Olha Stefanishyna meets new head of the NATO Representation in Ukraine Patrick Turner
On Wednesday, 11 September, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine and Minister of Justice of Ukraine Olha Stefanishyna met with the new Head of the NATO Representation in Ukraine Patrick Turner in Kyiv.
The Deputy Prime Minister congratulated Patrick Turner on taking up his post and outlined the priorities for joint work on implementing the agreements reached at the NATO Summits in Vilnius (2023) and Washington (2024).
“Ukraine has made enormous political efforts to promote and actualise Euro-Atlantic integration, and our entire team – President, Prime Minister, ministers and deputies – have been trying to deepen cooperation with NATO in various areas. We have finally become part of a large Euro-Atlantic family, and Ukraine is treated as an equal. We have a platform for dialogue – the NATO-Ukraine Council. The Joint Analysis, Training, and Education Centre (JATEC) is operating in Poland to strengthen Ukraine’s cooperation with the Alliance. And most importantly, we are waiting for the launch of the NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU) initiative. No one could have imagined that we would be able to come so far in such a short period of time,” the Deputy Prime Minister said.
At the same time, she stressed that Ukraine was determined to maintain a high pace of work on the Euro-Atlantic track. A separate issue during the meeting was the implementation of NATO’s Comprehensive Assistance Package (CAP) for Ukraine and further work on the Interoperability Roadmap.
Patrick Turner, in turn, assured that NATO’s priorities remained to help Ukraine win the war and support Ukraine’s movement towards the Alliance.
The Deputy Prime Minister and the head of the NATO Representation in Ukraine agreed to maintain cooperation on an ongoing basis.
Background
On 17 July 2024, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced the appointment of Patrick Turner as Senior Representative to lead the NATO Representation in Ukraine. Prior to this, Patrick Turner served as NATO Assistant Secretary General for Operations and as Assistant Secretary General for Defence Policy and Planning, as well as in a range of senior civil service positions for the United Kingdom.