“Ukraine issues,” Secretary of Protection Lloyd J. Austin III flatly mentioned throughout a Pentagon information convention immediately.
The secretary and Military Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Workers, spoke to the media following the tenth assembly of the Ukraine Protection Contact Group — a gaggle of countries working to produce Ukraine what it must fight Russia’s invasion of the nation.
“Ukraine issues. It issues to not simply Ukraine or to america, it issues to the world,” the secretary mentioned. “That is in regards to the guidelines primarily based worldwide order. It is about one nation’s capacity to get up someday and alter the borders of its neighbor and annex its neighbor’s sovereign territory.”
Nations world wide notice how severe this problem to the established order is, and they’re working collectively. “That is why you’ve got seen 50 nations not solely come to the … the preliminary conferences of the Ukraine Protection Contact Group, however they proceed to return again,” Austin mentioned. “They usually proceed to work laborious to make sure that Ukraine will get every little thing that it must be profitable. And that’ll stay our focus going ahead.”
The secretary additionally addressed Russia’s “dangerous and reckless and unprofessional behavior in the international airspace over the Black Sea” yesterday. Russian jets dumped gasoline on an unmanned U.S. MQ-9 plane conducting routine operations in worldwide airspace. A Russian jet struck the unmanned aerial car inflicting it to crash.
“This hazardous episode is part of a sample of aggressive, dangerous and unsafe actions by Russian pilots in worldwide airspace,” Austin mentioned. “Now I simply bought off the cellphone with my Russian counterpart, [Defense] Minister [Sergei] Shoigu. And as I’ve mentioned repeatedly, it is vital that nice powers be fashions of transparency and communication. And america will proceed to fly and to function wherever worldwide regulation permits. It’s incumbent upon Russia to function its army plane in a secure {and professional} method.”
The contact group is a visual affirmation of unity and resolve to help Ukraine’s combat for freedom. “We had been joined once more immediately by some 50 nations of goodwill from throughout the globe,” the secretary mentioned. “They usually all perceive that Ukraine’s battle to defend itself from Russian aggression is significant for everybody who values the core rules of sovereignty, self-determination and freedom.”
The group heard from Ukrainian Protection Minister Oleksii Reznikov about his nation’s plans and wishes within the face of Russia’s aggression. Ukrainian service members have stood agency towards Russia utilizing weapons provided by the nations of the contact group.
“Russia hopes to grind down Ukraine in a conflict of attrition, however Ukraine has been provided by greater than 40 nations,” Austin mentioned. “In the meantime, Russia has needed to depend upon Iran and North Korea and has had to make use of tools courting again to World Struggle II. So, Russia is operating out of functionality and operating out of buddies.”
Ukraine has by no means been a menace to Russia, Chairman Milley mentioned. “Russia launched, and has continued for over a yr now, a conflict of aggression and flagrant violation of worldwide regulation,” the overall mentioned. “That is, and stays, a Russian frontal assault on the rules-based worldwide order that has been in place for 80 years.”
In face of this conflict of conquest, the contact group stays unified. “NATO is united. The folks of Ukraine are unyielding; they’re standing steadfast within the face of the Russian onslaught,” he mentioned. “Russia stays remoted, their army shares are quickly depleting, the troopers are demoralized, untrained, unmotivated conscripts and convicts and their management is failing them.”
The Battle of Bakhmut continues. “Ukraine has mounted the Russian forces at that metropolis, they usually’re exacting very heavy prices on the Wagner group and the Russian common army,” Milley mentioned. “Ukraine stays sturdy.
“This can be a grinding, attrition warfare that Russia is making an attempt to execute,” the overall continued. “Wave after wave of Russian troopers are thrown into the chaos of conflict, absent any type of synchronized coordination and route. Russia continues to pay severely by way of lives and army tools for its continued conflict of alternative.”
Milley mentioned Vladimir Putin can not win his strategic aims. “It ought to be apparent to Putin that these aims are not achievable by persevering with this conflict,” Milley mentioned. “Putin can finish this conflict. He can finish it immediately. And he wants to take action. Free persons are not simply conquered, and the Ukrainian persons are free, and they’re going to by no means surrender of their combat to remain free.”