Mr. Prime Minister, dear Donald!
Dear attendees, our teams!
We have very large delegations today. It is a great pleasure.
Dear journalists!
Today, Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland is in Ukraine, and we had a quite meaningful conversation – substantive, covering a wide range of topics, as usual. First and foremost, I want to thank Poland – the Polish state and the Polish people – for their support for Ukraine both now, as we defend ourselves against Russia’s invasion, and throughout all the years since Ukraine restored its independence. Poland has been – and I very much hope will always remain – a reliable friend of Ukraine, and therefore of our entire region and all of free Europe. In Europe, we believe that everything is interconnected, and we must always support one another in all matters, in all important matters. And, of course, we will be together in the European Union, and we are grateful for the principled position of Poland in this regard.
Today, I informed Donald about the situation in our country – first and foremost in the energy sector, which is currently one of the top priorities, including energy restoration. Much is being done to preserve normal life for people after the brutal Russian terror – daily terror. In effect, the Russians are trying to deprive Ukrainians – our cities and our villages – of any possibility to live, to exist, during such a cold winter. It is important that our partners stand with us, it is very important that our partners are here today, and it is very important that our partners support Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.
We discussed energy cooperation, and there are things that can strengthen both of our countries. In particular, this concerns the development of our energy grid in Ukraine and Poland. There are projects that we must implement. We are counting on productive joint work by our teams – first and foremost our ministries of energy and our finance ministers. It is important that our energy companies continue carrying out a sufficient amount of substantive work. And when it comes to gas supplies to Europe, and to Ukraine in particular, Poland is already working with us on this, and we will expand this track by increasing LNG supplies. I am grateful to Polish society for providing Ukraine with essential energy equipment – above all generators, which are helping us. Thank you, Donald, to your team, and, of course, to all the people of Poland who are helping us. This is a great help to Kyiv and to other cities as well.
We devoted a significant part of today’s discussion to joint defense programs. We very much count on Poland’s continued participation in the PURL initiative, which enables us to receive air defense from the United States. This is precisely the current approach of the U.S. administration toward relations with Europe: Washington expects to see tangible benefits from its relations with Europe. The PURL initiative is one of the best tools for this. For us, this means first and foremost having air defense missiles. And every package of air defense missile deliveries matters. Of course, we also count on Ukraine becoming a full participant in the SAFE instrument. Together, we are preparing to produce drones – co-produce them with Poland – and this will happen, along with the production of other weapons. Our state has up-to-date expertise – probably the greatest at this moment, because we are going through a war – on which weapons actually work in modern warfare and what can truly help. These are precisely the kinds of weapons we must produce together to defend our countries and Europe.
And one more point.
Of course, we also spoke about the diplomatic efforts underway to end the war. I informed Donald about the work of Ukraine’s negotiating team – today is the second day of meetings in the Emirates, once again in a trilateral format. The talks are ongoing. Of course, they are not easy, but Ukraine has been and will remain as constructive as possible. We must bring this war to a real end – with reliable security guarantees for Ukraine. These are guarantees for the entire region. And most importantly, Russia must receive no reward whatsoever for its aggression. The war must end in a way that leaves Russia with no desire to launch this aggression again – against Ukraine or against other European states. We thank Poland for its support in this. We also count on Poland to continue supporting all EU pressure measures against the aggressor. This includes, in particular, decisions to block Russian oil tankers – we must act in a way that also makes it possible to confiscate Russian oil. It is equally important that the EU’s 20th sanctions package be genuinely strong and push Russia to end the war. We are also grateful for Poland’s principled position on Russian assets: Russian assets must be used for protection against Russia and recovery after Russia. All decisions necessary to make this happen must be implemented. There is already a decision providing 90 billion in support for Ukraine over two years. We must also achieve results with regard to the full amount of Russian funds. Of course, we also count on the active participation of Poland and Polish companies in Ukraine’s recovery, and Donald knows our position well: we always welcome substantive involvement and support from our partners. We also discussed today the conference on Ukraine’s recovery – an event that, I am confident, will take place at a high level in Poland this year. We are preparing for it to be a very substantive conference with strong, tangible outcomes. Thank you once again, Donald, for your support and for your visit today.
Glory to Ukraine!
