,131,2846,61,3460,3461,3462,3457,80],"class_list":["post-2371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-agreed","tag-allies","tag-among","tag-ceasefire","tag-clear","tag-committed","tag-deal","tag-dozen","tag-formally","tag-have","tag-its","tag-likely","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-nzs","tag-pledge","tag-role","tag-sending","tag-than","tag-them","tag-to","tag-troops","tag-ukraine","tag-unclear","tag-western","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}