Blinken announces news on strengthening of Ukraine's air defenses in coming weeks
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has announced news on the strengthening of Ukraine's air defense systems "in the coming weeks as we get to the NATO summit."
"Of course, for both its military capacity and its economic capacity, you've got to make sure that you have air defenses in place to try to protect the areas in which you're making investments. We're driving that. I think you'll see more news on that in the coming weeks as we get to the NATO summit actually next week," he said at a conversation on U.S. foreign policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
The fact that the European Union has opened the accession process with Ukraine is the best guarantee that Ukraine will continue to make the necessary reforms to strengthen and deepen its democracy, Blinken said.
According to him, Ukraine's success will become "the strongest possible rebuke to Vladimir Putin." He described Ukraine's success as "a strong, successful country, increasingly integrated with the West, and a country that can stand on its own feet militarily, economically, democratically."
Blinken also emphasized that Ukraine is developing its own defense industrial base in a way that will enable it to help provide for itself, adding that the United States is trying to drive private sector investment into Ukraine to make sure that its economy can grow and thrive.
"We've already seen through the Black Sea that Ukraine is exporting as much as it was before February of 2022. There is extraordinary potential in Ukraine's economy with the right investment," he said.
The Secretary of State recalled that in February of 2022, as Russia attacked Ukraine, their objective was "to literally erase Ukraine from the map, to end its future as an independent country, to subsume it into the greater Russia."
"That hasn't happened and will not happen, and that's because of two things. It's because, of course, of the extraordinary courage and resilience of Ukrainians, but it's also because 50 countries, more than 50 countries, came together – led by the United States," he said.