Oleksii Kuleba, Deputy Prime Minister for Restoration of Ukraine - Minister for Communities and Territories Development of Ukraine, held a working meeting with Bridget Brink, U.S. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Ukraine.

Oleksii Kuleba thanked the United States and Bridget Brink personally for their assistance to Ukraine, especially since the beginning of the full-scale russian invasion.

He expressed hope for further bilateral cooperation and outlined priorities and joint plans to address Ukraine's top priorities identified by the Government. "The most important thing is to provide Ukrainians with heating in winter. It is equally important to ensure water supply for half a million residents of Mykolaiv and the region who have not had constant access to clean water for more than two years.

"We are preparing for the heating season and considering the worst possible scenarios for Ukrainian cities. Ukraine has now received 160 cogeneration units from USAID. Creating a distributed generation system will be a priority for the coming years. We also continue to build passive protection facilities for energy infrastructure," said Oleksii Kuleba.

The Deputy Prime Minister for Restoration of Ukraine also noted that the policy of building social housing for internally displaced persons had been added to the Ministry's competence.

Ambassador Brigitte Brink congratulated the Deputy Prime Minister and the new team of the Ministry and emphasised that the key areas of bilateral cooperation remained as follows: support for the decentralisation reform, further implementation of the DREAM eco-system, digitalisation and reduction of corruption risks, development of the internal control and audit system.

Oleksii Kuleba took the opportunity to introduce the new head of the State Agency for the Restoration and Infrastructure  Development of  Ukraine. Serhii Sukhomlyn outlined the Agency's priorities and informed the American partners that, in addition to restoring and protecting critical infrastructure, the Agency continues to implement organisational transformation processes: increasing institutional capacity, establishing a central procurement service, an audit and internal control service and improving the project management team.

"The protection of regional power supply facilities and small substations in areas close to the frontline is on the agenda. Maintaining the proper state of transport infrastructure is also extremely important for ensuring logistics in the frontline regions. We are implementing a project to provide communities with solar panels and install modern LED lighting systems," said Serhii Sukhomlyn.

The parties also discussed the reconstruction of existing and opening of new checkpoints on the border between Ukraine and the EU, protection of energy facilities, attraction of private investment for Ukrzaliznytsia and other large state-owned enterprises and companies, as well as ensuring the stable operation of the Ukrainian sea corridor.