
Prime Minister: Challenges facing Ukraine have to unite the entire civilized world
The challenges facing Ukraine today have to unite the civilized world,
because it is not just a question of implementation of reforms under conditions
of the Russian barbaric aggression, but also of joint efforts aimed at
countering military, economic and information aggression in order to restore
respect for the international law and the protection of democratic values. This
statement was issued by Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr
Groysman during a meeting with Secretary-General of
the United Nations António Guterres.
The visit to Ukraine has become one of the first international visits of the
newly elected UN Secretary-General, who assumed his duties in January this
year.
Volodymyr Groysman
stressed that the said meeting is taking place amid disrespect both for the
international law and principles of respect for the democratic world shown by
the Kremlin. «We realize that the Russian actions caused a huge threat for the
peaceful civilians who live in the temporarily occupied territories, we see
that the human rights situation in the occupied Crimea is of great concern, we
have 1.7 million temporary displaced people. I hope that we will stand together
and will return Russia to its internationally recognized borders and will stop
Russia from using its weapons. We can not just close
eyes on this problem», urged the Prime Minister.
The Head of Government underlined that there are no permanent solutions
to this problem, nor is there any experience concerning the implementation of
reforms in conditions of threats and aggression that Ukraine has been facing
for the third year. However, in 2014 the country began to undergo
transformations, in the face of military threats accumulated over years due to
the institutional weakness, high levels of corruption, poor quality of justice
and drastic economic decline by more than 16%. «But in three years we managed
to withstand and to put into practice a series of key reforms. It is clear that
a lot of work is ahead, but the direction is correct. My colleague, the former
Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk,
took on the burden of important transformations. We came in April 2016, and one
of our first decisions was to set market prices for gas that has not been
changed for 25 years and moreover, that was a source of a huge corruption. We
undertook the civil service reform, because it is of critical importance to
restore institutional capacity. We launched a new public procurement system.
Our priority is to ensure sustainable economic growth, to conduct a large-scale
privatization as well as to make changes in land, pension, health care and
education systems», underscored Volodymyr Groysman.