SEDONA – On Saturday, Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) spoke on a panel titled “Standing with Ukraine: Policy, Politics, and War” at the McCain Institute’s Sedona Forum.
“Ukraine can win, Ukraine is winning right now, and our government should make decisions to make sure that happens. Let’s arm them, let’s give them intelligence they need, let’s give them capabilities to reach deep into Russia,” said Senator Gallego. “It’s in our national interest, our joint interests with NATO and Ukraine, to destroy military capability of Russia, and we have to make a decision to do it. We want Ukraine to win. Ukraine destroying Russia is good for world stability, and we should make that investment to do it as fast as possible.”
Watch the full panel here.
Senator Gallego has been a leading voice in the Senate supporting Ukraine and pushing back on the Trump administration’s decisions to ease pressure on Russia. Recently, he introduced the bipartisan No Oil Profits for Enemies (NOPE) Act and led colleagues in calling on the administration to impose further sanctions on Russia.
See below for media coverage highlights:
“’I think there was a problem in the Biden administration where they didn’t know if Ukraine could win and what a victory would look like,’ said Gallego, who was a member of the House Armed Services Committee before joining the Senate in 2025. […]
Gallego said he is troubled that the Trump administration is applying pressure to Ukraine to accept what he called ‘a bad peace deal.’
That, he predicted, would not be honored by Russia and ‘would really cause the collapse of American leadership around the world.’
Taiwan, Gallego said, would feel pressure to strike some type of deal with mainland China after seeing the U.S. allow Kiev to bend to Moscow. Closer to Ukraine, Moldova and the Baltic states could be the next targets of Russian aggression, he said.”
Gallego: “This is why it is important. You know, you know, I do this that we go to the Munich Security Conference, that we are the different voice than the administration. I’ll be going to the Black Sea Conference in Odessa, Ukraine, this summer to make sure that people understand, like, yes, this administration may be antagonistic to the idea of Ukraine sovereignty, but there are many, many supermajority of senators, supermajority of members of Congress that do not have that same point of view. And we will fight for your freedom and for your sovereignty.”