«Together with the chairs of the European Affairs Committees of Sweden and Poland, the deputy chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Lithuania, the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Estonia, and the chair of the National Security and Defence Committee of Finland, we are making a joint visit to Berlin as part of the United4Ukraine network in order to mobilise as much additional support for Ukraine as possible, primarily in the military sphere, but also, of course, in terms of our prospects for membership in the European Union,» said Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze.
On the first day, the delegation held meetings with representatives of the expert community, the media, and the Ministry of Defence. During all the meetings, they discussed the need to strengthen military support for Ukraine, as well as the urgency of this support. Ukraine is now the EU's first line of defence. Hybrid warfare is already underway in Europe, so the stronger and more effective the assistance to Ukraine, the stronger the security of the entire continent will be. «Today, we talked a lot about the need to clearly define what hybrid threats are. They are often perceived as soft threats, although they are real attacks on Europe. We need to move on to a different definition of them and be able to respond to them. We need to respond with strength and unity to what the russian federation is doing, because it perceives any uncertainty as a sign of weakness and will therefore continue to test Europe and destroy it from within,» said Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze.
Support from European partners for Ukraine's European integration course was also discussed. It is important to remove external obstacles as quickly as possible, in particular Hungary's blocking of the negotiation process. The European Union has a key role to play here, as the problem is not one of bilateral relations between Ukraine and Hungary. Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze expressed her hope that the process will be unblocked and negotiations with the EU will begin before the end of this year.
The United4Ukraine network brings together MEPs and parliamentarians from democratic countries around the world to help Ukraine strengthen its ability to resist the enemy.