‘We Will Stand by Ukraine for as Long as It Takes,’ Austin Says

“War is fluid, dynamic and unpredictable. Ukraine’s fight, it’s not some easy sprint to the finish line. And our message remains clear: We will stand by Ukraine for as long as it takes. We remain laser-focused on meeting Ukraine’s urgent needs for ground-based air defense systems. And that’s especially important since Russia has — since Russia has ruthlessly ramped up its missile and drone attacks over the past month against Ukraine’s cities. Colleagues from the Netherlands and Denmark cheered the progress that they’ve made on plans to train Ukrainian pilots on fourth-generation fighter aircraft, including F-16.” “This is a very difficult fight. It’s a very violent fight, and it will likely take a considerable amount of time at high cost. But at the end of the day, as Napoleon once said, ‘The moral is to the physical, as three is to one.’ And the Ukrainian morale, their leadership, their skill, their tenacity, their resilience is very high. Russian on — the Russians. on the other hand, their leadership is not necessarily coherent. Their troops’ morale is not high. They’ve been sitting in defensive positions, and many of them don’t even know why they’re there.”