Dear Mette, dear journalists,
First of all, I’m grateful to all of you for your support. Thank you, Mette. Thank you for the invitation and for organizing such a very important meeting with all the Nordic-Baltic leaders: the President of Finland, the President of Lithuania, the Prime Minister of Sweden, the Prime Minister of Latvia, the Prime Minister of Estonia, and the Prime Minister of Iceland. Thank you for today’s meeting. Our format of Ukraine with the Nordic and Baltic states really works, and works in a way that also helps others set their priorities.
Last night, Russia launched another massive strike – nearly 500 drones and more than 20 missiles, including ballistic, mostly ballistic, by the way, this night. And these are now regular strikes – several times a week – and a clear signal that Russia rejects any attempt to end the war and wants to keep fighting. We have to assume this is the main Russia’s scenario now.
So, with today’s meeting we started a more concrete talk with all our partners on two things: defense now, while Russia’s war continues, and our defense in the future – the security guarantees we need, since Russia stays on its course.
As for our defense right now, I am very thankful to Mette, to the Prime Minister of Denmark, to Denmark and to all the people, for the clear leadership in funding our weapons production – this is already a historic contribution. Today, we discussed how to continue this work – in Ukraine, by investing in our production, and in the Nordic and Baltic countries, by boosting your defense capabilities. The first example is already in Denmark – a new plant for missiles and drones is being built there. Thank you, Mette, for your support. And we agreed that Latvia, Lithuanian partners, and others will follow the same way – and will build with Ukraine.
We also discussed the PURL program. In August, we filled the PURL program for American weapons, and it already has over 2 billion dollars. The goal is to add around 1 billion each month. I thank Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Latvia, and Iceland who are already in this program, and other partners. I also urged other partners from the Nordics and the Baltics to join. This program adds not only to our defense with crucial things like missiles for Patriots and HIMARS but also to our relations with the United States.
We also talked about boosting Ukraine’s air defense, this directly saves our lives. Together with Nordics and Baltics, we need to provide an additional Patriot system for Ukraine – this is critical, especially before winter. Russia keeps hitting our energy sector every day. We need enough capabilities to protect ourselves. Putin hopes winter will kill our people where his troops cannot reach. We cannot let that happen. Air defense is absolutely strategic.
We also coordinated our positions on new sanctions against Russia, as Mette said, and on work with other partners, especially America. We must all speak to all the partners – EU partners, Americans – with one voice, for our shared interests.
And now about the security guarantees. We are already working both within the Coalition of the Willing and bilaterally with partners on concrete security guarantees. We also have a solid basis in the form of bilateral agreements – including one with Denmark. And we share the view that Ukraine’s future security needs Article 5–like guarantees. Today, we discussed this in detail, with the possible contributions of each country. Now we will fill it with specifics – who does what on land, in the air, at sea, and in cyberspace. Our army is the core of this system – strong and large enough to resist Russia. This means weapons and financing, and we are working on it. We also have signals from the United States that it will provide a backstop – and this is important. And we also discussed the important role the EU membership will play in the holistic system of the security guarantees in the light of the current presidency of Denmark in the EU. And we are working together to open the clusters – it’s not simple, you know why – but to open the clusters by EU-27.
But the main task now is to force Russia to stop the killings and the war. Pressure is the key. Right now, Putin thinks he can get through the difficulties – but we know how to change this. The Russian economy is already in bad shape, with fuel shortages especially telling. Many Russian industries are in decline. Also telling are the labor shortages and Putin’s constant humiliations before China as he tries to sell them as much raw material as possible. All this speaks for itself. Sanctions are really working, and we must keep pressuring Russia with sanctions and tariffs until it understands that this war will end. We will work on this with other European leaders, with the G7 and G20, and, of course, with the US. Peace can only be a joint achievement. I am sure it will come.
Thank you, Mette, again for the invitation.
