Joint remarks

Good evening and I am very happy to welcome the President of Ukraine, my good friend Volodymyr Zelenskyy, here in Brussels. We will have talks, the two of us, and also with our delegations and then later on, some of our European colleagues will join. 

They are meeting here in Brussels and this is an opportunity also to sit with them and very much high on the agenda is to make sure that the President, his team, Ukraine, are in the best possible position one day when they decide so to start the peace talks. And that means that we have to do everything now to make sure that when it comes to air defence, when it comes to other weapon systems that we make sure that we provide whatever we can. We know your request, Volodymyr, to make sure that, I think it is 19 systems are delivered to Ukraine to protect the critical infrastructure. 

So this will all be on the agenda, plus how to make sure that when peace comes one day, that we also think about the economy of Ukraine now, but also after a future peace deal. And here, I'm extremely happy with the Danish Lithuanian initiative to not only buy weapons, but to buy them from Ukraine, from your huge defence industrial base. And this is good news, because this means more weapons for Ukraine, but also money for the Ukrainian economy. So this is a very practical way to support you. 

So all this will be on the agenda tonight, again, Volodymyr thank you for being here, for taking the time, and for being such a wonderful friend. And you know all my praise.