Australia news live updates: Marise Payne says calling Russian troops peacekeepers is ‘obscene perversion’
Foreign affairs minister says any suggestions Kremlin has a legitimate basis for actions are ‘pure propaganda’ and Australia could impose more sanctions if tensions escalate further. Follow all the day’s news
Koch:
Ukraine is not in our backyard. China is. It has always had eyes on Taiwan. Do you think they are watching this closely and the world’s reaction to Russia as they have Taiwan in the back of their mind?
I believe China is of course watching this very carefully and that is why I have been at pains to say that China needs to take as strong as a position as other countries in denouncing what Russia is doing.
We need to be clear, there is no pretext, there is no provocation, there is no just cause that Russia is seeking to pursue, I have seen the statements made by the Russian buster in Australia and I completely reject them.
So we are saying that China should not even think about Taiwan?
We have always said so and it is important that they seek to play to a much larger global role, with the responsibilities that go with that, to denounce bullying and threats of violence against other countries for the purpose of seeking to control them. That is what coercion is! Four we cannot do much in terms of sanctions because we don’t have really big trade ties with Russia, unlike Europe,
Most Australians could not find Ukraine on a map. It is not in our backyard, why do we need to take a tougher stance?
This is about the sovereignty of countries, we have got a very large country in Russia which is bullying and threatening its neighbour and telling them the decisions that they have to make ...
This is not how the world should work. This is not how the rule of law and international law can work. Ukraine itself is not a member of Nato but, even so, when you have a country that is bullying and seeking to use force and threats of violence to get its own way against another country, that is not something that Australia could ever support.
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