Eduardo González
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba yesterday invited his Spanish counterpart, José Manuel Albares, to pay an official visit to Kiev “in the near future”.
The invitation was made in the course of a telephone conversation between the two foreign ministers. In his reply, Albares showed “his availability to make the visit while waiting to fix the dates convenient for both of them”, the Ministry informed in a press release. For its part, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said that Kuleba had invited Albares to “visit Ukraine in the near future to show his solidarity with the Ukrainian people in the context of Russia’s aggressive actions”.
Kuleba himself announced this past Sunday the beginning of “two weeks of intensive diplomacy” to “reduce security threats” and informed that, this same week, the Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, and Poland, Mateusz Morawiecki, as well as the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of France, Jean Yves Le Drian, and Germany, Annalena Baerbock, will travel to Kiev. Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand, whose government provides military assistance to Ukraine, traveled to Kiev this past Sunday.
In the telephone conversation, Kuleba and Albares discussed the current state of tension on the borders with Russia and Belarus, as well as developments in the last hours. Likewise, and “as he did last week in his appearance in the Congress of Deputies”, Albares confirmed to his counterpart “Spain’s firm commitment to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, as well as to the principle of peaceful settlement of disputes, as pillars of international law and the security of Europe”, Foreign Affairs continued.
In this regard, both ministers addressed the dialogue efforts that are taking place in the framework of NATO and the OSCE to move towards a de-escalation of the situation and Albares reiterated that “diplomacy, dialogue, de-escalation and deterrence are the four guiding principles of Spain’s and the EU’s action in the Ukrainian crisis”.
According to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, during the conversation, which took place “in the context of consolidating international pressure on the Russian Federation to deter it from further aggression,” Kuleba informed Albares “in detail” about the concentration of Russian troops near the border and in the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia and focused “on the non-military dimensions of Russian aggression, in particular Russia’s attempts to shake the economic and financial stability” of the country.
The conversation took place a day after the UN Security Council meeting devoted to this crisis. During the meeting, held at the initiative of the United States, the United States and the United Kingdom again raised the threat of new sanctions against Russia in the event of an invasion of Ukraine. Russia, for its part, tried to prevent the meeting, with the support of China, and the Russian ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, left the room before the end in protest against this “attempt to deceive the international community”. As Kuleba stated, the Security Council meeting served to demonstrate “the positions and approaches of the members of the international community and UN leaders on the most serious security crisis in Europe, created as a result of Russia’s temporary occupation of Crimea and its armed aggression in Donbas.”
For her part, the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, assured yesterday in the plenary session of the Senate that, with regard to the crisis in Ukraine, “there is maximum unity of action within the Government and also with the partners of which Spain forms part, both NATO and the European Union”. For this reason, he asked the opposition for “a sense of State” because “it is time to make a clear commitment to dialogue and diplomacy” and to leave this issue “out of politics”.
