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NATO Secretary General visits Ukraine

NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

22 Aug. 2025

Press conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and President of Ukraine Volodomyr Zelenskyy

Dear Mr President, dear Volodymyr,
Thank you for what is always a warm welcome to Ukraine.
It is good to be here with you in country.
And good to be with you again following a very important meeting in Washington earlier this week.

Three and a half years after Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukraine continues to stand strong.
And your friends and partners in NATO continue to stand with you.
Our support is unwavering and continues to grow. Including, as you said, through the new Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List - PURL - that supports a crucial flow of lethal US weapons to Ukraine through funding provided by NATO Allies.
In less than one month indeed, this has already meant an additional $1.5 billion of essential equipment.
Air defence. Ammunition. And more.
Further packages will follow.

Allies are supporting your defence industry - investing in ways that not only boost your security but also bolster your economy. I have witnessed the innovation that Ukraine brings to the table with drones. Allies can learn a lot from Ukraine. And I listened carefully also to what you said about the need for more investments here.
We are working together in NSATU, the NATO command in Germany - to ensure your fighting forces have what they need both today but also into the future.
We are working together in our Joint Analysis, Training, and Education Centre in Poland, through the NATO office here in Kyiv, through the NATO-Ukraine Council. The list goes on.
We are together because we share common values - freedom, democracy, and the rule of law.
We are together because we share common cause in preserving the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine.
Our security is interlinked.

Dear Volodymyr, your country has been actively defending freedom for three and a half years.
Your people have seen terrible horrors and endured so many sleepless nights as Russia has continued to bombard homes and hospitals. Industry and infrastructure.
Ukrainian soldiers are fighting bravely. They have pushed back and held back the Russian invasion.
We support you and salute you.
And we stand with you in the push for a just and lasting peace.

Indeed, we were together in Washington on Monday - along with the US President and so many European leaders - to seize the opportunity to end this horrible war and bring peace and security after so much suffering.
President Trump has made this a priority - not only breaking the deadlock with Putin but making clear that the United States will be involved in providing security guarantees for Ukraine.

Robust security guarantees will be essential - and this is what we are now working to define.
So that when the time comes for you to enter that bilateral meeting - you have the unmistakable force of Ukraine's friends behind you. Ensuring that Russia will uphold any deal. And will never, ever again attempt to take one square kilometre of Ukraine.

Mr President, dear Volodymyr,
I commend your courage and your personal leadership.
As well as the fortitude of the Ukrainian people.
And as you prepare to mark this great country's Independence Day, know that NATO continues to stand with Ukraine.
Thank you once again.
Slava Ukraini.

Question:
Security guarantees differs from the Budapest Memorandum, which did not protect us from the Russian invasion. Which enforceable mechanism should be included to make them real? Thank you so much.

NATO Secretary General:
Yes, well, let's first agree the importance of the fact that Ukraine, the United States and Europe are working together, and when we talk about security guarantees, let's also agree that there are two layers. Layer number one will be after a peace deal, slash a long term cease fire, or a combination of the two. The first layer has to be for the Ukrainian Armed Forces to be as strong as possible to defend this proud country and nation going forward. And the second layer has to be the security guarantees provided by Europe and the United States, and that's what we are working on. And as we all know, the Budapest Memorandum and Minsk did not provide those security guarantees. So we clearly know what it should not be. And we are now working together Ukraine, the Europeans, the United States to make sure that the security guarantees are of such a level that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, sitting in Moscow, will never, ever try to attack Ukraine again.

Question:
Dear Secretary General, in continuing the topic of security guarantees, whether or not you discard the actual foot on the ground and deployment of the troops? Thank you.

NATO Secretary General:
As President Zelenskyy already said, these discussions are now ongoing at many levels. So the security advisors are working together, the foreign ministers are working together on this. Ukraine is heavily involved through both Andrii, both the security advisor and the foreign minister, and the same for the European countries and the United States. So we're really working together on this. And it is too early to exactly say what will be the outcome, but clearly, the US will be involved. Clearly, we do not want to repeat of the Budapest Memorandum or the Minsk agreement. These security guarantees should be holding. And as I said, as a second layer on top of building the Ukrainian Armed Forces after the war moving forward, and NATO will be heavily involved there. We are already, of course, heavily involved through our commands in Wiesbaden, which is helping Ukraine to stay in the fight now, but also to help Ukraine to develop its armed forces as a sovereign, proud nation going forward after the peace deal. So NATO is proudly involved in all of that.

Question:
And the second question is to Mr. Mark [Rutte]. Thank you so much for your support. And I'd like to hear the direction of NATO regarding the most recent Russian attack on the territory of Poland, a couple of dozens of kilometres from Warsaw. So don't you see that Putin is testing the Article 5 of NATO?

NATO Secretary General:
Well, we are closely coordinating this with our Polish colleagues, so I'm not going to say too much about it, but we are in very close contact with Poland on this. They have also rightly strongly reacted to this latest incident. So you can be assured to that we are on top of this.

Katy Watson, BBC:
Hi, Katie Watson from the BBC. My first question is to President Zelensky. It's been a week of talks. I've spoken to lots of Ukrainians who don't feel anything will come out of this. What do you say to Ukrainians who think that we're in the same position as we were a week ago? My second question to the Secretary General. Obviously NATO memberships is off the table, but there's the Ukrainian flag next to NATO. Is your presence a help or a hindrance or even a provocation? And what happens if Russia says no to any guarantees? Does it have a veto? Thank you.

NATO Secretary General:
Clearly Ukraine and NATO - the US, Europe, Ukraine, NATO - we are all working extremely well together. As I mentioned, we have jointly with Ukraine an organisation in Poland to capture all the lessons from this terrible war and to understand what it means for all the NATO plans in the future, for Ukraine itself, for the build of both arms forces in the future, what lessons we can learn. We have the command in Wiesbaden, from which we organise, together with Ukraine, all the support for Ukraine in this world, from NATO Allies.
We are heavily involved in making sure that the Ukrainian Armed Forces, also longer term, will be as interoperable as possible, of the highest standards compared with NATO.
We have the Comprehensive Assistance Package. We have this new initiative, thanks to President Trump. By buying from American stockpiles, from the US, military lethal weapons and, of course, air defense systems and interceptors to be paid for by the Europeans directly being delivered to Ukraine. So NATO is involved in all of this.
And we agreed in Washington, there is an irreversible path for Ukraine into NATO. And it is true that a couple of NATO Allies, including United States, but also Hungary and others, have said, not now, maybe never, this is for the future.

But what we are doing in the meantime is making sure that we work as closely together as possible. We are doing that, and also when it comes to the meeting last Monday, I think it was very important that not only the European countries were there and Ukraine was there, and of course, the American President, and again, let me commend his leadership, the fact that he broke the deadlock with Putin, that he had this enormous success in The Hague with the 5% commitment on defence spending and then putting secondary sanctions on India, making this initiative possible of delivering American weapons into Ukraine, and basically day in, day out, working on bringing peace to this region and ending this terrible war. But it was not only Europeans there and the American President, but also the European countries, the European Union and NATO.

So this is all evidence that we work hands in glove. And I visited here in October, I was here in Odesa with the President in April. I'm proud to be back now. I will be back in the future, because we have this very close working relationship between NATO and Ukraine.