Ukrainian Foreign Minister pushes back on Russian demands, says 'Ukraine is seeking membership in NATO'

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Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is pushing back on Russian demands and said flatly that "Ukraine is seeking membership in NATO" during an episode of CBS' "60 minutes."

Kuleba told CBS' Lesley Stahl that Ukraine is not backing down on its ambitions to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on an episode of "60 Minutes" that aired on Sunday.

He also said that Ukraine is not sending "signals" that it's willing to back down on its ambition to join NATO in an effort to meet one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's demands.

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Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba speaks during a joint press conference with Italian Foreign Minister following their meeting in Kyiv on February 15, 2022.  (Sergey Dolzhenko/pool/AFP Via Getty Images)

"We are not sending such signals," Kuleba said, responding to a question from Stahl. "The majority of Ukrainians want Ukraine to become a member of NATO."

Instead, Kuleba said if Ukraine succeeds, the entire democratic world will be safer.

"The only signal we're sending to the world is that if Ukraine succeeds, and if Russia pulls back, it will be much safer for the entire democratic world," Kuleba said.

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He added that the United States has not pressured Ukraine to abandon its plans to join NATO, but said "a few European members of NATO" have pressured them to pull back.

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Kuleba said that a large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine will come with "huge damage on Russia itself."

"Economically, because of sanctions that will be slammed on Russia immediately. Militarily, because we are not the country that will give up. This is our land, we will be defending it," Kuleba said.  "You see, [Russia] tried to suffocate us, destabilize us, and shatter us from the inside for the last 300 years. But they failed. I'm still sitting here with you, a foreign minister of independent Ukraine. We know the threat, we understand it, we learned how to live with it, and we stand for a just cause," Kuleba said.

The comments come amid heightened tensions between Russia and Ukraine, as Russia currently has over 150,000 troops along Ukraine's border.