SECRETARY BLINKEN: Good afternoon.
Let me just start by saying how wonderful it is to be back in Germany for what is I
think my sixth time as Secretary of State.
There are reminders of my country’s partnership with Germany everywhere in this city, including
right here in this building.
This bank administered the Marshall Plan funds that helped rebuild Germany and Europe after
World War II.
We knew that a secure, prosperous, and democratic Europe was strongly in the interests of the
United States, Europe, and the world.
That was true then.
It remains true today.
Here in Berlin five months ago, I gave a speech about Russia’s impending aggression against
Ukraine.
Our intelligence revealed that President Putin was mobilizing for war, and to frame the stakes
and prepare our partners, I laid out why that would be so dangerous for the people of Ukraine,
for the people of Europe, indeed for people around the world.
I said that Russia was taking aim not only at Ukraine, but at the fundamental principles
of peace and security that were established in the wake of two world wars and the Cold
War that one country can’t simply change the borders of another by force or subjugate
a sovereign nation to its will or dictate its choices or policies.
A few weeks later, the war began.
Today, it enters its fifth month.
Thousands of civilians, tens of thousands of soldiers have been killed or wounded.
Cities have been flattened.
Millions of Ukrainians have fled their homes.
Beyond Ukraine, the global food crisis has spiked due to the war.
Russia has destroyed Ukraine’s agricultural infrastructure, including its second-largest
grain terminal earlier this month.
It’s blockading Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea, preventing crops like grain and corn
from being shipped worldwide.
There are about 25 million tons of grain stuck in Ukraine because of this Russian blockade.
We spent some time today in the G7 meeting and then in the extraordinary session convened
by my German colleague on the growing food insecurity crisis that has been accelerated
by Russia’s war of aggression and the steps that countries are taking to address it.
These months have been brutal for Ukraine.
They’ve been very difficult for countries and people around the world, and the truth
is it’s likely to stay that way for some time.
So let’s recall for a minute what we’re working to do and why we’re working to do
it.
First, we are helping Ukraine survive as a democratic, independent, sovereign state.
The UN Charter promises that to every country.
Russia, as a permanent member of the Security Council, is violating that charter every single
day.
Ukraine is fighting with extraordinary courage.
A war that President Putin thought would be over in a matter of days has now stretched
on for months.
They’re fighting not just for themselves, but for all of us, because if Russia gets
away with violating the fundamental principles that are at stake, it’s not just the Ukrainian
people who will suffer.
It will drag us back to a much more dangerous time, a much more unstable time.
It will send a message that these principles are somehow expendable, and that would make
many countries around the world vulnerable to the very aggression to which Ukraine is
now subject.
Yesterday, I authorized a drawdown of up to $450 million in arms and other equipment from
the U.S. Defense Department inventories, including high-mobility artillery rocket systems, tens
of thousands of additional rounds of ammunition for artillery systems that Ukraine has already
received, including howitzers and patrol boats to help Ukraine defend its coast and its waterways.
This is now our 13th drawdown for Ukraine’s defense since August of 2021.
That brings our total military assistance to Ukraine to more than $6.1 billion since
the war began.
We’re giving Ukraine the support it needs to defend itself.
For as long as it takes, we will continue to do so.
There have been recent reports that Russia’s limited military gains in eastern Ukraine
are sparking concerns in Europe and beyond about the war’s trajectory, so let me be
clear about a few things.
First, Ukraine is defending itself with extraordinary courage and resilience, and Russia has already
lost.
President Putin’s objective, in his own words, was to eliminate Ukraine as a sovereign,
independent country.
That effort has failed.
A sovereign, independent Ukraine is going to be around a lot longer than President Putin
is on the scene.
In terms of its military campaign, Russian forces failed badly in their attempt to capture
Kyiv.
Due to stiff Ukrainian resistance, Russia has dramatically altered its strategy.
It scaled back its near-term objectives and focused instead on capturing territory in
the east to try to shift the momentum and allow President Putin to falsely claim victory.
But while Russia has made slow, painful gains in one region, those gains have been far from
decisive, and they’ve come at extraordinarily high cost.
Public reports indicate that tens of thousands of Russian troops have been killed or wounded
since the aggression began, and Russia continues to lose a large number of tanks, aircraft,
ships, equipment, munitions.
Even if Russia succeeds in capturing more territory, it will inherit cities and towns
that its own artillery have turned to rubble and a local population that hates it.
It will have to content with an increasingly assertive and well-armed Ukrainian force.
Russia’s become mired in a war of attrition of its own making, and despite what you hear
from propagandists in the Kremlin, our intelligence indicates that Russian military continues
to suffer from low morale, high casualty rates, equipment failures, and leaders who are afraid
to tell the truth about what’s really happening on the ground.
Second, we’re raising the costs on Russia to bring the war to an end more swiftly through
unprecedented sanctions and export controls.
Economists predict that Russia’s GDP will contract by between 10 and 15 percent this
year.
Moscow’s prevented an economic meltdown so far by taking extraordinary measures to
prop up its currency, but those tactics are unsustainable as the full impact of Western
sanctions and trade restrictions begins to take hold.
Access to credit will dry up.
Manufacturing will decline.
Shelves will remain empty.
Unemployment will rise.
Without access to global finance, technology, and commerce, Russia’s long-term economic
potential, its ability to project military power, its capacity to deliver a high standard
of living for its people, will badly degrade.
Even as Russia benefits from higher oil prices in the near term, it won’t over time as
Europe significantly reduces its oil imports and Moscow can’t replace energy production
equipment because of export controls.
Likewise, the Kremlin can’t spend its money on the things that it really wants, like advanced
defense and aerospace components, that have also been limited by export controls.
Meanwhile, we’ve seen now more than a thousand foreign firms flee the country, withdraw their
investments.
More will likely make the same decision as the effect of sanctions and export controls
continues to compound.
We’ve also seen many of Russia’s best and brightest leave the country as well, including
highly educated professionals in the tech and energy fields and foreign experts who
used to call Russia home.
Maybe all of this is why the Russian Government stopped publishing key economic data in April.
Our information indicates that around half of Russians recently reported that their household
economic situation has worsened since the war began.
Eventually the Russian people will have to ask themselves: Is this war worth the cost?
Why are we doing this?
How is this in any way improving my life, my children’s lives?
Third, we’re working to end global dependence on Russian energy, which the Kremlin has used
as a tool of coercion for far too long.
The EU pledge to cut Russian oil imports by 90 percent by the end of the year and to ban
EU firms from carrying Russian crude is a strong and courageous act.
We know that carrying it out will not be easy.
Germany, for example, has just taken new measures to conserve energy to help address rising
fuel prices.
But in the end, moving away from Russian oil and Russian energy means breaking free from
Moscow’s grip, and that will ultimately make life better for the people of Europe.
Fourth, we’re strengthening our own defenses.
At the NATO Leaders Summit next week, we will endorse a new Strategic Concept to ensure
that NATO is prepared to face emerging threats over the next decade.
We’ll announce new force posture commitments to strengthen NATO’s eastern flank and its
defense and deterrence.
And, of course, we’ll pursue Finland and Sweden’s applications to join the Alliance
in light of the Kremlin’s war on their neighbor.
President Putin wanted to weaken NATO with this war.
Instead, NATO is stronger, more united, and on the cusp of enlarging.
We all wish that we could say with certainty when this war will end.
The days ahead are not going to be easy.
But we must and we will stay resolved to stand up to Russian aggression and defend Ukraine’s
sovereignty and independence.
President Putin used to claim that this war of aggression toward Ukraine was somehow about
a threat that Ukraine or NATO posed toward Russia.
But that’s not what this is about; it never has been, and President Putin now forthrightly
acknowledges it.
He recently compared himself to Peter the Great and said that when Peter waged a war
with Sweden, he was simply taking back what belonged to Russia.
Now, he said, Russia is again looking to take back what is theirs.
He stopped pretending this war of choice is about Russia defending itself from a manufactured
threat by NATO.
It’s about conquest.
It’s about subjugating Russia’s neighbor.
We can’t let that happen.
From the start of this brutal war, the United States and our allies and partners have been
united to a remarkable degree, and that continues.
At every step there have been doubts about whether our shared resolve would last, and
at every step we’ve proved that it would.
Some doubted that we’d impose sanctions that would have a meaningful impact on the
Russian economy; we did.
Some have doubted whether we’d build a significant coalition behind those sanctions; we did.
Some doubted whether countries in Europe would provide lethal defensive assistance to Ukraine;
they did.
Some doubted that Ukraine could withstand Moscow’s onslaught; it has, it will, and
we’ll stand with them.
In the coming week, we’ll strengthen our unity yet again, both at the NATO Leaders
Summit and at the G7 Leaders Summit, where we’ll reaffirm our support for a democratic,
independent, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine; address the impact that this war of aggression
by Russia is having on rising global prices for food and gas; and roll out a set of concrete
actions to continue to increase the costs on Russia.
President Zelenskyy said that this war will only definitively end through diplomacy.
We stand ready to support any diplomatic solution.
And yet, Russia has shown no interest.
We’ll keep discussing diplomatic strategies with Ukraine, with our allies and partners.
We’ll keep strengthening Ukraine’s position on the battlefield so it has the strongest
possible position at any negotiating table that emerges.
As President Biden recently reiterated, we seek a democratic, independent, sovereign,
and prosperous Ukraine with the means to deter and defend itself against any further aggression.
We’ll support Ukraine’s efforts to achieve a negotiated end to the conflict because our
principle throughout this crisis has been nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine, and
that will continue.
The United States is grateful to our allies and partners for incredibly close coordination
every step along the way.
We join people around the world in standing resolutely with the Ukrainian people as they
fight for their country and for the principles that make the world more secure and more free
for everyone. Thank you