Putin’s brutal, unprovoked and unjustifiable war of aggression against Ukraine constitutes a flagrant violation of international law. It is an attack on our most basic values of democracy and brings immeasurable suffering to the people of Ukraine. We must not forget that Ukraine is not only defending itself against Russia's attack. It is also defending our freedom.

Together with its allies in the EU, NATO and G7, the German government is steadfast in its solidarity with Ukraine. It has therefore responded with unprecedented measures and will continue to do so.

The German government is extensively supplying military equipment, including heavy weapons. The weapons are coming partly directly from the stocks of the Bundeswehr, via ring swaps with our EU and NATO partners in Eastern Europe as well as from our industry partners. In addition, we are financing Ukraine's purchases of weapons from German military production _[1]. Together with our NATO allies, we are strengthening NATO's eastern and southern flank. Germany continues to make significant contributions to the tranches of the European Peace Facility intended for Ukraine with funding of over EUR 2 billion as yet.

In lockstep with the EU, NATO allies and the G7, we have coordinated against Russia the most comprehensive package of sanctions ever imposed on a country of its size. This includes the embargoes on Russian coal and oil by the EU member states. The sanctions are already having an impact: experts are predicting a 10-15% decline in Russia's GDP in 2022, with an inflation of up to 20%. Likewise in unison with our partner countries, Germany has pushed through the exclusion of Russia from the UN Human Rights Council and the adoption of two authoritative resolutions condemning Russian aggression.

Faced with a major humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Ukraine, Germany is taking in refugees on an unrestricted scale: approximately 870,000 persons have arrived to date, supported by an overwhelming wave of support, public and private. Ukrainian citizens can enter Germany without a visa. German schools have welcomed more than 146,000 students from Ukraine.

Since the start of the Russian invasion, we have increased our military, humanitarian and financial assistance to Ukraine committing EUR 4 billion until now _[2]. Before that and since 2014, the German government has provided a total of EUR 1.83 billion for bilateral support of Ukraine. With this, Germany is one of the largest bilateral donors of civilian and economic assistance to Ukraine. Germany strongly supported Ukraine’s EU candidate status that was accepted by all EU member state on June 23, 2022. The accession negotiations can now begin. This is an important step. Similarly, we are pushing for a swift ratification of the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO.

We are earmarking more than EUR 100 billion for security and modernization of our armed forces in 2022, and from now on, we will spend more than 2% of our GDP on defense each year. For this to happen, we have already amended our constitution. We will also reduce our energy dependency from Russia through a rapid shift to renewable energy and diversification of our fossil fuel suppliers. Compared with the same period in previous years as well as with the early months of 2022, we have already succeeded to reduce oil and gas imports from Russia significantly.

_{[1] The German Federal Government has published and is continously updating an overview of lethal and non-lethal German military support for Ukraine. For more information, please visit: https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/news/military-support-ukraine-2054992.}  

_{[2] The Kiel Institute for The World Economy has published and is continously updating the “Ukraine Support Tracker”, which lists and quantifies military, financial and humanitarian aid promised by governments to Ukraine between January 24, 2022 and currently through July 1, 2022. For more information, please visit: https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-Tracker.}