Jonas, dear Mr. Prime Minister,
Dear attendees, our teams,
Dear journalists,
I am glad to meet with the Prime Minister of Norway – these are always substantive, very good meetings: Norway is always one of the strongest defenders of life in Ukraine. I thank every Norwegian for this, and I thank you personally, Jonas. Thank you very much. We have gone through different stages of this war – Russia’s war against Ukraine, Russia’s war against all of Europe. We have done a lot together in defense, diplomacy, the economy, and the humanitarian sphere. Norway provides us with significant energy support, and this is a fact. In many ways, it is precisely thanks to our cooperation with Norway that we have been able to get through this winter and the previous ones, each of which Russia simply tries to turn into a weapon against our ordinary people, against life in Ukraine in general. Norway is also among the most active investors in the PURL initiative. And this is also a fact. This program allows us to purchase air defense, primarily for our systems. To date, this already amounts to $970 million within the PURL initiative. Please continue supporting this essentially non-alternative program. For now. There are no Patriots in Europe yet; production in the United States is also insufficient actually. Nevertheless, we are working on this with all partners. Norway, as I said, is one of the leaders in this initiative. We also greatly appreciate every military package provided by the Norwegians. The long-term nature and predictability of Norway’s support, your annual financial support packages, greatly help with defense planning in this terrible war and all our actions. I am grateful that after February 24, 2022, Norway made such a principled and strong choice not simply in favor of Ukraine and Ukrainians, but in favor of what Europe stands for – a community of nations that truly value life, human life, and respect peace between independent nations. That is exactly what Europe must remain – a real defender of the lives and rights of people and nations. I thank you, Jonas, and once again I thank all of Norway.
Today we spoke about continuing our joint work. We will work toward a new level of partnership – toward a strategic partnership between our countries. In fact, we have already reached this level. I outlined the situation with our defense at the front and Ukraine’s air defense needs. We discussed our diplomatic work – new meetings are being prepared in a trilateral format with the Americans and the Russians. Of course, we will coordinate substantively with Europe. We are grateful that Norway is ready to continue helping us in the energy sector – and not only helping, but also working more on joint ideas. Today we discussed some possible joint future projects. And today we discussed some of these energy prospects — what can strengthen us. The energy ministers of our states will remain in contact, and there will be a relevant agreement on energy cooperation. We thank Norway for supporting sanctions efforts – ours and Europe’s. This helps. I would also like to highlight our cooperation in weapons production. We greatly value that Norway provided Ukraine with NASAMS – I repeat this every time. We are very grateful for this. We expect our relations to reach a level that will allow us to jointly produce weapons. And this is needed not only by us in Ukraine. I am confident everyone on our continent who works for real security needs it. It is important that one of the most effective formats for coordination and joint work has become our NB8 format – the Nordic and Baltic states together with Ukraine. We have such regular meetings and many joint results. A good example for all other partners of how to make their nations and Europe stronger. Thank you, Jonas, for this visit, for these two days of work, support, agreements, and coordination! Very glad to see you again!
Glory to Ukraine!