SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, good evening, everyone. We just concluded two very productive days of meetings here in Münster, and I first want to thank very much our German hosts for their incredibly warm hospitality, and also recognize Germany and especially my friend and counterpart, Foreign Minister Baerbock, for her leadership over what has been a very challenging but also very consequential year.
When the G7 foreign ministers met almost a year ago in Liverpool, we sent a clear message that if President Putin invaded Ukraine, we would together impose, and I quote, “massive consequences and severe costs.” President Putin bet that we wouldn’t back up our words with actions. We proved him wrong.
Since February, our nations have led a coalition of dozens of allies and partners in providing substantial security support for Ukraine’s brave defenders as they fight for their territory, for their democracy, and for their people. We’ve imposed unprecedented sanctions and export controls that have directly impacted the Russian military’s ability to wage war. These efforts, coordinated in large part through the G7, have strengthened Ukraine’s battlefield capabilities and weakened Russia’s. They’re also a key reason that Ukraine has momentum in this war.
We’re also working together to impose sanctions on those supporting President Putin’s war. That includes Iran, whose combat drones are killing Ukrainian civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure, and whose personnel in Crimea are assisting Russia in carrying out these brutal attacks.
The G7 is also providing economic and humanitarian support to Ukraine as President Putin tries to make up for Russia’s defeats on the battlefield by targeting civilian infrastructure that provides Ukrainian men, women, children, and elderly people with heat, water, and electricity. Russia has destroyed some 40 percent of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, including thermal energy plants that provide many Ukrainian homes, schools, hospitals with heat in the wintertime, when temperatures can drop to 20 degrees below Celsius. President Putin seems to have decided that if he can’t seize Ukraine by force, he will try to freeze it into submission. This is just the latest crime that President Putin is committing against the people of Ukraine. It was not enough to fill mass graves in Bucha and Irpin. It was not enough to cut off food, water, and medicine to the residents of Mariupol. It was not enough to violently uproot tens of thousands of Ukrainians from their homes and deport them to Russia through so-called filtration operations. On top of all of this, President Putin is also fearmongering about nuclear weapons.
As the G7 has done at every step, we’re addressing Russia’s latest escalations together and standing firm with Ukraine. On infrastructure, the G7 agreed to create a new coordination group to help repair, restore, and defend Ukraine’s energy grid – the very grid that President Putin is brutalizing. And we’re focusing more of our security support on helping Ukraine protect against these attacks, strengthening air defenses, and ramping up defense production.
When President Putin claimed that Ukraine was making a so-called dirty bomb at three sites, Ukraine asked the IAEA to investigate. Yesterday, its experts debunked Putin’s false claim. Together with the G7, countries around the world are making clear to President Putin that any use of a nuclear weapon would be catastrophic for him and for Russia.
All our countries are making sacrifices to sustain this critical support, and we’re supporting each other in doing that. On energy, for example, the United States has exported 53 billion cubic meters of liquified natural gas to Europe. That’s nearly two and a half times what we exported in 2021 and will provide our friends with a vital reserve as they head into the winter. Over the last year,…
Read More: Secretary Antony J. Blinken At a Press Availability