SECRETARY OF DEFENSE LLOYD J. AUSTIN III: Well, Mr. Minister, welcome to the Pentagon. It's great to have you here for your first time as minister of defense, and as you said, you've been here before, but this is your first visit as minister of defense.
We've been seeing a lot of each other lately, including at the recent NATO Defense Ministerial in Brussels and at the meetings of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group. And that's especially important during this dangerous time for European and global security. Russia has launched a cruel and unprovoked invasion of its peaceful neighbor, Ukraine. But Germany has committed itself to supporting Ukraine's sovereignty and its right to live in freedom. And Boris, I look forward to working even more closely together to defend our common security and our shared values.
As Russia continues its reckless war of choice, I appreciate everything that Germany has done to strengthen Ukraine's capabilities. Your security assistance and training contributions for Ukraine's defenders have been invaluable, and we must keep pushing hard to help Ukraine succeed. We're in a key moment in Ukraine's fight for its sovereignty, so I look forward to your insights on how we can meet the urgent challenges ahead.
I'd also like to discuss NATO's pivotal role in European security, especially as we prepare for the July summit in Vilnius, and I should say again how much we appreciate your support for our increased force presence as we moved to reinforce our eastern flank allies last year.
We'll also talk about other key issues in our bilateral defense relationship and ways that we can do even more together. That includes demonstrating our shared commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific. As always, we're grateful for your generous support for our service members and their families who are stationed in Germany. I can't thank you enough for that, Boris.
So we've got a lot to talk about today, and again, thanks for making the trip. I look forward to a great discussion. Over to you, Mr. Minister.
DEFENSE MINISTER BORIS PISTORIUS: Thank you very much, Lloyd. Secretary of Defense, and I'm really very, very glad to be here, first time for the Office of Defense Minister, but not the first time in general. I'm really -- I came in office in a very, very special time to -- to say it diplomatically, and I will never forget from my first day in office, that Thursday before my first UGDC meeting in Ramstein, and my first visitor to my new office was Lloyd Austin after just winning the parliament and giving -- and giving the oath. That was a very impressive meeting, and afterwards, we met again in Ramstein and talked about Leopard tanks, and only a couple of days later, we succeeded in finally giving green light, so to speak, to our Leopard tanks to be delivered to Ukraine. And from that point onward, we have really a very, very close exchange and very close relation between our countries before, of course, too, but that special issue, even afterwards. And since then, really, we achieved a lot to support Ukraine, which was and is, and unfortunately, will stay necessary, absolutely, and therefore why I'm very glad that we succeeded in May to making an aid package 2.7 billion euros for Ukraine and being now the second-biggest donator for Ukraine after the United States. I'm proud about of that because I always emphasize I'm a child of the Cold War, and I grew up with a -- with a confidence that the United States at the top of NATO and our NATO allies will always defeat our -- defend -- our freedom and our security if it came -- it comes -- to the case.
And that we used to be the eastern flank at that time, and nowadays there is the Baltic -- the Baltic states, Poland and other countries are the new eastern flank, so we have a special and special responsibility for the protection of the eastern flank, too. Therefore, I'm sitting here. Therefore, I'm sitting in UDCG. Therefore, we are all together one for support of Ukraine and for the security of the Eastern European countries.
And for me, it's a -- like a special -- special order to myself and to my colleagues in Germany to do everything which is possible and as long as it takes to support Ukraine in the horrible war against Russia, and we need to con- -- to convince everybody in Europe. Well, I -- I -- I correct. We don't have to convince everybody, anybody, because it's truth all over the world, and we're confident that the United States is our most important ally in the NATO. I myself, I'm a convinced transatlantic German, so therefore I'm very glad to be here; very looking forward to our discussion and of -- at most, looking forward to continuing our really tremendous cooperation. Thanks a lot.
SEC. AUSTIN: Well, Mr. Minister, we're delighted to have you. Look forward to a great conversation.
Thanks, everybody.