Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and General Mark A. Milley Press Conference Following Ukraine Defense Contact Group Meeting, Ramstein Air Base, Germany

Excerpt Secretary Austin:  “Today’s meeting focused on Ukraine’s needs for air defense and armor. We also pushed hard on how to synchronize those donations and turn them into fully-operational capabilities, and that means every step, from donation, to training, to maintenance, and then to sustainment. We also focused hard on how our collective and individual training efforts would be prosecuted. So as you heard President Biden recently announce the latest U.S. training initiative, and it builds on U.S. programs to train Ukrainian troops dating back to 2014. Other countries are stepping up with their own initiatives, and many are joining the European Union’s military assistance mission. And meanwhile, we’re also continuing to strengthen our defense industrial bases through the work of the National Armaments Directors under the auspices of this Contact Group.”