Speeches

I want to thank Estonia for hosting this Summit, hosting me today, with my wife, with the First Lady, with all our team. As always, the NB8 format is very, very practical. Europe is strongest when Europeans act together, not separately.

We held our bilateral meeting with Estonia, and we have already begun our conversation with Finland, Latvia, and Sweden. Further bilateral meetings with other Summit participants will follow, as well as our joint work – all NB8 countries and Ukraine. The main thing that is very important today is to prepare for the negotiations and decisions that we all expect from the summits at the European Union, G7, and NATO levels.

I think many around the world were disappointed by that response. He does not want to change anything, and he does not want to admit that this war appeals only to him – and to those who are making money off him.

Today, I held a detailed and very practical meeting on our weapons – what exactly is needed in larger quantities for our defense here in Ukraine, and what exactly can be exported in order to further strengthen Ukraine and our ties with the world – additionally and for the long term.

We are also doing everything possible to accelerate Europe’s work on its own anti-ballistic capabilities – it is essential that Europe has its own systems, its own missiles for protection. The capacity to build an anti-ballistic system in Europe exists, and all the necessary conditions for production are there as well. Political decisions must be implemented as quickly as possible. I am grateful to every country that is working with us on this task.

Right now, we have more capabilities to defend ourselves against cruise missiles – the relevant interceptors are simply more available in the world. And it would be very helpful if partners focused especially on protection against ballistic missiles – we discussed this a lot today – ballistic missiles that Russia started using more often and which are objectively harder to intercept.

Ukraine has already shown, across many types of weapons and especially in drones, that we can move fast and produce modern systems at scale. So I ask for your support at the political level to help achieve positive decisions on these licenses as well.

In every such strike there is – perhaps not always conscious, but still real – complicity of those who work for Russia, who supply Russia with money, who help it bypass sanctions and find not just one or two, but thousands of components without which Russian military production would simply come to a halt. Five Kalibr missiles contain 145 such components. Thirty-three Iskander missiles contain 1,122 components.

Our warriors now have the capability to reach Russian military logistics across virtually the entire depth of the temporarily occupied territory. There are practically no safe roads left for the occupier in the south and east of our state.