Mr Stoltenberg thanked Prime Minister Siliņa for Latvia’s contributions to the Alliance, including the country’s strong leadership on defence spending, deployments to missions in Kosovo and Iraq, and substantial political and military support provided to Ukraine. Latvia also hosts a Canadian-led battlegroup, strengthening NATO’s deterrence and defence on the Alliance’s eastern flank.

The Secretary General hailed the steady progress made by Ukraine’s counteroffensive, in which Ukrainian forces have pressed past Russia’s first line of defence and are now inflicting heavy damage on Russia’s Black Sea fleet. However, he warned that “we see no sign that Putin’s objectives have changed”, and reaffirmed that Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine remains the biggest threat to our security in decades. Given this, he welcomed the significant contributions from NATO Allies which are boosting Ukraine’s ability to push back the Russian forces, including the arrival of the first American Abrams tanks in Ukraine.