We want to do everything we can to strengthen the hand of our Ukrainian partners both on the battlefield but also at the negotiating table. Such a statement made the Spokesperson of US Department of State.

“Ukraine has every right to defend itself. I’ll make one additional point. Our goal in all of this is to do everything we can to bring this war to an end, to diminish the violence and to put an end to a conflict that was needless to begin with. So we want to do everything we can to strengthen the hand of our Ukrainian partners both on the battlefield but also at the negotiating table. That’s why we are providing them this security assistance. That’s why we are, including with the tranche of additional sanctions we announced today, continuing to hold the Russian Federation to account.

But we also want to be careful to ensure that we are not doing anything or the international community is not doing anything that would needlessly prolong this conflict. Right now there is only one country that is prolonging this conflict, and of course that’s Russia. If Ukraine stopped fighting today, there would be no sovereign, independent country of Ukraine tomorrow. If Russia stopped fighting today, there would be no war today. That is what it boils down to.

What we are trying to do is to strengthen the ability of our Ukrainian partners to defend themselves, to defend their freedom, to defend their sovereignty, to defend their country on the battlefield as we strengthen their hand at the negotiating table”, - said Ned Price.