Thank you very much. Good morning!
Dear Madam President! Dear Maia!
Distinguished members of the delegations!
Dear journalists!
Today, we welcome the President of Moldova, Ms. Maia Sandu, to Ukraine. We appreciate that this visit comes on a very meaningful day, when we remember the Chornobyl disaster and the colossal solidarity and selflessness of our people, which made it possible to protect our country, our entire region, all of Europe, and the world from an even greater catastrophe. Forty years have passed since then, and we still speak about it not as a historical fact, not as something that can simply be left in textbooks or memories. Today, the threats we face are no smaller – because of what Russia is doing with our Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and, more broadly, with our energy system, our land, and because of how, in 2022, the Russians came to Chornobyl, occupied our plant, turned it into a foothold for their war, and demonstrated that they have drawn no conclusions and understood nothing from Soviet mistakes – they are people without memory and without conscience. That is why all of us – all neighbors of Russia, all Europeans – must be as united as possible, act in a coordinated manner, and understand that our interests are shared: security, economic, energy, and all others. What Russia is doing, the way it is waging this war, the war, terror, and instability Russia is bringing to other nations is a catastrophe, truly no less severe than the Chornobyl disaster. The solidarity we need now must be just as strong as it was then – to protect our lives, our independence, and our states from war.
Today, Maia Sandu and I focused primarily on these issues: security, our cross-border cooperation, our defense, infrastructure development, and energy. We also had a very substantive discussion about our path toward the European Union – undoubtedly a path of partnership, a shared path. Both of our states deserve to be part of a strong, united Europe. Ukraine has always defended Moldova’s right to be part of the European Union, and in the past, we took significant steps to ensure that both of our countries obtained candidate status. We are now working to ensure that all clusters are opened as soon as possible and that EU membership becomes our shared success – for Ukraine, Moldova, and the entire European Union.
We will continue to support Moldova on security issues – in particular with regard to the Transnistrian region. We are also ready to further develop our trilateral formats together with Romania. We are doing important things together in infrastructure. This includes transport routes, particularly transit, as well as our energy sector, specifically cross-border power transmission lines. And the more real connections there are between our energy systems, the greater the protection will be for the lives of our people, our nations.
We discussed our intergovernmental work today. It is important that any economic issues that naturally arise in relations between neighbors are resolved as quickly as possible and in our shared interests.
Thank you very much, Maia, for your visit!
Glory to Ukraine!
