Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Ihor Klymenko expressed his gratitude to the European Union Advisory Mission for its continued assistance in supporting the reforms of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which are helping to adapt the system to new challenges and bring it closer to EU standards.

“Thank you for expanding the Mission’s mandate and establishing a new unit to assist in the investigation of war crimes. Currently, the National Police has initiated more than 72,000 criminal proceedings on crimes related to the armed conflict in Ukraine,” said Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko.

Importantly, the Mission is also expected to act as an intermediary between the Ukrainian authorities and EU institutions in the context of promoting Ukraine’s priority needs and initiatives, as well as assisting in the implementation of tasks related to Ukraine’s integration into the European Union.

“We expect a more active involvement of the Mission’s experts in conducting an internal assessment of the progress made in aligning national legislation with EU law and in training staff for further negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the EU,” said Ihor Klymenko.

Today, the main task remains to repel russia’s armed aggression, but we are already thinking about strengthening the civilian security sector, in particular the training of NPU units in accordance with the standards of EU operations.

“Controlling arms trafficking is another area of our cooperation,” the Minister said.

Ihor Klymenko thanked the Mission for its support in sharing European best practices on arms trafficking: “I believe it is necessary to continue cooperation, including learning from the experience of implementation of firearms coordination centres.”