H.E. Ms Larysa Gerasko:

I thank the Deputy for his questions. Regarding the next peace summit, the date for this has not yet been arranged. According to the information I got from my capital, the date will be announced a little later.

Turning to a security agreement, yes, we have 17 of them. As I mentioned, Ireland joined the declaration of the G7 which presumes the signing of such an agreement. I hope we will start this process of discussing and drafting such an agreement soon. Of course, this agreement would be with Ireland, which is a neutral country, and it would focus more on other issues rather than on military assistance. Today, a delegation from Ireland is in Ukraine undertaking political consultations, etc. I hope there will be a discussion on the possibility of concluding such an agreement with Ukraine.

This is under way. We are working with the Department of Foreign Affairs in respect of it.

Regarding Russian co-operation with North Korea, as we can see, Putin is losing more and more partners. North Korea is one of Russia's reliable partners. By the end of 2023, according to our information, North Korea had supplied 1 million rounds of ammunition. This figure has now reached 5 million rounds. I do not remember the quantity of ballistic missiles that have been supplied, but I can provide the committee with the number of such missiles a little later. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to stop North Korea from doing this or to cut this supply chain from it to Russia. There is no doubt that these ammunition rounds and ballistic missiles are being used to kill our civilians.

This is another reason that we need air defence systems. Our President was very vocal and clear about our need in this regard from the beginning. He reiterated it a few months ago after Russia started new and massive attacks on the Kharkiv region and the city of Odesa. Kharkiv was the second largest city in Ukraine, with a population of almost 2 million. This was before the full-scale invasion. Of course we feel the lack of air defence systems. We need to protect our cities and civilians. I am not an expert, but air defence systems are not lethal weapons. We would be very grateful to Ireland for providing us with air defence systems and I can assure the committee that we can locate these air defence systems to cover and protect civilian infrastructure and civilians. There is no doubt about this ability.

Unfortunately, Russia has advantages in the air. This is not a request we are making to Ireland, but we need to increase our presence in the air in the form of military jets in order to protect our civilians. Perhaps I may have missed something.