TRANSCRIPT: Senate Hearing on: COUNTERING RUSSIAN AGGRESSION: UKRAINE AND BEYOND [Victoria Nuland Testimony]

U.S. Capitol in Bright Sunlight

Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Hearing on: COUNTERING RUSSIAN AGGRESSION: UKRAINE AND BEYOND
January 26, 2023
Victoria Nuland
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs
U.S. Department of State
foreign.senate.gov/download/01/26/2023/012623_-nuland_testimony1
[Watch the hearing: foreign.senate.gov/hearings/countering-russian-aggression-ukraine-and-beyond]

Chairman Menendez, Ranking Member Risch, and distinguished Members of the Committee, It is an honor to join you for the first hearing of the new Congress. It is also appropriate that we are meeting on Ukraine, as we approach the one-year anniversary of Putin’s brutal invasion next month.

First, let me thank this Committee, and the entire Congress, for your continued, and strong bipartisan support for Ukraine’s battle for its sovereignty—indeed its very right to exist.

The more than $45 billion in supplemental funding for security, economic, and humanitarian support that you approved in December for FY23, confirms for every Ukrainian fighter, medic, teacher, and electricity technician that America stands with them. We stand with them in saying ‘no’ to a vicious autocrat trying to redraw the map of their country by force. And ‘no’ to any others around the world with similar ambitions. Because Ukraine’s fight is about so much more than Ukraine; it is about the world our own children and grandchildren will inherit.

Since I last met with this Committee in September, Ukraine has:

  • Regained control of large swathes of its territory in Kherson and Kharkiv, with strong U.S. and international support;
  • Held the line so far in Bakhmut, albeit at very high cost, but taken losses in Soledar;
  • Valiantly withstood Putin’s latest barbaric tactic—waves of drone and missile attacks on its heating, electricity, and water infrastructure—and, with our help, begun to build back and modernize its systems;
  • Put forward a set of principles for a just and sustainable peace, challenging Russia to engage meaningfully; and
  • In the last two weeks, grieved the loss of so many innocents when Russian missiles destroyed an apartment complex in Dnipro, and the loss of senior government ministers in a tragic helicopter crash.

Ukraine’s fight must continue because, as Secretary Blinken has said so often: if Russia stops fighting, the war ends; if Ukraine stops fighting, Ukraine ends. That was also the message that President Zelenskyy delivered when he made his historic visit to the Oval Office to thank President Biden and the American people, and when he addressed all of you in a joint session of Congress on December 21st.

As Putin continues to pour pain on Ukraine, Ukraine is fighting back with our support. As A/S Wallander and A/A McKee will outline in more detail, we and our allies are working with Ukraine now to get them the training, equipment, and support they need to defend themselves, and make another concerted effort this spring to push Russian forces back. This includes providing PATRIOT air defense and counter-drone systems, Abrams main battle tanks, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, Stryker armored personnel carriers, and artillery and ammunition.

We and our partners are speeding equipment and spare parts to Ukraine to rebuild and harden its critical infrastructure—including autotransformers as big as tennis courts. We are providing budget support, economic, and humanitarian assistance, and supporting those collecting evidence of Russia’s atrocities and crimes so there can be full accountability.

We also remain laser-focused on ensuring no aid or weapons are diverted—using our Embassy staff in Kyiv along with technical oversight from the World Bank, Deloitte, and U.S. government auditors, some of whom are in Ukraine this week. And we continue to support essential reform and anti-corruption measures across the country.

Ukraine must not simply survive this war, it must emerge as a stronger, more democratic, and European state—that is what Ukraine’s patriots are fighting for, and that is also central to U.S. and international support. The dismissal this week of officials suspected of corruption sends a strong signal of Ukraine’s resolve in this regard, as well as the effective action of Ukraine’s anti-corruption institutions, civil society, and independent media.

Meantime, our global coalition of support for Ukraine remains strong. In total, more than 50 partner nations have committed tens of billions of dollars in military, economic, and humanitarian support; and taken in millions of refugees.

We have also worked together as a coalition to rally the world to support the UN-brokered Black Sea Grain Initiative, unlocking more than 17 million metric tons of food blocked by Russia. We helped Europe reduce its dependence on Russian fossil fuels, more than doubling our own LNG exports to the continent. And together we’ve imposed far reaching sanctions and a global price cap on Russian oil to reduce revenue available toRussia’s war machine without destabilizing energy markets.

None of what we’ve seen in Ukraine over the past year would be possible without daily acts of heroism by tens of millions of Ukrainians in all walks of life. And much of it would be impossible without the continued support of this Congress and the American public. President Biden has pledged that the United States will support Ukraine for as long as it takes.

We are grateful for your partnership in meeting that commitment because it is in our own national interest. I look forward to answering your questions.

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