Doorstep statement

So, good morning.

It's great to be back in the United Kingdom and I look forward to attending the meeting of the European Political Community.

NATO is of course a transatlantic Alliance but as you all know, this transatlantic Alliance is the cornerstone for European security.

So therefore, that makes absolute sense that NATO is part of this community.

The place to –the time to stand for freedom and democracy is now and the place is Ukraine and NATO Allies are stepping up our support to Ukraine.

We have agreed to establish a command to coordinate and provide security assistance and training for Ukraine.

And I’m glad that today I can announce that command will be operational in September.

It will be 700 personnel in Germany with a three-star general as the commander and it will provide us support and the security assistance to Ukraine, and coordinate the efforts of NATO Allies.

Today, we will also discuss how to defend our democracies, both from external threats, but also from internal threats.

And we have seen a pattern of Russian hostile actions against NATO Allies with cyber attacks and sabotage, disinformation over the last months and Allies are taking measures against these hostile actions both individually and collectively, with more intelligence sharing, with increased awareness, with the stepping up of protection of our critical infrastructure, including undersea infrastructure, we have established a new centre to protect critical infrastructure here in the United Kingdom.

And Allies are also taking actions individually with legal processes, arrests across the Alliance.

The purpose of Russia's hostile actions, cyber attacks, sabotage against NATO Allies is to coerce us from providing support to Ukraine, but we will not be coerced.

We will continue to support Ukraine.

Thank you.