SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, good afternoon. Bonjour, tout le monde.
(Via interpreter) Catherine, I’m delighted to host you here at the State Department and in Washington.
It’s a true pleasure to have my friend and colleague, Catherine Colonna, the French Foreign Minister here in Washington and at the State Department. This is actually the first time that we’ve had the honor of hosting our French colleagues and Catherine here in Washington, despite the fact that we have been closely collaborating over these past five months everywhere from Brussels to Bali, most recently at the United Nations Security Council in the course of a ministerial that the foreign minister presided over on Ukraine.
On virtually every issue that matters to our nations and matters to much of the world, I couldn’t ask for a better partner, the United States couldn’t ask for a better partner. And that was reflected in, as usual, the very productive conversation and meeting that we had today. We discussed our united and unwavering response to President Putin’s brutal war of aggression against Ukraine. In recent days, we’ve witnessed Moscow’s widespread strikes on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine – many carried out using drones supplied by Iran. These strikes have a clear goal: to make the Ukrainian people suffer. And the damage they’re inflicting will make it harder for Ukrainians to heat their homes, find safe water to drink, access the electricity that they need to run everything from stores to hospitals to public transportation.
President Putin thinks that these attacks will somehow break the will of Ukrainian people. Instead, he is only deepening their resolve to defend their country. Moscow can knock out the lights across Ukraine, but it cannot, it will not, extinguish the Ukrainian spirit.
President Putin thought he could divide the transatlantic alliance. Instead, he’s brought us even closer together. The United States is working closely with France and other European allies to help make the decisive shift away from dependence on Russian energy. That means developing more diverse, more reliable, more sustainable sources over the long term and helping our friends get through a winter with heavy energy costs. As I assured the foreign minister today, we are not leaving any of our friends out in the cold.
President Putin thought that he could wear down global support for Ukraine. Instead, countries in every region recognize that when the Kremlin tries to redraw the borders of its neighbor by force, it threatens the rules that underpin security and stability for all nations in every corner of the Earth. That is why 143 countries recently voted at the United Nations to condemn Russia’s sham referenda and reject any attempt to annex Ukrainian territory.
President Putin’s declaration of martial law in parts of Ukraine that Russia purports to annex is just his latest attempt to dress up crimes in the language of law. His move also reveals the lie at the heart of Russia’s purported annexation: if 99 percent of people in these parts of Ukraine want to be part of Russia, why does President Putin have to impose martial law to control them?
The foreign minister and I spoke about how we can continue to provide robust support for Ukraine’s efforts to defend itself and to deliver vital humanitarian aid to the Ukrainian people while also continuing to raise the costs on President Putin and his enablers for their actions. And we reaffirmed our commitment to meaningful diplomacy that can bring an end to the war, even as Moscow continues to demonstrate through its escalatory actions that its claim to be open to diplomacy is as hollow as it’s been since President Putin lost – launched his invasion in February.
We applaud France’s security assistance to Ukraine, including President Macron’s recent announcement of a 100 million euro fund to help…