Dozens of children cower in a street in Kyiv. They are wearing beanies although it’s summer. Their parents balance IV stands on the uneven tarmac. Doctors hurry from one child to the next.

These children have cancer. And Putin has just bombed their hospital.

The pictures of the Russian attack on the Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv have been seared into my brain. As have many other images in the 893 days since 24 February 2022, including those of the siege of Mariupol and the massacre of Bucha.

A major international peace conference was held in Switzerland this June. Almost 100 countries met with Ukraine and discussed peace. Ukraine decided to invite Russia to the next conference in November. You can only imagine how hard it was for them to make that decision. After Mariupol, after Bucha, and now after Ohmatdyt.

Ukraine is fighting for peace in its country. Every day. The world yearns for peace.

But shortly after the hospital strike, the Kremlin turned down the invitation.

By refusing to attend a peace conference, Putin has shown his hand. He has revealed that he does not want to admit in front of the entire world (including many states that are broadly pro‑Russia) that he wants Ukraine to submit to his control. That he still denies Ukraine’s right to exist as an independent state.

Putin’s response to any peace initiative, to all our diplomatic endeavours to end the fighting, is escalation. And a rejection of diplomacy. This has been the case not just for 893 days. But for years. Numerous figures warned of the danger while we still hoped for the best and negotiated in Minsk.

It is true that Russia has long prepared for this war. Over several years, it has first breached treaties on disarmament and then proceeded to terminate them. It has developed banned weapons that can be armed with nuclear warheads. And it went on to deploy them in Kaliningrad, less than 600 kilometres from Berlin. On 24 February 2022, Putin’s Russia then unleashed the biggest war in Europe since 1945.

Conducting foreign policy today means recognising that simply hoping for the best won’t protect us from Putin’s Russia.

What protects us is our support for Ukraine. For the people who are courageously defending their country. And thereby ensuring that Putin’s armed forces are not getting any closer to us.

What protects us now is that we are investing in our own security and strength – in the EU, in NATO and in Germany. And this includes the decision to deploy long-range American weapons systems. Because we need a credible deterrent against Russia, to make sure it doesn’t dare attack. This deterrent must also protect the Poles, the Baltic peoples and the Finns – our partners who share a direct border with Russia and have in the past months experienced first-hand Russia’s provocative use of hybrid measures at the border.

For deciding not to rely on hope alone affects not just the security of Mariupol, Bucha and the Ohmatdyt Hospital, but also the security of Poland, Finland and the Baltic states. And their children’s hospitals.