Despite the very dramatic situation in Gaza, we are not losing sight of what is happening in Ukraine. And Ukraine remains high on our agenda.  

We heard again Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba. He told us about the current priorities and needs ahead of the winter. We know that Putin is again trying to weaponise hunger and winter - cold and food - by increasingly targeting the energy and export infrastructures of Ukraine, with damaging consequences not only for Ukraine but the whole world. 

We have to continue our support to Ukraine. Putin believes democracies are weak, that public opinion systems - which is not the case of Russia – will give up the first. We have to show him that it is not going to be the case.  

We remain committed to rebuild and reform, and to support Ukraine in joining the European Union. The European Commission provided a positive recommendation last week to the European Council, in order to ask for the opening of negotiations with Ukraine, which is the speediest, the quickest way of advancing a country towards membership from the request, to the consideration of Ukraine as a candidate, and to the opening of negotiations.  

We discussed our military support and security commitments. You know that I have been tasked by the European leaders, at the last European Council, to build a security commitment from the European Union to Ukraine. We are working on that with the Member States. At the beginning of the month, I will send a mission to Ukraine to discuss our proposals with the Ukrainians. If I could go, I would be very happy to go, but in any case, my Deputy Secretary General for Common Security and Defence issues will go to Ukraine, presenting the proposal that the Member States are still discussing. It will include, certainly, a proposed European Peace Facility dedicated envelope. And this will be presented to the European Union Council by the end of the year, in December.  

In the meantime, we continue the training of Ukrainian soldiers. We are already at over 30,000 trained soldiers which is already 10,000 more than we planned to do.  

Another priority is the Peace Formula – the only proposal for a just and sustainable peace that is being discussed at the international level.  

And also, we are finalising the work on the 12^th package of sanctions. You know that the sanctions are on one side the personal sanctions, and on the other side, the economic and sectoral sanctions. But once again, the word sanctions does not exist in the Treaty, we talk about “restrictive measures”. I hope I will be able to present to the Council the proposal – because it is the Council who has to approve it - my proposal as High Representative, together with the European Commission, of the regulation needed to implement these sanctions, or restrictive measures, if the Council approves it. This 12^th package will include more listings; new import and export bans - among them, about diamonds - actions to tighten the oil price cap in order to decrease the revenue that Russia is getting from selling its oil, not to us but to others; fighting against circumvention, and as I said the ban on diamonds.  

We are finalising the last details of this package. It will be composed of a Council decision approving the measures and a Council regulation giving guidelines to the Member States in order to implement this decision. This Council regulation could be approved on Wednesday in a joint proposal by me and the Commission to the Council. 

Q. Could you tell more about the prospects of the Ukrainian facility (Ukraine Assistance Fund) and Peace Facility? Do you have a plan B if not all Member States agree to adopt this decision? What are your prognoses about your idea of supplying 1 million rounds to Ukraine? Is this number still actual or maybe there is some correction? 

It is still our target. We were trying to get this target through three lines. The one in the short term was asking our armies to take their existing stocks, and to provide from their existing stocks what they have. This is finished. This work line is finished, and it has provided something more than 300,000 shots. This is the contribution from the existing stocks. Now we are on the production line. There are several contracts which have been passed, the production line has started working on that. The third line is to increase the capacity, but to increase the capacity is obviously something in the medium term, not for the end of the year, not even for the next months of the next year.  

So, we continue having this target. Maybe we will not reach it by the end of the year, but it will depend on how quickly the contracts will be implemented, and how quickly the factories will produce. Keep in mind that Europe is exporting quite an important amount of its production. So, part of what we produce, we export it to third countries. One solution would be to direct these exports to Ukraine as a priority. 

 Link to the video: https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-248898