Russia remains the biggest threat to European and Euro-Atlantic security, said the president of Romania Klaus Iohannis at the Bucharest Nine Summit hosted by Bratislava. He called for the consolidation of national defence and underlined the need to create a consistent, united, reliable and robust Forward Defence structure on NATO’s eastern flank. He added that as a NATO and EU member state with the longest border with Ukraine, Romania will stand by its neighbour as long as necessary and reiterated his country’s support for Ukraine’s prospects for Euro-Atlantic integration. Klaus Iohannis and the other leaders of the Bucharest Nine, an organisation founded in 2015 at the initiative of the Romanian and Polish presidents, firmly condemned Russia’s brutal, unjustified and illegal war against Ukraine and called on Moscow to unconditionally withdraw its troops from Ukraine’s territory.
