Joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, at the NATO Defence Ministers Meetings, 17 October 2024.
🗣 | NATO Secretary General:
Good afternoon,
And a very warm welcome to President Zelenskyy.
Dear Volodymyr, it is great to welcome you here in Brussels.
We last met in London after my visit two weeks ago to Kyiv. And of course we spoke about Ukraine’s most urgent needs and how best NATO can continue to support you.
Building on the important decisions Allied leaders made in Washington.
On Monday, I visited the new NATO command in Wiesbaden which will coordinate the security assistance and training for Ukraine.
The men and women there are already hard at work to ensure that they can deliver for Ukraine – so that you can prevail.
To do this it will also be essential that we continue to provide military aid. And yesterday I announced that Allies are well on track to deliver on the financial pledge we made in Washington. With 20.9 billion euros in military assistance provided in the first half of this year and we are on track to get to the 40 billion for the full year.
So NATO is working with Ukraine – bringing you ever closer to the Alliance. And we are also working with other partners to bolster security for us all.
We just concluded before the President arrived the first session of our NATO Defence Ministerial with a meeting that included the European Union and our Indo-Pacific partners. And of course, Ukraine was also high on the agenda of that meeting.
It was the first meeting when we had Australia, Japan, Korea, New Zealand participating in this format.
A clear sign of our deepening cooperation in the face of our shared challenges.
The war in Ukraine has shown that instability in Europe can have far reaching consequences across the world.
And that countries thousands of miles away – as far away as Iran, China and even North Korea – can become security spoilers in our own backyard.
Our world is closely linked – and so is our security.
China has become a decisive enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
And it cannot continue to fuel the biggest conflict in Europe since the second world war without this impacting on its interests and reputation.
Iran and North Korea are fuelling Russia’s war machine with missiles and drones in return for support for their military industries.
So we must be clear-eyed in our assessment of the challenges we face.
And we must work with our like-minded partners to address our shared challenges and uphold our common values.
At our Summit in Washington, NATO agreed to deepen practical cooperation with our Indo-Pacific partners.
And today we discussed our joint efforts, including on
- support for Ukraine
- defence production and innovation
- cyber defence
- countering disinformation
- and new technologies, including artificial intelligence.
I want to take this opportunity to thank our Indo-Pacific partners and the EU for their outstanding support for Ukraine, including today the announcements made by Australia about [the] delivery of tanks to Ukraine.
We are determined to work ever more closely together to defend our democratic values.
And to promote a world based on the rule of law, not the rule of force.
Finally, I am looking forward tonight to the NATO-Ukraine Council working dinner this evening, and to our discussions.
President Zelenskyy, Dear Volodymyr,
It is great to have you here at NATO Headquarters.
I look forward to the day that Ukraine is here as a member of this Alliance. And until then, we will continue to do all that we can to ensure Ukraine prevails. This is vital for our shared security.
And with that, Volodymyr, it’s an honour to give you the floor.
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