Victoria Nuland on the Threats of the Putin Regime: "No One Knows It Better Than Ukrainians"

Western countries have failed to effectively fight the threats posed by the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Victoria Nuland, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs in 2013-2017 said during the KSF discussion on June 26.

"For the past 20 years, as a democratic community led by the United States, we have failed to maintain a common position and devote sufficient resources and attention to fight the threats posed to us all by the Putin regime. No one knows this better than Ukrainians," she emphasized.

Victoria Nuland noted that Western countries have managed to impose "a significant and unprecedented package of transatlantic and global sanctions in response to the events in Crimea and Donbas."

"But we have failed to support this policy in such a way as to increase the price Putin has to pay for his unwillingness to sit down at the negotiating table and seriously discuss the implementation of the agreements reached in Minsk, which he himself signed, reaffirming his commitment to leave Ukraine," she said.

"This is one of the examples of the lack of unity, concentration, and firmness of positions that we, as a democratic community, had to show in response to various threats. Not just territorial expansion, but also the threat to our democratic systems with the use of cyber weapons against our infrastructure, the killing of its opponents on our territory, the development of new dangerous weapons, withdrawal from arms control agreements and so on, violations of these agreements and lies about these violations," Victoria Nuland underlined.

Kyiv Security Forum is Ukraine’s foremost platform for high-level international discussion about peace and security. Kyiv Security Forum was founded by the Arseniy Yatsenyuk Open Ukraine Foundation in 2007.