Today, on 20 May, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine hosted a meeting between the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, Ihor Klymenko, and a Japanese delegation headed by the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Ukraine, Kuninori Matsuda. The event was also attended by Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Bohdan Drapyatyi.

The main topic of the talks was the issue of demining and support for Ukraine amid the enemy's shelling of Ukraine's critical and civilian infrastructure.

At the beginning of the meeting, the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Ihor Klymenko informed the partners about the situation with mines in Ukraine and the need for the SES engineers to clear the territories again, as the enemy is shelling the areas where humanitarian demining has already been carried out: "Ukraine is the most mined country in the world these days. And the enemy continues to pollute our territory with ammunition on a daily basis. In Kharkiv region alone, about 300 hectares of territory have already been cleared by mechanised demining machines, but we have to do it again. The situation is the same in Sumy and Chernihiv regions."

"We are really sorry to hear that you need to do additional demining on your territories. However, we will keep on helping you. We have provided and continue to provide you with special cameras for investigations, we are also talking about supplying forensic equipment, special vehicles, medical equipment for your hospitals, and generators. In addition, we do not forget about demining - we supply you with mine detectors and other necessary equipment for this process," said Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Ukraine Kuninori Matsuda.

For his part, the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine thanked the partners for all their assistance and the recent visit of the Ukrainian delegation to Cambodia. As reported earlier, at the invitation of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Ukrainian delegation had the opportunity to learn about the experience of Cambodian colleagues in humanitarian demining.

"We want to assure you that we will make even more efforts to provide additional support to Ukraine. In particular, we are ready to provide you with assistance in the form of materials and training on demining," added Kuninori Matsuda.

At the end of the talks, the parties also addressed Ukraine's urgent needs and the future aid package against the backdrop of a full-scale invasion.

"We thank Japan for supporting us every day. You have an incredible team and we are ready to work together with you to stop such a powerful enemy as russia," summed up the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Ihor Klymenko.

As a reminder, on 15 May, the Government of Japan handed over mobile DNA laboratories, special vehicles and other special equipment to Ukrainian police officers.