Joni Ernst Expresses Support For Ukraine In Conversation With Top Military Officials

Joni Ernst Expresses Support For Ukraine In Conversation With Top Military Officials

thank you Mr chair and uh thank you
General van OST and thank you General
Cavo for being here today um I want to
thank both of you for your continued
service and commitment to Ukraine um it
has been a very difficult time and and
general Cavo I’ll I’ll start with you um
because I did just return from a trip uh
to Poland um Ukraine where I spent three
days uh with a delegation traveling
across the country into many different
areas and then onto into mova which is
one of those other areas that’s uh
pretty tenuous right now um it’s pretty
darn clear that the American political
system has been very ineffective in
providing uh the needed support to a
fellow democracy there in Ukraine uh so
as we await The house’s uh finalized
decision on a supplemental package um
what more can you do in your role uh to
leverage a assistance from friends and
Allied nations in Europe or other areas
to provide support for
Ukraine um we work that very very hard
Senator as you know first of all I would
point out that um the
principal coordinating mechanism for uh
aggregating Ukrainian demand and
presenting it to allies and partners and
soliciting their help and their
contributions has been led by secretary
very Austin since the very beginning
with the uh uh the ud CG the the Ukraine
donors coordination group uh sometimes
known as the Ramstein group because it
sometimes meets there um 50 Nations just
over 50 Nations come
together about every six weeks and um
and we we coordinate at a ministerial
level that is preceded by weeks of hard
work between our policy staffs and their
policy staffs and us with the sagu works
very hard to get the specifics of the
Ukrainian demand and their needs and
consult with them about what they need
to bring that
forward however it it it’s difficult a
lot of this is dependent on production
levels at this point how much ammunition
we can produce how many missiles we can
produce and so in that regard I spend a
lot of time working with the Secretary
General and the Secretariat at NATO um
to increase to work with national
Armament directors to increase the
amount of production we can do well
thank you I appreciate that and I’m I’m
glad that we do have partners that are
are stepping up and assisting they
understand how significant this is and
what could happen to all of us um if
Ukraine Falls oftentimes Americans are
very shortsighted you know what is our
immediate need today um what is our
immediate want but I think there are
very long-term repercussions to our
country should Ukraine fall and I think
we need to keep our eyes open as we’re
looking to the Future and what will
happen if we continue to allow countries
like Russia like China like Iran like
North Korea to continue to spread around
this globe and the pressures it puts on
our own Nation um so I thank you for
being uh such a a great leader in this
fight um I know that in the leadup to
the Russian invasion of Ukraine the
intelligence community did declassify um
a number of reports which shed light on
Russia’s true intentions and it was a
very proactive approach and I’m I’m
really thankful for that and it helped
us counter a lot of that Russian
disinformation that was being pushed out
there and we still see a lot of Russian
propaganda um can you speak to how uh
various information sharing programs are
assisting Us in in pushing back um
against some of the common security
challenges that are faced by uh Europe
and our friends
ye yes ma’am absolutely um first of all
in terms of collection um you know the
variety of ways we collect we we have to
um we rely on access and and
geographical access um to other
countries in order to be able to to to
collect information um Nations have been
very generous with us not just allies
but Partners as well in allowing us to
uh to to operate with and from uh their
countries that has been invaluable
frequently that leads to very high level
and detailed information sharing
programs we have allies who have
accesses that we do not and we have
accesses that they do not and so it’s
very much mutually beneficial the last
thing I’d say ma’am is that the uh
interaction with Ukraine and their
security services has provided us a vast
amount of information as well well and I
will yield back my five seconds uh Mr
chair but thank you both for being here
today

At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing prior to the Congressional recess, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) spoke about how the U.S. can help Ukraine with top military officials.

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