UNDER SECRETARY NULAND: Thank you, Max, it is very good to be here with you at CSIS; and thanks to CSIS for decades of incisive research and recommendations for policymakers. I have been a beneficiary myself over many decades. And thanks to everyone who is joining us both in-person and virtually.
Well as Max made clear, we all remember where we were two years ago in the months, and days, and hours leading up to Putin’s February 24th, 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. U.S. intelligence, and indeed CSIS’s own reports, had been warning for months about Putin’s massive war plan and the terrible toll that could await Ukraine.
Week after week in the winter of 2021/2022, we watched the Russian military take up positions on three sides of Ukraine. The U.S., as you’ll remember, offered negotiations to try to avert Russia’s planned invasion, but those negotiations sputtered quickly, because Putin had already made up his mind.
Yet at that time, many still hoped the troop movements were just a pressure tactic, even some Ukrainians believed that.
But many feared that if Putin did order his troops in, Russia’s massive military could roll over Kyiv within a week, decapitate Ukraine’s democratic government, and install puppets of Moscow.
But that did not happen.
Instead, Putin got Newton’s third law, an equal and opposite reaction to everything he hoped to gain:
Instead of fleeing, President Zelensky led;
Instead of capitulating, Ukrainians fought;
Instead of fracturing, the West united; and
Instead of shrinking, NATO grew.
The U.S. rallied the world to Ukraine’s defense in those early hours, days, and weeks, and we have kept that global coalition of more than 50 nations united for two years standing strongly with Ukraine.
- The U.S. has provided $75 billion dollars in security, economic, and humanitarian assistance.
- Europe and our global partners have provided even more—$107 billion in addition to hosting 4.5 million Ukrainian refugees in countries across Europe. And the EU just pledged another $54 billion for Ukraine.
- Today, NATO is stronger, larger, and better resourced. Finland has joined the defensive alliance, and we’ll welcome Sweden very soon.
- Russia is globally isolated. Over 140 nations voted four times in the UN General Assembly to condemn Putin’s brutal invasion. And now Putin is reliant on countries like Iran and North Korea for weapons, while he drives his country deeper and deeper into economic and security arms of China.
- Global sanctions, the oil-price-cap, and export controls have weakened Russia’s war machine, and these restrictions will get significantly tighter in the coming days as we and our partners announce massive new sanctions packages designed, among other goals, to strangle Russia’s effort at sanctions evasion.
- In less than two years, Europe broke its dependency on Russian oil, and the U.S. doubled liquified natural gas exports across the Atlantic, helping European partners reduce their dependence on Russian gas from 40% of total consumption to just 13% today.
And despite all the immense challenges from Putin’s vicious war machine, Ukraine has survived.
- Ukraine has retaken more than 50% of the territory seized by Putin’s forces at beginning of the invasion;
- It has pushed Russia’s Black Sea Fleet out of Sevastopol and off Ukraine’s coast allowing Ukraine to restore grain exports to pre-war levels, helping feed the world once again;
- And, remarkably, Ukraine’s economy grew by 5% last year, albeit from a pretty low war-torn base.
And in case Americans are still asking themselves, if all of this is worth it for us, let’s remember:
Without sending a single U.S. soldier into combat, and investing less than one tenth of one year’s defense budget, we have helped Ukraine destroy 50% of Russia’s ground combat power and 20% of its vaunted Black Sea Fleet. Ukraine has taken off the…
This article was originally published by a www.state.gov . Read the Original article here. .