00:00Talks aimed at bringing about an end to hostilities in Ukraine will continue next week in Abu Dhabi following technical
00:06discussions here in Brussels.
00:11Let's bring in our NATO correspondent Shona Murray, who is in Helsinki. Good morning, Shona.
00:16Well, good morning, Stefan. Yes, indeed, those talks have concluded for two days with officials from NATO, the European Commission
00:22and the World Bank.
00:23Now it's all eyes on Abu Dhabi next week, where you'll have higher working level meetings with Russia, Ukraine and
00:29the United States convened by the U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff.
00:32What I've heard, the best sort of hope for this is that there may be another prisoner swap and potentially
00:37a ceasefire.
00:38But we don't know if that's confirmed because we don't know what Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, is willing to
00:43agree to.
00:44Coming from here in Helsinki, officials are saying that the message needs to be impressed on Putin, that Europe will
00:50never abandon Ukraine.
00:51And for him to continue the war is fruitless.
00:54Now, above all, the urgent need for Ukraine to receive Patriot interceptor missiles, that is also very important.
01:01NATO sources have told me that there's a message coming from the Supreme Allied Commander,
01:07that countries that have interceptors need to give them to Ukraine, but they're only willing to do so if they
01:12can guarantee replenishment from the U.S.
01:14That is not forthcoming yet.
01:16But I caught up with Antti Hakkinen, the Finnish defense minister, and I asked him about this situation and what
01:22should be done.
01:24The winter is coming and Russia is preparing huge attacks to Ukraine's civil infrastructure, energy infrastructure.
01:32And now is the most critical time to have all the air defense capabilities for Ukraine, what we can arrange.
01:41We have the funding.
01:42We have the funding.
01:44Now we need the stocks to be delivered to Ukraine.
01:48And there's also some other countries globally which can support.
01:52So, but we need the political willingness also from the U.S. side to start the deliveries.
01:58Europeans have gave the funding for that.
02:01And now it's only a matter of kind of political arrangements.
02:05Europeans are now the biggest supporter of Ukraine and we are giving the EU loan strong bilateral support.
02:11So, we are quite a big players in that field.
02:16But still, we have to show more strength, more willingness in long term to support Ukraine.
02:23Because if there comes some political messages that Europe is exhausted or something like that, that's a wrong message.
02:31That weakens our negotiation position.
02:34When we are messaging that how we are supporting Ukraine in long term first and the sanctions also, we have
02:40to show willingness in long term to be tough on these positions.
02:47Just final question.
02:48You said that there was a serious threat still looming from Russia across Europe.
02:52Can you describe that given where we are geographically?
02:55Well, Russia is ramping up their military in all domains from traditional conventional warfare and also nuclear capabilities.
03:02And they are building new infrastructure, increasing their manpower, building new infrastructure, not just in our vicinity, but also wider
03:13area.
03:14So, they can pose a military threat, not direct at this point, but in future we have to be prepared
03:21for that kind of scenarios.
03:23We hope that there will be a peace and peaceful solutions in everything.
03:27But Europeans have to ramp up their defense and fast and also counter these hybrid threats much more efficiently and
03:34united.
