“It is clear that there are new chapters in the war, and we are working on restoring peace. We are focused on defending our territory, but we see that Russia is mobilising more resources and more people, that they will increase their defence budget for next year and that they are increasing their defence production and refurbishing current equipment. They produce, refurbish and put it to war,” said Rustem Umerov, speaking to European journalists, including Lusa, in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
The stance comes on the day that the new president of the European Council, António Costa, arrived in Kyiv to spend his first day in office, accompanied by the EU’s chief diplomat, to say he supports Ukraine in the face of the Russian invasion.
Speaking to the journalists accompanying the delegation, Rustem Umerov said: “We have a clear plan and direction and we know how to face these challenges. President Zelensky’s victory plan presents the vision of restoring peace. We are focusing on the main pillars of this plan, which are creating new military reserves, strengthening our air defence attack, attacking Russian strategic assets and ensuring the supply of critical weaponry, such as artillery ammunition, and also including the development of our defence industrial capacity with European defence companies to say a stable supply.”
“We are also focused on working with European partners on co-production and co-investments in Ukraine and also cooperating outside Ukraine in all areas of the defence industrial base,” he added.
In this regard, Rustem Umerov pointed out that Ukraine’s defence industrial base has a capacity of $25 billion.
“And Ukraine is going to invest up to $10 billion, or up to $14 billion, so we will need additional money from our partners,” he appealed.
“We have already defended our country for the last 10 years [since the invasion of Crimea], plus 1,000 days of large-scale [Russian] invasion, and we are grateful to all the nations that support us,” said the defence minister, who has been in office since September last year.
This morning, António Costa arrived in Kyiv in an entourage that included the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, and the European Commissioner for Enlargement, Marta Kos, who are also taking up their posts in the EU government today.
The high-level trip to Ukraine comes after days of intense Russian attacks on the country’s critical energy infrastructure and at the start of the cold season in the country, which is feared to be critical, which is why the EU has already mobilised aid in addition to the support (political, humanitarian, military and financial) provided to the country since the Russian invasion in February 2022.
