Sussan Ley says Ukraine occupied by ‘Soviet Union’
In a slip of the tongue, the opposition leader said Ukraine was illegally occupied by “the USSR”, which was formally dissolved over 34 years ago.
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has accidentally said the government should support the illegal occupation of Ukraine by “the Soviet Union” in an awkward slip of the tongue, 34 years after the USSR was formally dissolved.
At a press conference in Albury on Friday, Ley was questioned on the provision of 49 Australian Abrams tanks, donated for use on the frontlines in Ukraine, and responded by saying the government needed to support Ukraine against the USSR.
However, Ley said the government should support the occupation of Ukraine, rather than the defence of the nation currently fighting Russia, and then used the name of the old Cold War superpower.
“The government should always stand ready to support the illegal occupation of Ukraine by the USSR, by the Soviet Union, and unfortunately, it’s taken too long to provide this support in the form of the Abrams tanks,” Ley said.
“We will always stand there to encourage the government and push the government to do more and to do more sooner,” she said.
A spokesperson for Ley’s office said the Liberal leader had erred, intending to reference Russia, not the former Soviet Union, when she called for more support for Ukraine.
The official transcript was amended later in the day to read: “The government should always stand ready to support illegal occupation of Ukraine by [Russia].”
Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union until the USSR was dissolved on December 26, 1991.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the fall of the Soviet Union as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century”, with many interpreting his comments as a stated desire to see the union reformed.
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Putin’s illegal incursion into Ukraine on February 22, 2022 has been observed as an attempt at reclaiming territory lost by Moscow in 1991.
While politicians are often well rehearsed on their talking points, minor gaffes do occasionally occur. In early 2025, one of Labor’s most experienced media hands, then-employment minister Murray Watt, misspoke and told Seven’s Sunrise that he believed the date of Australia Day should be changed, a significant shift government policy.
Asked “Should the day stay or should the date change?” Watt said: “No, I think the date should change Eddy. That’s exactly the position of the government.”
He immediately corrected himself, saying: “We’ve said repeatedly we don’t want to change the date, and I’m not surprised to see that percentage of people in Australia say we should keep the date in place.”