I was also interested in the answer to Tom's question but from another angle: what does "insist" mean here, given that the Ukrainian government has already been pleading for help for the duration of the war?
Usually if I insist on something then there's some implicit "or else" lurking there, some way to coerce them into doing as I say. Without that coercion it's just begging, and beggars are accustomed to the answer usually being a silent "no."