Dear friends!
I’m glad to see you. And thank you for your participation. Keir, Emmanuel – thank you for co-chairing the Coalition. And thank you to the other leaders, of course, and representatives.
Today with us is the new Prime Minister, as Emmanuel said, Prime Minister of Japan, Takaichi Sanae – thank you. And Japan is now paying more attention to defense, like many other nations, and we are ready to work with you closely.
So, our priorities for today – number one is air defense and energy. And Keir said about it.
And you can see that Putin has not achieved any of his real goals on the ground – no gains on the front line, and he turned to what he truly believes in – terror. And of course, we need to protect our critical infrastructure – and prevent any blackouts. Our team will give your teams the key measures to help our energy sector. And this covers equipment and other items. And we are also talking about gas. Yes, we need a significant amount of imported gas for the coming winter because Russian strikes hit our production. And we’re already working with Norway, and Norway has been very helpful on this. Thanks, Jonas. And I urge everyone who understands this priority to help us finance the necessary volume of imports.
Next – air defense.
There is an important issue for Europe. And we’re now discussing with the United States a deal to buy the needed number of Patriot systems. They can be delivered, of course, not immediately, but after some time. There is a line of countries waiting for deliveries – and we’re trying to change the line, and it is not an easy task. And there are already a significant number of Patriots and other air defense systems in Europe that, fortunately, are just on standby. And we could use them now to protect lives, so we don’t have to wait the line. And it would be very useful if we could get these systems now also from Europe and then replace them later when our turn comes in the deal with the Americans. And I ask every country that has these systems to consider this practically.
Third – sanctions.
Thank you to the UK and the EU, and Canada, and Japan for the sanctions against Russia for the war, as well as everyone who joins in these efforts.
And now there is one more important decision by the United States of America – sanctions against two large Russian oil companies. Pressure on Russian oil is an instrument to end the war, I'm sure. And all Russian oil companies – including Rosneft, Lukoil, Putin’s own oil company Surgutneftegas, and others – must be blocked. Their access to the world market must be cut off – this will bring Putin back to reality and greatly limit the Russian war machine’s money. And I thank President Trump for this path of pressure, and I thank the countries that are already taking these steps. And I ask all the others to join.
One more point – diplomacy.
Right now, Russia does not want to end the war, and Putin does not want any proper meetings. Everything Putin does is an attempt to delay new forms of pressure. We must create in Russia a will to negotiate. And I’m ready to meet in any meaningful format, and the current line of contact could be the starting point of negotiations, real negotiations. And we must all remember that the issues of territorial integrity, as well as any alleged “trade of lands,” must not pay off the aggressor or reward any future aggressions in the world. And unfairness… Unfairness equals danger – do not give Russia any reason to think they can finish this war with any outcome that is unfair to all of us. Only a strong and fair solution to end the war will really work. Please support us in this. And we all know the parameters.
And our long-range capabilities help with that – and I thank everyone – every country, every leader – who is contributing. The questions about Tomahawks, about Storm Shadows, SCALPs, about our joint production of drones and rockets – these are vital. And as soon as Putin felt pressure and the possibility of Tomahawks appearing in Ukraine – he immediately declared his readiness to restart talks, but as soon as the pressure disappeared, he abandoned diplomacy again. So it’s obvious for us what to do. We need more deep-strike capabilities.
And one more point.
I urge you to push your teams so we can finalize, together with our team, work on a future framework of security guarantees. On the day the war ends, we must be ready with all the security guarantees. And right now, it’s time to practically implement all these initiatives, like PURL, SAFE, and support in Capability Coalitions. In July, by the way, in July in Rome, the Coalition reaffirmed to provide 40 billion euros in military support of our Security and Defense Force. And we need to implement that.
Thank you, friends!
