“We are sure that Great Britain has been and is the most powerful stabilizing factor within the Black Sea region,” – Andriy Parubiy
The speaker had today a meeting with a delegation of the British Parliament led by John Whittingdale, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and head of the parliamentary UK-UA friendship group.
Reportedly, the delegates intended to pay a visit to the frontline somewhere in the Cis-Azov region (Pryazovia).
The participants of the meeting discussed at length how to improve interaction between Ukraine and the United Kingdom at the inter-parliamentary level, the security situation around the Azov and Black Seas, and the issue of visa regime facilitation.
The head of parliament thanked the members of the delegation for the significant support to Ukraine in these hard times and named the friendship group under the leadership of J. Whittingdale to be "a powerful centre that unites parliamentaries in support to Ukraine".
A.Parubiy highlighted that over the past year, the security situation in Ukraine has deteriorated: "The attack of the Russian army on Ukrainian ships is an act of open, naked aggression that has shown Putin's desire to demonstrate that the Sea of Azov is his inland sea". According to him, one of the most important tasks for Ukraine is presently "returning the Ukrainian sailors home, to their families, together with the vessels seized".
"It is very important for us to strengthen sanctions against Russia along with the demand to liberate the Ukrainian sailors," he stated, and thanked the British Government for its decision to support Ukraine in reinforcing its defence capabilities and expanding the Operation ORBITAL for defensive training the marines and special forces servicemen.
According to A.Parubiy, a Royal Navy ship’s call in Ukrainian ports will be very important symbolically. "It hereby shows the solidarity of the free world with Ukraine in our struggle for independence," he said, adding that unfortunately Putin understands only the language of force.
The Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada expressed his hopes that the visit of the British parliamentarians to the frontline would render even more arguments to convince the British Parliament of Ukraine's support and the need to strengthen sanctions against the aggressor - the Russian Federation.
The head of parliament called the Azov Sea coastline to be one of the largest security problems as of today. A.Parubiy then noted that the blockade of the Azov Sea by Russia is pointed at neutralizing Ukrainian seaports. In this context, he reminded that German deputies had proposed escorting merchant ships by war vessels across the Sea of Azov to Mariupol with the aim to demonstrate that it is neutral waters.
In turn, John Whittingdale and Michael Fallon, Secretary of State for Defence, thanked for the invitation and the meeting, and expressed their interest in visiting Mariupol and Berdiansk. The latter stressed that Great Britain does support sanctions against the Russian Federation and opposes the Russian military policy.
The debaters also discussed possible ways of helping Ukraine, including supplying necessary equipment and developing the infrastructure adjacent to the Azov Sea region, etc.
A.Parubiy underscored the importance of British support, in particular, in creation of the infrastructure and supplies of technological equipment, protective devices.
Touching the visa facilitation issue, the head of parliament stated that "this is one of the barriers, which encumbers us to communicate to the extent that we could realize our cooperation potential".