Austin: “Ukraine matters to all peoples and nations”

Speaking at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia, Canada, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III concentrated his remarks on what the U.S. defense strategy names as “an acute threat” — Russia. He made the case that what happens to Ukraine matters to all people of the world today, according to a story published on the U.S. Department of Defense website.

Austin said Russia’s devastating war on Ukraine is a direct challenge to sovereignty everywhere, a direct threat to European security and a challenge to NATO allies. He praised the nations of the world for standing up for Ukraine. “Russia’s deliberate cruelty is an attack on our shared values — and on the rules of war,” he said.

Beyond the attack that threatens Europe, the Russian invasion of Ukraine “tears at the rules-based international order that keeps us all secure,” the secretary pointed out.

The European allies, especially those in the East “… are grappling with the instability, the destruction, the human misery, the flood of refugees, and the other dangers of an even more reckless and aggressive Russia,” Austin said. “Yet, we’ve seen an incredible response from our friends in Europe, as well as others around the globe.”

Through his invasion of Ukraine, Putin offers a preview of “a possible world of tyranny and turmoil that none of us would want to live in, and it’s an invitation to an increasingly insecure world haunted by the shadow of nuclear proliferation,” the secretary said. This is because autocrats around the world are watching, “and they could well conclude that getting nuclear weapons would give them a hunting license of their own,” he said. “Putin’s war of choice shows the whole world the dangers of disorder.”