Opening remarks

Good morning and welcome to this meeting of the NATO defence ministers.

We are taking forward, of course, the historic decisions made by NATO leaders at the Washington Summit to further strengthen our deterrence and defence, investing in the right forces and capabilities to meet the challenges we face.

We are boosting defence industrial capacity and production across the Alliance, at the same time as we work to protect the critical supply chains.

We are significantly stepping up our support for Ukraine so it can, one, defend against Russian aggression today, and two, deter against Russian threats in the future.

And we continue to promote stability and security beyond our borders, including through NATO's missions and operations from KFOR to NATO mission Iraq.

This concludes the public part of this meeting. I want to thank the media for joining us.