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Thank you, Minister. Thank you, dear Andrii.

It is my fifth visit to Ukraine since Russia launched the full-scale invasion. I came to Ukraine before that, but since the war of aggression started, this is the fifth visit. And it's maybe the last one, in any case, as High Representative. But it is not a goodbye visit.

This is a visit with a clear purpose, coming from the European Union Council in Budapest and after the American elections. The clear purpose of this visit is to stress European Union support to Ukraine.

This support remains unwavering. This support is absolutely needed for you to continue defending yourself against Russia’s aggression.

And thank you for recognizing that this has been my personal priority since day one of the full-scale invasion.

I was visiting Donbas some days before the invasion, and immediately after, I did everything I could in order to mobilize [EU’s] financial resources to arm Ukraine to the European Peace Facility and to put on the table of the [EU] Council for the approval of the Member States a strong package of sanctions, both individual sanctions and sectoral sanctions.

And now we are close to 1.000 days since this full-scale invasion. But also, don't forget – I'm sure you don't forget, but maybe the world is not aware – that it is 4.000 days since the aggression started in 2014.

In the wall [that I have seen today] full of pictures of Ukrainian soldiers who they lost their lives, [it can be clearly seen that] this started in 2014.

So, 1.000 days since the full-scale invasion, 4.000 days since the start of the aggression in 2014.

And today, Ukraine and Ukrainian people continue being attacked by swarms of drones and missiles targeting civilian objects and trying to terrorize the civilian population, the Ukrainian people.

And winter is here, and by attacking the electricity system and destroying the electricity capacity of Ukraine, Russia's Putin wants to plunge Ukraine into the cold and darkness.

Allow me to recall that from day one I said clearly: “Ukraine doesn't need applauses. President Zelensky and the Ukrainian people don't need standing ovations, don't need to be told every time that they are very brave and their fight is very important.”

It's good to say that, but the important thing is to provide tanks, fighter jets – I said that since the beginning – air defences and ammunition.

You don't fight a war without ammunition. You don't fight a war without the military capacity that you need. And I have been constantly pushing for more and faster. This has been my permanent call.

We have to do more and faster. And it's still true. We have to do more and faster.

More military support, more training capacities, more money, faster supplies, and also the permission to strike the enemy’s  military targets on its territory. It's not enough to stop the arrows, you have to attack the archers.

This is something in which I want to insist. You insist [on it], rightly so, and it's truly, absolutely true.

We cannot only shoot down the arrows. We do that a lot. We need to eliminate the archers [exercising] the right of self-defence of Ukraine.

We need faster deliveries and fewer self-imposed red lines. Fewer self-imposed red lines. Because time [for Ukraine] is measured in human lives and the extent of destruction.

Every day that we lose discussion about how much support are we going to provide, this is measured on Ukrainians losing lives.

And now Putin has enlisted North Korean soldiers to join the war. They are there. They are at your borders.

And by increasing the military cooperation between Russia and the so-called Democratic [People’s] Republic of Korea, North Korea, they show how this war is further globalizing.

I just visited Japan and South Korea to discuss how to increase pressure on North Korea, but I am afraid the presence of North Korea [in this war] is a fact, and it can only increase unless we put a lot of pressure on North Korea.

Also, the security of South Korea depends on Ukraine, and is defended here too.

The world peace and security depend on how the war goes here in Ukraine, against Ukraine.

But apart from supporting you to defend yourself, we have been also supporting your diplomatic efforts, supporting Ukraine's peace formula, which for us is the only way to achieve a just and lasting peace.

There are different ways of reaching peace, but the only one that matters is a just and lasting peace. And on that our position is clear: It is for Ukraine to decide when to sit at the negotiation table and on which terms. And we, the European Union, we stand firmly on your side on this.

But let's not be naive. Putin doesn't want to negotiate and will not negotiate unless he is forced to do it. This is made clear by all interlocutors in the world.

That we have seen by his ruthless and barbaric action over the past years, it's not a speculation, it's a fact of life that has been proved by his behavior.

And allow me to remark that we, the European Union, we have supported Ukraine militarily until now with about $45 billion.

And we are aware that we need to continue increasing our support. We have also started to invest with the proceeds from Russian frozen assets, and with them to buy weapons, or more important, to help you to produce weapons here in Ukraine. You don't need to buy the weapons produced by others. It's much more efficient that you produce your own weapons by increasing your industrial capacity.

And for now, $400 million will go into supporting your defense industry, and more will come using this Danish model and increasing the support - it's very important what I am saying - in order for you to have your own capacity to produce.

And I have the chance to visit a factory this afternoon during my visit in order to see directly the progress we are doing.

Also, Minister, I want to announce that yesterday we extended the mandate of our training mission for Ukraine (EUMAM) for two more years and increased the ambition of this training mission in order for this mission to correspond better to your needs, which I know are huge.

We have already trained 60.000 Ukrainian soldiers, and we will reach 75.000 by the end of the winter.

I mentioned sanctions at the beginning. Yes, we are on the 15th package of sanctions against Russia, and we have to tighten measures against circumvention of these sanctions because Russia cannot produce without foreign parts, foreign chips, and other components.

So, we have to use the sanctions in order to isolate industrial capacity of Russia from the components they need to import from the rest of the world.

We mentioned also the attacks against your electricity infrastructure. We have provided more than $2 billion to repair, to stabilize, and connect your electricity network to the European Union network.

And recently, we have increased the capacity to export electricity to from 1,7 gigawatts to 2,1 gigawatts.

The figures matter, but the important thing is that your grid is connected with the European Union grid, and you are importing the electricity that Russia wants to prevent you from producing at home.

Finally, the F-16 has arrived to Ukraine, and air defence systems are increasing, although I know very well they are still not enough.

Minister, you mentioned that today it was 35 years since the Berlin Wall fell, and I want to remember this day.

I want to remember that that moment marked the end of the Cold War, and we thought that the world order could be an order of peace and cooperation. But this hope has definitely vanished with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The hope of a world based on cooperation, multilateralism, building peace and prosperity went definitely out with this invasion.

And with this invasion, we see an imperialistic Russia trying to grab by force territory and control of a neighbour.

But we also see a strong Ukraine, a candidate to join the European Union, firmly anchored on the European Union path. And allow me to stress the importance of this fact.

Ukraine is today a candidate to be a member of the European Union, something that was difficult to imagine 35 years ago. And now you are on track to become a member of our family.

And this is the most important security commitment that we can provide to you.

And believe me, we will do everything in order to support you on the reforms needed in order to make the membership a reality.

And I want to congratulate you, the Ukrainian people, because this is an endeavour for the Ukrainian people, not only for the government, because in the last report that we approved at the European Union Commission, in the enlargement progress report, in the difficulties that you are living, you still managed to advance on key reforms.

Finally, dear Minister, next week I will chair the regular meeting of the European Union foreign and defence ministers. And both you and Minister Umerov will join us.

[Russian aggression] It will be high on the agenda, as it has been since the starting of the war. It has been a priority topic, and I will convey to Member States the importance of our continued support, both in the diplomatic field with the Foreign Ministers Council, and in the defence and security[field] in the Council that joins the Defence Ministers of the European Union Member States.

We will make the case for boosting political and especially military support to Ukraine, especially now at this critical hour.

Slava Ukraini!

Q&A

Q: A quick first question to both of you, and then a question just to the Minister. What can or should Europe do more concretely to help Ukraine if Donald Trump cuts US support to Ukraine? And to the Minister, is Ukraine willing to cross any of its red lines in terms of conceding territory to Russia or renouncing its NATO ambitions under any Trump peace plan? And have you invited Donald Trump formally to visit Ukraine since his election, and do you expect a visit soon?

On the 27th of June we signed the European Union-Ukraine Joint Security Commitment. It is a long-term commitment by 27 Member States to provide broad support in all areas of military, financial, military and political assistance for a period of 10 years. This commitment remains valid.

But it is certainly too early to make any hasty judgment about what administration that is still not in place - is still not yet in place and will take still two months to be in place - could take. And I cannot speculate about it.

What I can say is that our security commitments remain valid and that our action has been so important, even more important than the US action.

Because if you add up all kinds of support to Ukraine, military, civilian, humanitarian, financial, we from the European Union have provided 122 billion of assistance to Ukraine, which is about 50%, 47% to say exactly the figures, of all support that Ukraine has received.

47% of global support comes from the European Union, while the US share is about 40%.

So I don't want to speculate. I cannot say foresee what an administration which is not yet in place will do, and even less to define which could be the answer of the European Union to something that is not today a concrete proposal from an administration that still is not working.

But 122 billion of European Union support, 47% of the whole global support is there, money coming from the Russian frozen assets, a new loan decided by the G7 to which the European Union contributes with 35 billion. We are almost at 1 million ammunition shells being provided and we will continue looking for more. 75.000 Ukrainian soldiers being trained by our mission shows clearly the will that we have proved in order to support Ukraine.

Q: As President Zelensky said, at least 1.000 North Korean soldiers are already in Russia, even more, some of them have taken part of fights. That's why my question for you, how will you respond to that fact? Are you considering at least to send [military] instructors to Ukraine? We understood that this decision needs support of all Member States of EU.

Well, certainly the participation, it seems that already active participation of North Korean troops in the war of aggression of Russia against Ukraine is one of the most worrisome things that has happened in the last days. This marks a globalization of the war.

Who could have imagined? Who could have imagined North Korean troops fighting against Ukraine? And last week before coming here, I was in Seoul, I was in South Korea, not by accident.

I was there just in order to put all diplomatic pressure on the Indo-Pacific area and in particular on North Korea through the neighbours, in order to make them understand that this is a worrisome step and we will continue putting all diplomatic pressure in order to try to avoid that this presence could increase.

About your specific question on the training mission to act in Ukrainian territory, yes, I still don't have a consensus among Member States in order to make this request fulfilled, but it doesn't prevent the training mission continue doing what they do, as I mentioned before, 75.000 soldiers: already 60.000 and 15.000 more before the winter.

This is not a defensive mission. We try to train the Ukrainian soldiers as close as possible to the Ukrainian border, but it's not per se a defensive mission. It can be done somewhere else. And that's what we are doing. For the time being, there is no consensus to do that in the Ukrainian territory.

I cannot exclude that this will happen, but my job is to try the make the mission to work and increase the number of Ukrainian soldiers being trained because I know personally that a soldier sent to the front line without the adequate training has difficulties to survive, not only to send soldiers, but well-trained and well-equipped soldiers is the way to win a war.

Watch video here: https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-263683?lg=INT