I want to start by asking you to tell me
whether you think that this is the scariest,
most difficult dicey time for Ukraine since the early days
of the invasion in 2022.
Yes, it is. The most difficult time in this war
is since the first days and weeks of the war
because.
After the full scaling nation,
the Ukrainians were actually able to do something.
Hardly anyone believe it was possible.
That was to push back the Russians to liberate 50%
of the territory that Russia occupied in the beginning.
And then they tried to launch a offensive last summer
that didn't work.
And now the Russians are pushing,
and the Russians are able to make some marginal gains.
But we don't expect a big Russian breakthrough.
Of course, they're always uncertainty.
Wars are unpredictable. But we expect the Russians to continue
to push,
pay a high price. And therefore it is important,
more important than ever than that,
that we support Ukraine with weapons and with training.
So there's some very important meetings,
NATO meetings, defense ministers, foreign ministers,
et cetera. And you have essentially started a conversation about,
I'm going to put it this way,
changing the rules of engagement,
allowing Ukraine to actually use the weapons and the long
range artillery to actually target Russian military sites inside Russia
if needs be.
Some people would be amazed that that's not happening already.
We have to remember what this is.
This is a war aggression.
Russia has invaded another country,
invaded Ukraine, that that's a blatant violation of the national
law.
And and according to international law,
Ukraine has the right to self-defense,
and self-defense includes also the right to strike targets outside
Ukraine,
including legitimate military targets in Russia.
I have stated that before,
but what makes this more urgent now is that the
war has changed.
Now the hardest fighting is taking place on the border,
very close to the border in the Kalki region between
Russia and the and the and Ukraine.
And of course, it's, it's,
it's impossible, at least it's very difficult for for Ukrainians,
if the Russians can just be on the other side
of the border and then launch missile attacks,
air attacks against the Ukrainians and they not being able
to use their advanced weapons to hit back.
These are national decisions on the restrictions on the use
of weapons.
Some allies have not imposed any restrictions at all.
Other allies have.
And I have stated that I think now the time
has come to.
Reconsider whether it's right to have those restrictions or not
because we see the fighting,
especially along the the frontline and the borderline is almost
the same along the frontline and borderlines in the calculated
region.