Let us now lift these restrictions.
I will repeat what I said in my speech at the U.N. General Assembly last month: We may keep condemning Russia’s brutal atrocities, but without efficient action against the violence, history will be the one to condemn us. And I agree with former NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg when he said we could have provided military support to Ukraine before 2022 and maybe prevented this war.
I’ve been to Ukraine three times since this conflict began. On my latest trip, just a month ago, I visited a power plant reduced to rubble by missiles launched from within Russia and thought: What purposeful brutality. Yet another war crime intended to break Ukrainians’ endurance, leaving them without electricity in the winter, which in urban areas also means no running water or plumbing, no possibility of going to work or school.
When it comes to achieving its imperialist ambitions in Ukraine and Europe, Russia doesn’t care about the cost — whether in money or human lives. We have to make Russia understand that no country can ever impose its will on its neighbors through war. And this means that Russia cannot win this war.
In June 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan gave a speech in West Berlin, where he made a simple but powerful appeal to the barrier’s sentries: “Tear down this wall!” And two-and-a-half years later, on Nov. 9, 1989, Berliners did.
Decades later, we’ve paradoxically been building a wall ourselves, forcing Ukraine to fight its battle from behind it, hobbled, facing new Russian attacks and enduring more casualties every day.
So, to paraphrase Reagan, I appeal to us all: Let us tear down this wall of restrictions!
