Transcript of Remarks at Photo Opportunity with His Excellency Denys Shmyhal, Prime Minister of Ukraine

Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined His Excellency Denys Shmyhal, the Prime Minister of Ukraine, for a photo opportunity. Below are the Speaker's remarks:

Speaker Pelosi. Good morning, everyone.

It is a great honor to welcome the Prime Minister of Ukraine to the Capitol of the United States. I do so with great admiration and respect for the people of Ukraine, for their courage, for their commitment to democracy, for their love of their country.

I do so on behalf of bipartisan support in the Congress of the United States to help with those aspirations, because the fight of Ukrainian people for democracy is a fight for democracy even beyond the borders of Ukraine – the fight against dictatorship and autocracy.

We're very proud to be working with our President, President Biden, who has been a unifier. A unifier within NATO, a unifier in terms of the U.S. government and now unifier with the Ukrainian people in so many ways. He announced this morning some expanded sanctions as well as some opportunities to help meet the needs of the Ukrainian people.

We have passed, as you know, a $13.6 billion legislation – appropriation – that is about humanitarian assistance, economic assistance and military assistance. We want to do more. The President said he will be asking Congress for more. We'll learn [more] about that in the next day or so – to be taken up as soon as we can – [we'll learn about that request] next week. We want to learn, though, from the distinguished [Prime Minister] Shmyhal from Ukraine as to what the priorities and needs are so that we can be on time – ahead of time for some of them, in anticipation of some further needs.

So again, I just say that what Russia is doing in Ukraine is outside the circle of civilized human behavior. Horrible – words are almost inadequate to describe it. And that's why we're so privileged to have received the permission from the Ukrainian government to display their photographs and, and public manifestations of the war starting on April 28th– will be in the Capitol of the United States. In the hallowed halls of the Capitol of the United States, we will be demonstrating for a number of weeks the photographs of what is happening in Ukraine – the impression.

So it'll be, again, another manifestation of our ongoing commitment, respect – just being in awe of the leadership of President Zelenskyy, of [Prime Minister] Shmyhal and we welcome him to the Capitol.

Mr. Prime Minister.

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Thank you, Prime Minister Shmyhal.

We will now go to a bipartisan meeting – leadership meeting, where we will again be inspired, as well as informed, by the Prime Minister as to the priorities that we need to be addressing. Our support has always been bipartisan. It will continue to be.

Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister.