Ivanna Klympush-Tsyntsadze in the United States: «We hope that Ukraine's voice, reinforced by the position and actions of its European partners, will be heard and taken into account.»
21 January 2026, 16:41
Ivanna Klympush-Tsyntsadze, Chair of the Committee on Ukraine's Integration into the EU, is in the United States on a working advocacy visit to support Ukraine. She is working with colleagues from the United4Ukraine parliamentary network from Lithuania, Poland, Sweden, Spain, Finland and Germany.
As part of the United4Ukraine delegation, Ivanna Klympush-Tsyntsadze met with analysts at the Atlantic Council and Heritage Foundation, representatives of the State Department, and the ambassadors of Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, and the EU to the United States. They spoke with the media and several Republican congressmen, including Mike Turner and Don Bacon.
«In every audience and meeting, we have to remind people that Ukrainians live under incredible pressure every day and in conditions that are difficult to imagine from the outside. Winter under shelling. russia's systematic destruction of our energy sector. Electricity, water, and heat are unavailable to hundreds of thousands of homes in Kyiv and across the country. This is not the «background of war», but a specific «negotiating tactic» of the russian federation,» said the Committee Chair.
She expressed hope that the US Congress would still play an important role – and that Ukraine's voice, reinforced by the position and actions of its European partners, would be heard and taken into account. «During the meetings, we explained that russia is not as strong as it wants to appear. Its «victory narrative» is a tool of pressure and intimidation, which the world must stop believing and spreading,» said Ivanna Klympush-Tsyntsadze.
According to her, any talk of security only makes sense when real security guarantees are legally enshrined. «In this context, we raised the issue of the need for the US Senate to ratify those guarantees that will be agreed with Ukraine at the bilateral level. Otherwise, we are talking about political promises without real protection,» the Committee Chair emphasised.
Despite all the challenges, NATO, according to Ivanna Klympush-Tsyntsadze, remains the cheapest and most effective guarantee of peace and that russia will no longer dare to commit aggression - neither against Ukraine nor against the Alliance states. «It is impossible to convince russia. It can only be forced to make peace. That is why we talked about the need to strengthen sanctions and exert real, not symbolic, pressure on the aggressor. Through joint efforts, real pressure and assistance to Ukraine in self-defence, we can achieve a result whereby russia will cease to be a threat to Ukraine, Europe and the United States of America. This requires cooperation, determination and daily systematic work,» concluded the Chair of the Committee on Ukraine's Integration into the EU.