Remarks

Rustem, a very warm welcome again to NATO headquarters, there’s a lot to be discussed today and tomorrow. 
We will have today our Ukraine Defence Contact Group with many ministers attending. 
And this takes place at a moment when the Russians are still attacking innocent people in Ukraine, cities, this is violence for the sake of violence and you can be assured that NATO, the Allies, stand with you to continue the support for Ukraine. Through our command in Wiesbaden, we are capturing all the lessons through our joint organisation we set up in Poland and of course all the other initiatives ongoing. 
And in the meantime, of course what we need to achieve is a durable and lasting peace, and I commend President Trump’s efforts to get there. 
I'm so glad that you are personally - and also with your senior colleagues - involved in bringing this conflict to a durable end and let's pray that we will get there as soon as possible. 
But in the meantime, making sure that you have what you need to stay in the fight, and to make sure that whenever it ends, that Putin will know that he should never, ever again, try to attack Ukraine. 
So again, thank you so much for being here.