Statement by the President of Ukraine at a Joint Press Conference with the Prime Minister of Greece

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Thank you very much! Thank you, dear Kyriakos! Thank you so much for those words of support, for such warm words.

Mr. Prime Minister,

Distinguished attendees, dear journalists,

Dear people of Greece,

First and foremost, I would like to express profound gratitude on behalf of all our people for Greece's principled and tangible support for our defense in this war - for supporting our people, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and Ukraine's independence.

From the very first days of Russia's full-scale invasion - and for more than three years of this war already - Greece has been helping us, working together with Europe and with other partners so that we can reach the conditions under which peace becomes possible. And we truly value your support, your commitment.

Today we have an extremely important agreement - an agreement on gas supplies to Ukraine. Almost every night now, the Russians strike our infrastructure, mostly our energy infrastructure. Most power plants in Ukraine, our gas production facilities, our thermal power plants have become targets for missiles, ballistic missiles, and drones. Iranian drones, North Korean missiles - a lot is being launched against Ukraine. Each time the Russians destroy something, we restore it, but it truly requires time, tremendous effort, and equipment. As for gas, this requires importing gas to compensate for the destruction of our own production by the Russians. Our agreements with Greece today are an important part of the large energy package we have prepared for this winter to ensure gas supplies to Ukraine. I want to thank you once again, my dear friend. I thank your team and the companies for making this possible.

Dear Mr. Prime Minister, I thank you personally and all those who are helping to make such agreements possible and to ensure we can implement them. Gas supplies will begin already in January. And it is important that our first agreements will be carried out in the first quarter.

And in addition to the agreement on the prompt supply of gas, there are also long-term agreements. We discussed this today with the Prime Minister. Heads of our energy companies discussed it and reached agreements. And here, as Prime Minister Mitsotakis has already said, we have our bilateral agreements that have been achieved. I also extend my deep gratitude to the American companies, the Department of Energy, and President of the United States Donald Trump for ensuring that we will be able not only to receive natural gas from Greece, but also - through Greece, because Greece truly has such a global infrastructure - to receive energy supplies from the United States. We are grateful to the people of the United States and to the President once again.

As for our front, I informed the Prime Minister today about the situation on the battlefield, about the prospects and opportunities we currently have to intensify diplomacy and help bring this war closer to an end. The key is continued pressure on Russia, which started this war and is doing everything to prolong it. Only this year, there have already been dozens of opportunities for a ceasefire and for more meaningful steps to guarantee security, but all such peace proposals were spurned by Russia. This is precisely why it deserves further sanctions, and this is why it deserves further pressure. We will be very grateful to Greece for supporting the relevant decisions at the level of the European Union. And we deeply appreciate that Greece supports our humanitarian efforts - our attempts to bring home the Ukrainian children abducted by Russia, and these are thousands of children, as well as our civilians and our prisoners of war. This is an extremely painful issue. Some of the captives have been held by Russia on temporarily occupied territory and in Russia itself since 2014, when the aggression against us began - and we are doing everything to bring all our people home: all our adults, all our children. We will be grateful to Greece for its help in this effort. We are ready to provide all the lists.

Separately, I want to thank Greece for supporting Ukraine's European integration - which is, by the way, part of the important security guarantees for all of Europe, above all its geopolitical and economic security. The time of this war and all the existing challenges - energy challenges, logistical challenges, the need to develop Europe's industry and protect Europe from any invasions - all of this requires extensive daily cooperation. And of course, it is right to cooperate at the level of the European Union.

We also look forward to Greece and Greek companies taking part in our post-war reconstruction.

And today we presented to Greece our capabilities in modern defense production. Defending itself in this war, Ukraine has developed many truly effective types of weapons. We invite our partners to cooperate - to establish joint production and carry out joint efforts for stronger European arsenals. We hope for results.

Glory to Ukraine!