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DEUkraine should always be on the agenda of international partners, and the main foreign policy priority for the state is to establish peace, restore Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said during a video conference entitled “Strategic priorities of Ukraine’s foreign policy.”
According to the Head of State, Ukraine is a country that opposes the hybrid war waged by the Russian Federation. Such actions of the aggressor country pose a “challenge to the entire civilised global community.”
“The global coalition in support of Ukraine should be preserved, expanded and strengthened,” Zelensky added.
He also noted that the authorities are currently working on the implementation of the Normandy format agreements. Meanwhile, the priority for Ukrainian diplomats remains the continuation of work on the further imposition of sanctions on Russia and holding the Russian Federation liable for the violation of international law.
In addition, the President added that 2020 had been an extremely successful year in the field of European integration.
“The key task in terms of trade for the next two years is to conclude the Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products with the EU. In the field of sectoral integration, a new priority of our cooperation will be Ukraine’s involvement in the implementation of the European Green Deal. We must finally conclude the Common Aviation Area Agreement. We have agreed with the EU leadership to do this in early 2021,” Zelensky said.
At the same time, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at his traditional annual press conference that the Russian Federation “has supported and will continue to support Donbas, and will even step up this support.”
The President of the Russian Federation also stated that incumbent Ukrainian authorities, like the previous ones, lack the political will to resolve the situation in eastern Ukraine. He noted that a settlement is inevitable, but the question of when it will happen arises.
As a reminder, members of the Ukrainian delegation to the Trilateral Contact Group on Donbas have repeatedly accused Russia and militants it backs of blocking the exchange of prisoners and the renewal of operation of the entry and exit checkpoints on the contact line in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Bohdan Marusyak
