Remarks

Well, good afternoon.

It's very good to have Rustem Umerov next to me, the Defence Minister of Ukraine.

We will have a meeting going on after this, and then, of course, we will have the lunch with the NATO-Ukraine Council.

Clearly what we need to achieve is for Ukraine to get in the best possible position when talks starts and then to make sure that when talks ends on peace in Ukraine that the outcome is enduring, is durable.

That Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin will never again try to capture one square kilometre of Ukraine in the future.

So that's really crucial.

To get there, we need to continue the military support, and I already announced that over last year, Allies were able to scrap together over €50 billion in military support for Ukraine.

We have also set up NSATU, our command in Wiesbaden and next week in Poland, we will start our joint structure between Ukraine and NATO.

Making sure that we capture all the lessons and all the insights from what you guys are doing now in Ukraine, fighting the Russians, but also how, as a collective Alliance, we can learn from you and apply those lessons elsewhere, so that will open up next week.

But again, warm welcome, and looking forward to our talks