Well, good evening, everyone. And
Dr. Zgurovsky, thank you for the
introduction,
but thank you especially for your decades-long contributions to science and
education, and for leading
Kyiv Polytechnic Institute through what is such a
tumultuous time. And I am so grateful to be here with each and every one of you.
Today marks 811 days since
Putin launched his brutal war
-- each day a grinding
struggle, in which Ukrainians have demonstrated remarkable heroism, and suffered
immeasurable loss.
A year ago,
I spoke in Helsinki about how Putin’s aggression against Ukraine had
been a strategic failure for Russia -- and what it would take to ensure that it
stayed that way.
Today, I’m here in Kyiv to speak about Ukraine’s strategic success. And to set
out how, with our support, the Ukrainian people can and will achieve their
vision for the future: a free, prosperous, secure democracy -- fully integrated
into the Euro-Atlantic community -- and fully in control of its own destiny.
We’re meeting at a critical moment.
Putin is ramping up yet another offensive against Ukraine in Kharkiv and across
the east -- sending wave after wave of Russian soldiers, Iranian drones, North
Korean artillery, and tanks, missiles, and fighter jets built with machines and
parts supplied by China.
The coming weeks and months will demand a great deal of Ukrainians, who have
already sacrificed so much.
But I have come to Ukraine with a message: You are not alone.
The United States has been by your side from day one. We’re with you today. And
we will stay by your side, until Ukraine’s security, its sovereignty, its
ability to choose its own path is guaranteed.
And we’re far from your only friend. Dozens of countries around the world are
not just rooting for Ukraine’s success -- they are helping you achieve it.
Now, after the delay in approving the latest U.S. assistance package to Ukraine
-- a delay that left you more vulnerable to Russia’s attacks -- some Ukrainians
may be wondering whether you can count on America to sustain its commitment.
The $60 billion aid package that was approved by our Congress with overwhelming
support -- across both political parties and both houses of Congress -- I think
demonstrates that you can. And a significant majority of Americans believe we
should continue to provide assistance to Ukraine.
Indeed, the American people’s support for Ukraine has been consistent over the
course of the war; it has never wavered.
Americans understand that our support for Ukraine strengthens the security of
the United States and our allies.
They understand that if Putin achieves his goals here in Ukraine, he won’t stop
with Ukraine; he’ll keep going. For when in history has an autocrat been
satisfied with carving off just part, or even all, of a single country? When has
that satisfied Vladimir Putin?
At the same time, the American people want to know that we have a plan for
getting to the day when Ukraine can stand strongly on its own feet -- militarily,
economically, democratically -- so that America’s support can transition to more
sustainable levels.
The Ukrainian people want the exact same thing. They don’t want to have -- they
do not want to have to rely on others to guarantee their security and their
prosperity.
And we do have a plan, and we’re working together with Ukraine and a wide
network of partners to realize it. And what I want to speak to you about this
evening is what that plan looks like, and how we’re going to fully achieve it.
First, we’re helping to ensure that Ukraine has the military that it needs to
succeed on the battlefield, to secure a just and lasting peace, and to deter
future aggression.
Anyone who doubts your ability to attain this goal should just look at what
you’ve already accomplished.
For two years, two months, and 21 days, you have denied Putin his goal of
erasing Ukraine from the map and subsuming it into a greater Russia. You beat
back Moscow’s assault on Kyiv, and foiled his plot to install a puppet
government. You’ve taken back more than half of the territory that Russia seized
in the first weeks of its full-scale invasion. You pushed Russia’s naval fleet
out of the Black Sea without a fleet of your own.
Any territorial gains that Russia has made over the last year have come at
tremendous cost to the Kremlin -- in lives lost, in military equipment destroyed.
You’ve fought with courage and creativity, developing new weapons and new
tactics to deploy them.
People from every region, every community, every institution have stepped
forward to serve.
Including at this university, where students, alumni, teachers, and other
employees of Kyiv Polytechnic have answered the call to defend their homeland --
putting aside their studies, their careers, their dreams, leaving loved ones
behind.
Eighty-eight of those men and women gave their lives for Ukraine’s freedom. Many
of their names are etched in the memorial on campus that I just visited with the
rector. They include an aspiring book illustrator, a cancer researcher, a
marathon runner, a musician who opened Kyiv’s first rock and -- school of rock
and roll. A veteran who lost both of his legs fighting against Putin’s previous
invasion in the Donbas, and volunteered to serve again when Putin re-invaded in
2022.
Like countless Ukrainians, these citizens never asked others to fight for them.
Indeed, all that Ukrainians have asked is that you get what you need to defend
yourselves and your right to survive as a nation.
Your recent mobilization was a difficult decision -- but a necessary one. The
defenders who have so courageously held the line for more than two years need
help. They need rest. This will allow both, while providing your military with
additional troops to fight off bigger invading forces.
The mobilization will also allow you to harden your defenses, to build more
units, to take the fight to Russian aggressors.
Now, our joint task is to secure Ukraine’s sustained and permanent strategic
advantage. So that Ukraine can not only deliver on the battlefield today, but
deter and defend against future attacks.
As President Biden said, we want Ukraine to win -- and we’re committed to helping
you do it.
In the immediate term, the United States and dozens of other countries will get
Ukraine the assistance that you need -- and we’ll get it to you quickly.
We’re going to help you hold off Russia’s attacks, make it harder for them to
strike you, and keep the Black Sea open so you can keep growing your economy and
keep helping to feed the world.
We know that time is of the essence. That’s why just one minute after Congress
approved our massive aid package, President Biden sent ammunition, armored
vehicles, missiles, and air defenses to Ukraine. Much more will be delivered to
the battlefield in the coming days.
Other partners are also speeding up delivery of vital military assistance.
Poland continues to facilitate the transfer of nearly all of the aid that’s
flowing into Ukraine, including hefty contributions of its own. The Czech
Government is leading a Europe-wide effort to purchase half a million artillery
shells. The UK recently announced a robust, multi-year military aid package.
Australia committed new support for air defense.
A truly global coalition is behind you -- made up of countries that see your
security, and in turn European security, as a core security interest of their
own.
Countries determined to defend the principles at the heart of the United Nations
Charter -- sovereignty, territorial integrity, independence.
Countries that know that allowing Putin to redraw borders by force will embolden
would-be aggressors everywhere.
As Japan’s Prime Minister Kishida said when addressing the U.S. Congress, “The
Ukraine of today may be the East Asia of tomorrow.”
Through the Defense Contact Group -- which we set up shortly after Putin’s
invasion and is led by Secretary of Defense Austin -- more than 50 countries are
working hand in hand with Ukraine’s military to identify and fill urgent needs.
We’ve developed “capability coalitions” -- groups of allies and partners who are
addressing needs crucial to Ukraine’s defense. Denmark, the Netherlands, and the
U.S. are leading the coalition on air force, Estonia and Luxembourg on
information technology, Norway and the UK on maritime security. These coalitions
are pumping more support into Ukraine right now.
As we help meet your immediate needs, we’re also working together to help
Ukraine build its future force.
Our goal is to lay a foundation so strong that it dispels any doubts about
Ukraine’s ability to impose punishing costs on those who try to take its
territory.
As President Zelenskyy
recently said, we’re creating the security architecture
“that Ukraine has never had," but "has always needed.”1
We’re bringing Ukraine closer to -- and then into -- NATO. We’ll make sure that
Ukraine’s bridge to NATO is strong and well-lit.
At the last NATO Summit in Vilnius, Allies agreed that Ukraine won’t have to
complete a Membership Action Plan before being invited to join, shortening its
onramp to the Alliance.
We launched the NATO-Ukraine Council, elevating our cooperation and joint
decision making to the most intensive level NATO has to offer.
Ukraine is much more than a recipient of advice and assistance. Your warriors
are confronting the greatest threat to transatlantic security since the end of
the Cold War, and have as much experience as any on Earth in fighting the wars
to come. You have a lot to teach the Alliance -- and NATO will be more secure
with your military by our side.
When we hold the Washington Summit in July, we’ll take tangible steps to
increase NATO’s role in building a resilient, capable Ukrainian force,
supporting its ongoing reforms, better integrating Ukraine into the Alliance.
And Ukraine’s bridge to NATO will be bolstered by a series of mutually
reinforcing bilateral security agreements.
We now have 32 countries who are negotiating these agreements with Ukraine, nine
of which have already been completed.
These agreements send a clear message that Ukraine can count on its partners for
sustainable, long-term support. That’s not a matter to be debated from one year
to the next -- nor is it a commitment by any one country. It’s guaranteed by a
broad and powerful network of nations for the next decade.
Under our own ten-year agreement, the United States will support Ukraine’s
defense and security across a range of essential capabilities -- from its air
force to its air defense, from drones to
demining. If Russia or anyone else were
to attack Ukraine, we will work with Ukraine immediately -- at the highest levels
-- to coordinate how to help you beat back the threat.
Our bilateral security agreement will accelerate our joint efforts to build and
build up Ukraine’s defense industrial base -- so that you can produce artillery,
ammunition, air defenses, and other crucial weapons you need here in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s innovation and resourcefulness has been central to its success on the
battlefield -- figuring out how to use old Soviet launchers to fire U.S. and
other Allied air defense missiles, manufacturing new kinds of air and naval
drones that can effectively evade detection.
That same spirit has driven the growth of Ukraine’s burgeoning defense industry,
which counts more than 500 companies and hundreds of thousands of skilled
employees. The key now is to ramp up production without losing that spirit of
experimentation and adaptation that has fostered so many amazing breakthroughs.
That will also help Ukraine’s businesses attract more private investments to
scale up -- and increase Ukraine’s potential to become a defense exporter in
weapons and in training.
The U.S. has provided concrete support to build that industry. In December, we
convened some 350 government and industry representatives from the United States
and Europe to deepen defense industrial cooperation with Ukraine.
We created what we call a “Deal Team” with representatives from our Departments
of State, Defense, and Commerce to help U.S. defense companies navigate the
regulatory hurdles of investing in Ukraine’s industry. American companies have
already reached several major agreements to produce munitions in -- and for --
Ukraine. And more are in the works.
All of these measures -- Ukraine’s increased integration with, and support from,
NATO; a growing network of security agreements with individual countries; a
booming defense industrial base -- all of these will ensure that the moment
conditions are met and Allies agree, Ukraine’s invitation and accession to the
Alliance will be swift and smooth.
These measures will also ensure that if Russia is ever serious about negotiating
a truly just and lasting peace with Ukraine, your military prowess will be
formidable, your hand strong, your path to Europe and NATO secure.
Second, we will ensure that Ukraine’s economy not only survives, but thrives.
Ever since Putin failed to conquer Ukraine, he’s been trying to lay waste to its
economy.
What he can’t have he wants to destroy.
And yet, just as Ukrainians have courageously held their ground on the
battlefield, Ukrainian workers, entrepreneurs, business owners have kept the
economy running.
From the farmers retrofitting tractors with artificial intelligence to sweep
fields for landmines, to the workers repairing power stations to keep the lights
and heat on, Ukrainians’ grit and ingenuity are fueling the economy. And they
are the root of Ukraine’s extraordinary potential for the future.
In 2023, despite living with nearly a fifth of the country occupied by Russian
forces and with your cities and industries under relentless bombardment,
Ukraine’s GDP grew by 5 percent. Private investment increased by 17 percent.
State revenue rose by 25 percent. In 2023, 37,000 new businesses registered in
Ukraine -- more than in the year leading up to the Russian invasion.
Over the last six months, Ukraine’s steel factories have doubled their output.
In April alone, Ukraine exported more than 13 million tons of goods by road, by
rail, by sea, exceeding prewar levels.
Yet, as Ukrainians know so well, this economic dynamism hangs on our ability to
provide security.
Patriots and other sophisticated air defenses -- they do more than protect
soldiers and save civilian lives. They create umbrellas of safety under which
Ukrainian workers and entrepreneurs can adapt, innovate, build, and attract more
foreign investment. That’s why we’re working relentlessly with allies and
partners to procure more air defense, and to do it fast.
And just as security enables prosperity, prosperity enhances security. A more
robust economy means that Ukraine can put more revenue into building and
hardening your defenses.
Ukraine’s economic renewal will also encourage a speedier return of refugees and
internally displaced people, the vast majority of whom want to go home, bringing
with them skills and resources that will be a boon for Ukraine’s economy.
Together, Ukraine’s partners have contributed $85 billion in economic and
development aid, providing a lifeline to Ukraine’s government at a time when
beating back Putin’s invasion has forced the government to invest almost all of
its revenue in self-defense.
That assistance means that first responders can charge into residential
buildings to pull people from the rubble of Russian strikes. It means that
doctors and nurses can care for wounded civilians and soldiers. It means that
teachers can educate Ukraine’s rising generations -- the future of the country.
Now, for every dollar that the United States has put toward economic and
development assistance for Ukraine, other donors have invested three more.
Japan and Korea are supplying generators and gas turbines to rebuild Ukraine’s
energy grid.
Italy, Latvia are helping address the massive humanitarian and environmental
costs of Russia’s destruction of the Kakhovka dam.
Norway is helping rebuild schools, hospitals, other essential services.
I could go on. We talk a lot about burden sharing. This is exactly what it looks
like.
At the same time as we help Ukraine meet these immediate needs, we’re again
laying the foundation for Ukraine’s long-term success through its full economic
integration into Europe and the West.
The G7 is leading other countries, international financial institutions, the
private sector, and foundations in boosting the number, the scale, the speed of
transformative projects in rails, roads, ports, energy, digital, among other
areas. Not after the war ends, but right now.
These projects will foster growth and increased revenues that allow Ukraine to
shoulder more of its military costs. And as Ukraine prospers, we all stand to
benefit from the goods and services it will provide and the innovations you will
produce.
And yet, for all the resources our government and others will invest in
Ukraine’s infrastructure, in its innovation, in its people, Ukraine’s economic
transformation will ultimately be driven by the private sector.
So we’re accelerating our efforts to help Ukraine attract more private
investment, especially toward dynamic industries like technology, like energy,
like agriculture, like defense. As more countries stop doing business with
Russia, Ukraine is uniquely positioned to seize the opportunities that Putin has
squandered.
We’re helping to lower the cost of doing business in Ukraine. Thanks to the
provision of war risk insurance, more grain is being exported through the Black
Sea today than before the war, and Ukraine’s breadbasket is once again feeding
the world.
Now we’re working with providers to expand war risk insurance to other areas
like road and rail cargo. We’re putting the U.S. Government backing on the table
to shoulder part of the risk. That’s the strongest signal that we can send that
companies can do business safely and profitably in Ukraine.
Now, they don’t need to take our word for it. Nine of ten American businesses in
Ukraine are running at the same or higher capacity than they were before Putin’s
full invasion.
But for all the steps that we can take, the most powerful lever to draw more
companies to Ukraine, more investment to Ukraine, lies in your hands and lies
with reform.
Ask any company in the United States, in Europe, in Asia what they are looking
for when considering doing business in Ukraine. You’ll hear pretty much the same
thing from all of them: a strong and predictable regulatory environment; open
and fair competition; transparency; the rule of law; effective anti-corruption
measures.
In fact, the list includes many of the same reforms that Ukraine will need to
make to get into the European Union.
The Ukrainian people, they’re also demanding these changes. Ninety percent of
Ukrainians want to fast-track economic reforms so that their country can more
swiftly move into the European Union.
The Ukrainian Government has taken important steps to combat monopolies, to
strengthen anti-money laundering tools, to liberalize its energy market, but
more remains to be done.
EU membership will be a windfall for Ukraine and for the EU -- enabling the free
movement of goods, capital, services, workers, and people -- to mutual benefit.
Ukraine will get full access to one of the most dynamic single markets in the
world, hundreds of millions more consumers for key exports like grain, steel,
eventually clean energy, and greater access to the financing it needs to rebuild
and further power innovation.
For its part, the European Union will benefit from one of the region’s most
dynamic, skilled, and resilient economies. And Europe will have a stronger
footing in the fields that will drive the 21st century economy -- like advanced
IT and AI -- where Ukraine has emerged already as a leader.
Now, there is one more crucial step that we can take: making Russia pay for
Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction.
What Putin destroyed, Russia should -- and must -- pay to rebuild. It’s what
international law demands; it’s what the Ukrainian people deserve.
Our Congress has given us the power to seize Russian assets in the United
States. We intend to use it. We’re working with our G7 partners to see that
Russia’s immobilized sovereign assets are used to remedy the damage that Putin
continues to cause.
The G7 can unlock billions of dollars -- and send a powerful message to Putin
that time is not on his side.
Finally, we will help the Ukrainian people fully realize their democratic
aspirations.
For more than three decades, the Ukrainian people have been defending their
right to choose the path to democracy, to Europe, to the West. That’s the path
that millions of Ukrainians from every region of the country voted for in 1991.
It’s what Ukrainians came to the Maidan to defend
in 2004 and then again
in
2014. And it’s why you’ve fought back so tenaciously against Putin’s full-scale
invasion.
Your determination to write the future of your nation is why so many people
around the world have been inspired by your fight, including so many Americans
who now hang the yellow and blue flag next to the stars and stripes.
And that’s why it’s so important that Ukraine keeps taking the difficult steps
to strengthen and consolidate your democracy.
Because the choices that you make -- the kind of democracy that you build -- will
determine the strength and the staying power of the coalition by Ukraine’s side.
That means not just passing reforms, but making sure they are implemented -- and
having a tangible impact on people’s lives.
It means rooting out the scourge of corruption -- once and for all.
Winning on the battlefield will prevent Ukraine from becoming part of Russia.
Winning the war against corruption will keep Ukraine from becoming like Russia.
Ukraine’s security is eroded if the resources for its military are siphoned off
by individuals looking to enrich themselves.
Ukraine’s economic potential is undercut if investors and innovators cannot
count on a level playing field.
Ukraine’s democracy is weakened if citizens stop believing that they can hold
their government accountable and fix the flaws in their system from within.
No wonder Putin sought to weaponize corruption in Ukraine. He knows how powerful
corruption can be in sowing division and distrust, undermining faith in
government and its institutions. After all, he’s been fine-tuning these tactics
at home for nearly 25 years.
Ukrainians have been battling corruption for decades, and you have results to
show for it. Ukraine is one of the few countries whose rating has been
consistently rising in
Transparency International’s ranks over recent years, in
no small part thanks to its incredibly tenacious and skilled anti-corruption
activists, NGOs, independent media.
But more work remains to be done. Eight in ten Ukrainians still believe that
there’s one set of law for the elites and another for everyone else. And
entrenched interests are doing their best to stymie every reform.
Ukraine’s defenses against corruption have to be just as strong as its military
defenses.
And we know what those defenses are: an independent judiciary; a free press; a
vibrant, inclusive civil society; free and fair elections; independent,
empowered anti-corruption investigators, prosecutors, and judges.
For decades, the United States and Europe have been helping you build these
democratic pillars, from the bottom up. And we’ll keep supporting you as you
accelerate these reforms.
That’s why we’re working with the government and civil society groups to shore
up Ukraine’s election infrastructure. That way, as soon as Ukrainians agree that
conditions allow, all Ukrainians -- all Ukrainians, including those displaced by
Russia’s aggression -- can exercise their right to vote. People in Ukraine and
around the world can have confidence that the voting process is free, fair,
secure.
Now, we sometimes hear that time is on Putin’s side, that Russia’s bigger
population -- Putin’s willingness to throw more Russians into a meat grinder of
his own making and sink more of Russia’s resources into trying to subjugate
Ukraine -- means that Russia can’t lose.
In fact, Russia’s been losing the battle to control Ukraine’s destiny for 20
years. And Putin has it wrong -- time is on Ukraine’s side.
Because with each passing month, the work we’re doing together moves Ukraine
closer to membership in the European Union and NATO.
With each passing month, Ukraine signs more bilateral security agreements, ramps
up its defense industrial base, churns out more advanced weapons, strengthens
its economy, consolidates its democracy.
As the war goes on, Russia is going back in time. Ukraine is moving forward.
Here is why I’m confident that Ukraine will continue along that trajectory and
ultimately succeed: Because of all of you, because of the people of Ukraine.
There’s one thing that Putin has always underestimated but that Ukrainians
understand to their core, and that’s the fierceness -- the fierceness -- with
which free people will defend their right to shape their own destiny.
The powerful dedication to one’s neighbors, community, and nation that
democracies stir in their citizens. A spirit born of love, not hate -- of hope,
not fear -- of perpetual possibility.
We see it in the countless people across this nation who’ve opened their homes
and their hearts to fellow citizens who’ve been displaced by Russia’s brutal
war.
We see it in the artist who paints the boarded-up windows in eastern Ukraine
with the verses of Ukrainian poets, which she calls a special kind of armor.
In the bedrooms and basements, in the warehouses and farmhouses across this
country that ordinary citizens have converted into donation centers for soldiers
and for the displaced.
In the Ukrainian teachers who have set up makeshift schools in underground metro
stations in Kharkiv, and start every day by telling their students, “I love
you.”
In 1847, the great Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko was arrested in Kyiv for
daring to discuss with others the idea of building a more free society. He was
sentenced to exile in the remote hinterlands of Russia.
As he signed off on the verdict, Tsar Nicholas added to Shevchenko’s punishment,
in his own hand, writing: “Under strictest surveillance, with prohibition to
write and paint.”
Shevchenko endured nearly a decade of brutal exile. His health deteriorated
considerably. He pined constantly for Ukraine. But he managed to keep writing,
even hiding tiny scraps of poetry in his shoes.
And he later wrote this in his diary: “For all this unspeakable grief, every
kind of degradation and harshness passed by as though it hadn’t touched me…not a
single part of the inner me was changed.”
For decades, Putin has caused unspeakable grief for the people of Ukraine. He’s
inflicted every kind of degradation and harshness.
And yet, like Shevchenko before you, what is inside Ukrainians, that has not
changed.
The spirit of Ukrainians cannot be destroyed by a bomb or buried in a mass
grave.
It cannot be bought with a bribe or repressed with a threat.
It is pure. It is unbreakable. And it is why Ukraine will succeed.
Slava Ukraini! [Glory
to Ukraine!]
Thank you.
1
Extended Quotation:
"...today I held several preparatory meetings in the run-up to our
international activities. We are now on our way. Important meetings with
partners are planned. There will be new agreements. We are doing
everything to make them effective for Ukraine, and I am sure it will be
so. We are creating a new security architecture for our country that
will help us not just here and now, but in the long run. And this is
something that Ukraine has never had, although it has always needed it."
[Source: https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/stvoryuyemo-dlya-ukrayini-novu-bezpekovu-arhitekturu-yaka-do-88973]
Original Text Source: State.gov
Original Audio and Video Source: DVIDShub.net
Original Image of Secretary Blinken
Source: https://www.state.gov/secretary-travel/travel-to-ukraine-may-13-16-2024/
Original Image of President Zelenskyy
Source: https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/stvoryuyemo-dlya-ukrayini-novu-bezpekovu-arhitekturu-yaka-do-88973
Audio Note: AR-XE = American Rhetoric Extreme Enhancement
Video Note: Stereo enhanced
Page Updated: 5/16/24
U.S. Copyright Status:
Text = Public domain. Audio and Video = Property of
AmericanRhetoric.com.
Official State Department Images of Secretary Blinken
(taken by Chuck Kennedy) = Public domain and used in compliance with
this notice. Image of President Zelenskyy =
Used in compliance with the terms found
here and licensed under
CC 4.0 International.
