'ned, the united rutte stressing that as far as he's cl has madezhe united rutte stressing that as farn7s and that in to get more rattling that in to get more money invested in those 7 defence systems. we critical defence systems. we have just been john have just been watching john healey and his norwegian healeyeand—his norwegian his counterpart in 7 talking 7 7 7 talking about 7 7 talking about a joint on defence into partnership on defence into . .. .. . .. and 7777 equipment we interchangeable equipment we will invest in together. let's speak to a former foreign minister of lithuania. former foreign minister of lithuania. did you like what you are hearing? is that the kind of attitude we will need to see more of in the months ahead? yes. it very much does reflect yes. lt serif nnueh deee reflect w""""""'*”"”"’ mood. i yes. lt assert;r nnueh deee reflect" mood. i understand gyest lt assert;r nnueh deee reflect" mood. i understand that of the thin-s the minister ilii in charge of. maybe thegr is in charge of, maybe they cannot say out loud certain things. therefore, you hear some inn

without ukraine at the table and are allies united that ukraine cannot be forced into an agreement unless it actually accepts the conditions? sec. general rutte: what we are clearly united about is that first of all we have to make sure that when talks start, ukraine is in the best possible position. and obviously this is about ukraine, so ukraine will be involved in any way whatsoever. and at the same time we are also in total agreement that an outcome has to be durable as pete hegseth, the secretary of defense said yesterday, we cannot have a minsk 3 again. so whenever the outcome is there, we have to make sure that putin will not try to grab another square mile kilometer of ukraine. >> all right, uh, we'll go to reuters. >> thank you very much, secretary general. you have said repeatedly that ukraine needs to be put in a position of strength before talks could start, but president trump has said that talks are starting immediately. so does that mean that ukraine is now starting negotiations from a position of weakness? sec. general rutte: no, and i do not completely agree with you because what will happen, of course, even if talks start, t