During my first stop in Lviv yesterday evening and also today when I arrived in Kyiv, it was once again very clear that amid all the horrors that Putin’s Russia is inflicting on Ukraine, the Ukrainian people continue to demonstrate unbelievable resilience – each day afresh for 1518 days now. For more than four years, soldiers have been fighting at the front, families have been fearing for the lives of their loved ones, people throughout the country have been weathering attacks on cities, apartment blocks, the energy supply, also in the most recent, incredibly severe winter of the war, with temperatures falling to double figures below freezing.

Yesterday in Lviv, my first appointment was an act of commemoration for soldiers who lost their lives in Ukraine’s battle to defend itself. For those who experienced Putin’s brutal war of conquest first hand at the front. It is thanks to their heroic courage, their strength, their determination that Putin’s dreams of conquest have still not come true, even in the fifth spring that Ukraine is being compelled to live through in a state of war.

For it is clearer than ever before that Putin has totally miscalculated. On one side, there are huge losses on the Russian side, on the other there is a united NATO that is able to defend itself, a steadfast Ukraine, and the solidarity and full support of Germany and the EU, which we intend to maintain unwaveringly and with firm resolve.

Another crucial factor in Ukraine’s fight to defend itself is its capacity for ground-breaking innovation and for creative and flexible economic approaches. We can and we must learn from this attitude, for Russia’s aggressive, imperial revisionism has an impact beyond Ukraine and also poses a direct threat to us in Germany and in the EU. We underscored this last week during the German‑Ukrainian intergovernmental consultations. That is why, alongside political talks, I have scheduled a large number of meetings with German and Ukrainian business representatives. We want to find ways for us to work together even more effectively, faster and more intensively and flesh out the agreements on increasing German engagement in Ukraine concluded during the intergovernmental consultations.

Greater cooperation is right and important, because it remains clear that we in Germany and also as the European Union have the unwavering goal of just and lasting peace in Ukraine. Putin is responding with increased cynicism and even more lies, more violence and terror to Ukraine’s repeatedly proven willingness to negotiate immediately. We will therefore increase the pressure on Russia further and remain firmly by Ukraine’s side. On behalf of the German Government, I want to use my visit here to the country to demonstrate this support and solidarity for Ukraine and the Ukrainian people to all my dialogue partners.