'I am not Amazon' and 'people want to see gratitude': UK minister's comments on Ukraine cause a stir

LONDON — In comments that caused a disturbance connected the sidelines of this week's large NATO summit, the U.K.'s defence caput said helium believed Ukraine's allies wanted to "see gratitude" and that his state was "not Amazon" erstwhile it came to the transportation of weapons.

In Vilnius, Lithuania, Ben Wallace spoke astir the subject needs of Ukraine, which has been battling Russia's full-scale penetration since Feb. 2022.

According to wide reported comments, Wallace said that "whether we similar it oregon not, radical privation to spot gratitude."

"My counsel to the Ukrainians is sometimes you're persuading countries to springiness up their ain stocks [of weapons] and yes, the warfare is simply a noble warfare and yes, we spot it arsenic you doing a warfare for not conscionable yourself but our freedoms," Sky News quoted him arsenic saying.

"I said to the Ukrainians past year, erstwhile I drove 11 hours to [Kyiv to] beryllium fixed a database — I said, 'I americium not Amazon'," helium went connected to add.

Wallace's comments came aft Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed vexation astir the deficiency of a timeline regarding his country's accession to NATO, which helium called "absurd."

Leaders of NATO subordinate states person made wide that Ukraine has a aboriginal spot successful the subject alliance, but that nary enactment tin beryllium taken connected this beforehand portion the state is inactive astatine war.

Zelenskyy has besides repeatedly called for much enactment erstwhile it comes to the transportation of weapons to Ukraine.

In effect to Wallace's comments, the Ukrainian person replied to a question from Sky News by stating "we were ever grateful."

"I didn't cognize what helium meant and however other I should explicit my words of gratitude," helium added.

Wallace's remarks besides drew pushback from his ain premier minister, Rishi Sunak, during a property league astatine the acme connected Wednesday. "I cognize President Zelenskyy has repeatedly expressed his gratitude to maine and to the British radical and, indeed, different allies arsenic well," Sunak said.

Elsewhere, Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksiy Goncharenko tweeted that his state was "really grateful" to Wallace "for everything helium has done for Ukraine."

Goncharenko said the U.K. had "always supported us, they are 1 of our astir important allies. They helped america with weapons (a batch of weapons) and provided humanitarian aid."

—CNBC's Natasha Turak contributed to this report