Speeches

We have already made every proposal to end this war, and Russia refuses every time. Just recently, Russia’s clear desire to continue fighting was voiced again. So there must be as many obstacles as possible to its desire to keep waging war. 

Today is a special day. Emotionally and spiritually very powerful. Sunday. Constitution Day of Ukraine. Exactly thirty years ago, an important pillar of our state’s independence was established. It was when Ukrainians stopped living under the old law, and most importantly, someone else’s law, and fully began to build a new life, their own life, based on new foundations and principles, the foremost of which is Ukraine’s right to be itself.

We continue to bring people back from Russian captivity: today, another 160 service members are home. Almost all of them had been in captivity since 2022. Defenders of Mariupol, Azovstal, all of Donetsk region, and other directions, including Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, and Sumy regions. We must bring back everyone – military personnel and civilians – who are still in Russian captivity.

Right now, our military is taking out targets that sustain Russia’s war effort both in the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine and on Russia’s own territory – the very things that make this war and Russian aggression possible in the first place.

The team of the Government, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine must focus precisely on this. We need results. Strongly organized work is underway on production in Ukraine, and in cooperation with partners, of weapons for our long-range sanctions and also our entirely justified medium-range responses against the occupier.

I thank all the partners who are helping us, Ukraine. Right now, the pressure is still not enough. And over this week, we’ve reached new agreements with our partners, including the United States, to make sure that pressure is applied – and that it’s strong enough. The United States and all our partners in Europe, in the G7, assess the situation the same way and are ready to keep supporting Ukraine. I thank you for that.

I want to personally thank you and your team for changing Honduras’ course – you are supporting us on all key geopolitical platforms. That matters to us. On the one hand, Ukraine must defend itself, and we need air defenses to protect the lives of our people. On the other hand, we need the same level of protection for our independence, our geopolitical interests.

The first cluster was recently opened, and it is fully deserved for both Ukraine and Moldova. And we are ready to move further. We will be happy to do it together. We can open the other 5 clusters as well. 

We’ve done a lot to defend against drones, and our interception rate is above 90 percent. That is a serious, very serious achievement. We are also defending against cruise missiles. But Russian ballistic missiles remain a problem, and we need an answer to that problem. 

What is happening today – the opening of the first cluster in the accession negotiations for Ukraine and Moldova – sends a clear message that Europe’s progress cannot be stopped.