SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
Washington: Australia’s ambassador to the United States, Kevin Rudd, has invoked the effort to help Ukraine in his Anzac Day address in Washington, warning that dictators respect strength and exploit weakness.
As the US contemplates walking away from its ally amid faltering attempts to broker a peace deal, Rudd said one of the messages from the Anzac story was that defending freedom took human, physical and individual courage.
“Freedom is indeed indivisible, and that means that as free peoples, we cannot, by conscience, be indifferent to the enslavement of others,” he said from the pulpit of the grand Washington National Cathedral.
In an Anzac Day address at the Washington National Cathedral, Australian ambassador Kevin Rudd said one of the messages from the Anzac story was that defending freedom took human, physical and individual courage.Credit: Screenshot via X
“These were hard messages 100 years ago … these are also hard messages today when we reflect on our brothers and sisters in Ukraine.
“For once freedom is yielded, dictators then press their advantage. Dictators throughout history have respected strength just as they have been contemptuous of weakness.”
Rudd did not mention US President Donald Trump or Russian leader Vladimir Putin by name. He said one could only be humbled by the courage of “hundreds of thousands, indeed millions of young Ukrainians” fighting on the battlefield to defend their country in “an existential struggle for national survival”.
“Belief in freedom is one thing, having the courage to defend it is another,” he said. “Courage is not a feeling lying somewhere in the pit of your stomach, it is a moral decision to act, potentially at great cost to yourself.
“That is why we salute each of you in uniform today in this great gathering … that is why each and every one of us is called to reflect on whether we too have the courage to act in freedom’s defence, wherever and whenever it is threatened again.”
The Washington service was attended by military personnel from Australia, New Zealand and the US, as well as former Australian ambassadors Joe Hockey and Arthur Sinodinos and the wider Australian community.
Rudd’s comments come at a vexed time for Ukraine as the Trump administration warns it is close to abandoning peace negotiations and potentially US military support for the country, three years after Putin’s full-scale invasion.
Earlier in the week, Trump complained about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s statement that Ukraine would not recognise Crimea, which the Kremlin annexed in 2014, as Russian territory, then later expressed his frustration at a Russian attack on Kyiv, posting on social media: “Vladimir, STOP!”
US Vice President J.D. Vance outlined a plan that involved in effect freezing current territorial lines and said if both parties could not agree, it was time for the US to “walk away”.
Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, met Putin for three hours on Friday (Saturday AEST) to advance talks, and Trump, having landed in Rome for Pope Francis’ funeral, said negotiations with both sides had been productive.
“They are very close to a deal, and the two sides should now meet, at very high levels, to ‘finish it off’,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Most of the major points are agreed to. Stop the bloodshed, NOW. We will be wherever is necessary to help facilitate the END to this cruel and senseless war.”
Ukraine’s leadership has drafted a counterproposal to the Trump administration plan, The New York Times has reported, that doesn’t insist that Ukraine join NATO, instead saying its accession would depend on a consensus of members, and leaves territorial issues to be discussed after a full ceasefire.
However, the Times says, it calls for no limits on the size of the Ukrainian military, the deployment in Ukraine of a “European security contingent” backed by the US, and the use of frozen Russian assets to repair war damage in Ukraine, which are likely to be objected to by Moscow.
A senior Ukrainian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Times that if Zelensky goes to Rome for the Pope’s funeral, he might try to present the counterproposal to the US president personally.
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