Austin condemns Kremlin ‘apologists’ in pledging support for Ukraine
KYIV, Ukraine — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday offered full-throated support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia and delivered biting criticism of naysayers who might seek to end the conflict on Moscow’s terms.
“We fully understand the moral chasm between aggressor and defender,” Austin said in a speech capping a day of meetings in Ukraine with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his top military leaders to hash out war strategy. “We will not be gulled by the frauds and the falsehoods of the Kremlin’s apologists.”
“We refuse to blame Ukraine for the Kremlin’s aggression,” Austin added. “We refuse to offer excuses for Putin’s atrocities. And we refuse to pretend that appeasement will stop an invasion.”
Austin, making his third wartime visit to Ukraine, did not mention former President Donald Trump in his critique and has studiously sought to steer clear of partisan politics during his tenure as President Joe Biden’s top defense adviser. When asked if Austin included Trump in his critique, a Pentagon official said: “The secretary was referring broadly to those who push misinformation about Ukraine and broadly are all over the world.”
But Trump has been transparent about his hostility to Ukraine’s cause. He has delivered a series of speeches deriding Zelenskyy, including blaming the Ukrainian president for Russia’s invasion of his country. He has misstated facts about the war, echoed Kremlin talking points and said Ukraine was already basically lost.
With possibly only three months left in a job that has been largely defined by his role in supporting Ukraine, Austin did not hold back in an impassioned 30-minute speech.
Austin said the war’s outcome affected not only Ukraine’s future, but also the long-term security interests of the United States and its allies in Europe. And while Ukrainian forces have steadily lost ground to Russian troops in recent days, Austin, a retired four-star general, argued that the Kremlin has been the big loser in the 2 1/2-year-old conflict.
“Russia has paid a staggering price for Putin’s imperial war,” Austin said to an audience of Ukrainian diplomats and military officials in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, noting that Russia has failed to achieve a single one of its strategic goals after it launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
And according to U.S. assessments, Russian casualties in the war so far number as many as 615,000: 115,000 Russians killed and 500,000 wounded.
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