Joint doorstep statements by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy ahead of the meetings of NATO Ministers of Defence in Brussels, NATO Headquarters, 11 October 2023.

🗣 | NATO Secretary General:

President Zelenskyy, dear Volodymyr,

It is a great honour and privilege to welcome you back here to the NATO Headquarters.

And to return the warm welcome you gave me when I visited Kyiv just a couple of weeks ago.

Your leadership, the bravery of the Ukrainian armed forces, the resolve of the Ukrainian people continue to impress and inspire all of us. And as you know, we will stand by you, provide support to Ukraine, because this is really important for the whole of NATO.

NATO Defence Ministers will meet today and tomorrow.

We will of course address Ukraine. We will meet in the US-led Ukraine Contact Group, where we will mobilize more support, coordinate our military support to Ukraine.

We will meet in the NATO-Ukraine Council, that we established at the Vilnius Summit. That will further strengthen our relationship and help Ukraine move towards NATO membership.

We will also tomorrow meet and address deterrence and defence. We agreed the new defence plans at the Vilnius Summit. And now everything is about implementing those defence plans, with 300,000 troops on high readiness.

We will also address NATO’s missions and operations, including our presence in Iraq, helping to prevent ISIS from returning.

And also our presence in Kosovo. We have seen new increased tensions there, so it’s important that NATO has increased its presence in Kosovo.

Then we will also address the incident in the Baltic Sea, with the damage caused to critical undersea infrastructure.

I spoke with President Sauli Niinistö and Prime Minister Kaja Kallas yesterday and we are in close contact. The important thing now is to establish what happened and how this could happen. If it is proven to be a deliberate attack on NATO critical infrastructure, then this will be of course serious, but it will also be met by a united and determined response from NATO.

And tomorrow, we will also be briefed by the Israeli Defence Minister Gallant on the situation in Israel. Allies condemned the horrific terrorist attacks on innocent civilians in Israel over the weekend. And we are looking forward to the briefing from the Defence Minister.

So once again, dear President Zelenskyy, dear Volodymyr, welcome to NATO.

Your fight is our fight. Your security is our security and your values are our values. We will stand by Ukraine for as long as it takes.

Welcome.


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