Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba and Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov issued a joint statement on the urgency of strengthening Ukraine's defense capabilities.

APA informs about this with reference to the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.

The statement said that Russia has not changed its goals of destroying one of the largest states in Europe and the 45 million people of Ukraine: "Thanks to the courage and resilience of the Ukrainian people, the heroism and professionalism of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the world is increasingly aware that the stronger Ukraine's defense capabilities are." , the sooner Russia will accept the futility of its attempts to invade, the sooner this merciless war will end in our country and in the center of Europe."

In a joint statement, Kuleba and Reznikov emphasized that a lot of work has been done to strengthen the defense potential of Ukraine and thanked more than 50 partner states for practical military assistance.

"Russia maintains a significant quantitative advantage in terms of troops, weapons and military equipment.

Russian troops continue their attacks on the eastern regions of Ukraine.

The Kremlin is determined to intensify military operations.

For Russia's failures in the war against Ukraine, the prospects of retaliation, including the threat of a new large-scale attack by Russian forces, are very real.

Therefore, we appeal to all partner states that have already provided military assistance or are planning to provide it, to significantly strengthen their practical contributions to the strengthening of Ukraine's self-defense capabilities and to raise their assistance to a qualitatively new level," the ministers said in a joint statement.

The statement noted that currently, improving the supply of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with modern armored vehicles, increasing their firing and maneuvering capabilities with the help of Western tanks is one of the most urgent and urgent needs: "We are bold and very determined to transfer the first squadron of Great Britain's Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine. We welcome your timely decision. However, this is not enough to achieve operational goals. Therefore, we extend our request to countries that have Leopard 2 tanks in service, including Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain , Sweden and Turkey. We guarantee thatwe will use these weapons responsibly and exclusively for the purposes of protecting Ukraine's territorial integrity within internationally recognized borders.

We call on all these and other countries with relevant capabilities to join the initiative to create an international tank coalition for support."

The Ukrainian Foreign Minister and Minister of Defense stated that this military support will save the lives of millions of Ukrainian civilians.