I wish you good health, fellow Ukrainians!
A brief summary of what we have accomplished during the week with our friends, the friends of Ukraine.
With Denmark, we now have new agreements on coproduction of weapons. An agreement was concluded; it was signed yesterday between Ukraine’s Ministry of Strategic Industries and Denmark’s Ministry of Industry. We will work on Denmark’s territory, and this is our joint project – the first substantial capabilities of our Ukrainian production abroad. And that’s not all. More such agreements will follow. The Danish model of investing in Ukraine’s own DIB here, on our soil, has proven its effectiveness. Joint work on the territory of Denmark, and soon in other key partner countries, is allowing us to scale up even more. This applies to drones and many other types of urgently needed weapons.
As per drones, we have also reached an agreement with the American side to significantly increase our joint efforts. This week, an agreement was signed between Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense and one of the leading U.S. companies. It will provide Ukraine with hundreds of thousands of drones as early as this year, on special terms, and even significantly more drones the following year. This includes interceptor drones, which are clearly our priority.
The task for our entire state, for Ukraine’s Defense Forces, and for all businesses working specifically in this field is to deliver more results literally every week, more results particularly in drones, especially interceptors. This means producing more of such drones, training more drone operators, and significantly increasing efficiency in deploying interceptors. Responsibility for this area of security is personal for everyone involved in making and implementing respective decisions. The interceptors must work.
As for the call with the President of the United States of America, which took place yesterday, I’d say it was probably the best conversation we’ve had so far, extremely fruitful. We discussed air defense among other things. I’m grateful for the readiness to assist. Patriot systems are the key to defending against ballistic threats. We also discussed several other topical issues, which our teams will follow up on in detail at upcoming meetings.
Today, I also received a report from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Andrii Sybiha, regarding his communications with our European partners. We have a list of clear goals in preparation for the upcoming heating season. There are issues I raised personally with European leaders at the highest political level. Now, at the level of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Energy, and Naftogaz, our agreements are being prepared for implementation. We expect that next week, as part of the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Italy, our government officials will be able to sign the relevant agreements with our partners to secure energy resources for Ukraine. We will continue this work, and I am grateful to all our partners who are consistently helping and ready to scale up their support in the energy sector. Energy resilience is the foundation of our country’s overall resilience.
I also want to praise Sweden today: there is a decision on a new defense support package. Thank you, Sweden! We are actively working with Germany to speed up decisions on air defense. Latvia has also decided to provide a new defense package – thank you for that. And I thank everyone standing with us, and with our nation, with Ukraine, and with our people. I am proud of our people. The world is helping Ukraine because it believes in us, in Ukrainians – and our people truly deserve the world's trust.
We’re also already preparing new steps that will make Russia truly feel that it will pay for this war. There must be accountability for the aggressor. And there will be – entirely just and keenly felt.
Glory to Ukraine!
