A special focus of the 21st meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group will be on the strengthening of Ukraine's air defense, United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III has said.

"Ukraine is in dire need of more air defense systems and it urgently needs more interceptors. That is going to be a huge priority for all of us today. Ukraine also needs more artillery and armor to defend its citizens and reclaim its stolen territory. And we are going to do everything we can to help them," he said while opening the 21st meeting in the Ramstein format online on Friday.

Austin said that Russia is launching increasingly fierce attacks on Ukraine's critical infrastructure, including targeting its power plants and "more and more Ukrainian civilians are dying."

"We are going to have a special focus today on boosting Ukraine's air defenses," the chief of the Pentagon said.

He emphasized that "Ukraine's struggle for freedom matters to us all."

"If Ukraine fell on a Putin's boot, Europe would fall under Putin's shadow. So, we remain determined to deter Russia from any further aggression, including against our NATO Allies," Austin said.

According to the U.S. Secretary of Defense, if Putin gets his way in Ukraine, his "fellow autocrats would draw a dangerous lesson and the whole world become insecure."

"So, as I said two years ago in Ramstaein, we will continue to help strengthen the arsenal of Ukrainian democracy. And that is exactly what we are going to do today," he said.