Ukrainian Foreign Minister discuss defence cooperation and Kyiv’s movement to EU and NATO with his French counterpart

Dmytro Kuleba and Stéphane Séjourné in Kyiv on 13 December. Photo: Stéphane Séjourné on Twitter ()

The foreign ministers of Ukraine and France held bilateral talks on defence assistance and cooperation, as well as Ukraine’s accession to the EU and NATO and bringing Russia to justice, during the French Foreign Minister’s visit to Kyiv on 13 January.

Source: Dmytro Kuleba, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, at a joint briefing with his French counterpart Stéphane Séjourné 

Details: Kuleba said that the parties discussed “further supplies of systems and missiles to protect Ukrainian skies, as well as the supply of drones to Ukraine”. Paris and Kyiv also touched upon bilateral defence cooperation.

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“Today we have agreed that we will work to create the most favourable conditions for our defence companies, primarily in the legal sphere, so that the legal and financial conditions of interaction between them are as favourable as possible and they can produce as many weapons as possible,” Kuleba added.

Another topic of the talks was Ukraine’s movement towards the EU and NATO. Kuleba said that he and Séjourné had coordinated their positions for the NATO summit in Washington and further steps to start negotiations on joining the EU.

“We agreed that France will support not just Ukraine’s integration into the EU but also the observance of specific deadlines on this path,” he stressed.

Other topics of talks between Kuleba and Séjourné included the issue of frozen Russian assets and the creation of a special tribunal for the crime of Russian aggression.

Background:

• Stéphane Séjourné, the new Minister of Foreign Affairs of France, arrived in Kyiv on the morning of 13 January. This is the first foreign visit of the Minister in this position.
• This week, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the appointment of a new Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, following the resignation of his predecessor, Élisabeth Borne. Attal is the youngest person in this position and comes from Odesa on his mother’s side.

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