Ukraine: Press remarks by High Representative Josep Borrell after the meeting with Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal

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Thank you Prime Minister, thank you dear Denys.

Ukraine has been at the core, or better at the heart of our common foreign and security policy, both from the diplomatic point of view, from the point of view of our military assistance, security, defence and foreign affairs - you have been in [the centre of] our work every day. 

I remember in January, during my visit to Donbas, I met with you here in Kyiv, and you told me: ”Yes, the Russian maybe, they will attack and if they attack, I hope you will help us.”

Yes, they have attacked you - without any kind of reason nor justification and their attacks failed because you have been able to repel the, with an incredible courage and we have been trying to help you, and we will continue helping you as much as we can.

I am very much humbled to meet with you again here, in Kyiv, in the capital of a functioning state, the capital of the courageous Ukrainian people, with the windows covered with sand bags in order to protect you.

Allow me to express my strongest condemnation of the awful attack on the train station today [in Kramatorsk] that has left dozens of people dead and many wounded. This is another war crime.

We are putting sanctions on Russia. You are asking for more sanctions, I understand you very well. The sanctions that we have agreed on, are putting a big burden, creating a big damage to the Russian economy, but more has to follow. On Monday at the Foreign Affairs Council we will continue  discussing about how to reduce and cancel our dependency on [Russian] oil and gas. Oil will be the first, because it is easier.

But believe me, even if we cannot do it overnight, we will do whatever we can to reduce quickly ,until the full cancelation, on our buying of oil and gas. But it has to be done in orderly way in order not to create more damage to us and world economy. But we are very much aware of the need of going until the end in the energy sanctions field.

I am sure that everybody understands that this dependency cannot be cancelled overnight, it will require some time, but we will do it as soon as possible.

In the meantime, in the next days what you need are arms. You told me what kind of arms you need. We have put on the table and already spent one billion eur on providing arms to you through the Member States. In a couple of days, I am sure, we will put on the table another 500 million more to continue supporting you. We are ready to tailor these resources to your demands. [Based on] what kind of arms you need, we will be ready to finance with these resources. This from the military point of view is clear to us - we have to provide the kind of weapons that you need to continue to fight.

Also, these hideous war crimes have to be punish. For that the International Criminal Court has to act. In order for the court to act, we have to provide evidence. This evidence has to be collected from the ground by testimonies by taking stock of what has happened, for example in Bucha.

For that we are going to support you and your Prosecutor General, providing training, donating equipment to ensure safe and secure environment for collecting evidence and for that we are going to dedicate seven million euros in order to make it possible for the perpetrators to answer for their actions in front of the Court.

And finally, we will continue isolating Russia from the international community. We had another diplomatic success and 2/3 of votes in the UN General Assembly decided to expel Russia from the Human Rights Council.

Dear Denys, dear Prime Minister, I am very much moved, shocked by what I have seen, by what I heard and by what I felt today.

We will bring back to Brussels your request for support. I bring back to Brussel and to the international community, to my colleagues Foreign Ministers on Monday in Luxembourg the [message of] courage of the Ukrainian people. It is not rhetoric that your fight is our fight, and so we have to help you.

Let see you soon at the Association Council meeting!

Watch the video here: https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-223769