RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — Democracies will not let Ukraine down in the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin's war of agression, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin pledged today.
"The message today is clear: The U.S. won’t let Ukraine fail. This coalition will not let Ukraine fail and the free world won’t let Ukraine fail," he said.
He was speaking ahead of a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, an initiative gathering more than 50 countries that meets regularly to discuss weapons deliveries to Kyiv. It’s Austin’s first international trip since his hospitalization and the first since Sweden joined NATO earlier this month.
The meeting comes after EU ministers on Monday approved the creation of a new €5 billion Ukraine Assistance Fund to partially refund weapons shipments to Kyiv under the European Peace Facility.
The U.S. also announced last week $300 million in military aid — including ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems and 155mm and 105mm artillery shells — but President Joe Biden’s $60 billion emergency aid request still sits in limbo in the U.S. Congress.
Helping Kyiv win the war is a matter of security for the West as "Putin will not stop at Ukraine," Austin warned.
"We will all be less secure if Putin gets his way, we’ll all be less secure in a violent, lawless world where dictators can redraw borders by force, wipe countries off the map and rebuild their old empires," the U.S. defense secretary added.