
Volodymyr Groysman at the meeting with prime ministers of the Baltic countries: Our States must deepen cooperation and unite in addressing security and economic threats
Ukraine and
the Baltic States – Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, like no other countries have
similar feelings and suffer from similar external political, military and
economic threats, in particular from the Russian Federation and this is why our
countries must unite in combating these threats and building of an effective
European integration policy. This was stated by Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman during a
meeting with the Prime Minister of the Republic of Estonia by Jüri Ratas, Prime Minister
of the Republic of Latvia Māris Kučinskis and Prime Minister of the Republic of
Lithuania Saulius Skvernelis.
"Back
in 1999, there was first voiced an initiative to intensify the Baltic-Black Sea
cooperation, and then no one could have thought that after so many years we
would have loads of important and urgent topics for our countries. Today we are
demonstrating the level of trust and partnership that are the key to our
further collaboration. Apparently, we, like nobody else, feel a threat to our
sovereignty from the Russian Federation and the agenda of our talks is how to
counteract the aggression of Russia violating European law and the sovereignty
of the States in the XXI century", stressed Volodymyr
Groysman.
He told about escalation of Russia's aggression in Ukraine, and that
accord on ceasefire regime and abiding by the Minsk agreements are ignored by
the Russian Federation. Only in the first days of April, said Volodymyr Groysman, the Ukrainian
positions have been shelled more than 250 times, there grow casualties among
Ukrainian soldiers. "Russia continues arms supplies to terrorists, and we
must make them stop supplying weapons", urged the Head of Ukrainian
Government.
For their part, heads of government of the Baltic States stressed that
they fully share the position of Ukraine not to recognize annexation of Crimea
and express readiness to continue and strengthen the policy of sanctions
against Russia, because the sanctions had been imposed as punishment for
Russian military invasion and occupation of Ukrainian territory. Hence, the
lifting of the sanctions, assured the heads of government, is viewed possible
only after changing the rhetoric and actions of the Russian Federation.