Ukraine and Slovakia collaborate on three major energy and logistics projects

During a working trip to Bratislava, the First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine – Minister of Economy of Ukraine Yuliia Svyrydenko, held a meeting with the Deputy Prime Minister for recovery, sustainability plan, and use of EU funds of the Slovak Republic, Peter Kmec.

The Ministry of Economy of Ukraine reported that.

At the meeting, they discussed three major infrastructure and energy projects. Specifically, they discussed what needs to be done to speed up the restoration of the Mukachevo-Velke Kapushany interstate electrical connection.

"The interconnector is an opportunity to connect our national power grids to improve cooperation in the energy field. This will make our energy system more stable because we can respond to problems even more quickly in case of blackouts," explained Yuliia Svyrydenko.

The parties also raised the issue of creating new border crossings and potential joint efforts to develop a railway connection between Kyiv and Košice using broad-gauge infrastructure from the Uzhhorod station across the territory of Slovakia.

"The work on improving the logistics and transport infrastructure between Slovakia and Ukraine will contribute to greater mobility of Ukrainians and ease of movement in Europe and, in fact, will strengthen our steps towards European integration. Today, we continued the constructive dialogue at the level of deputy prime ministers regarding the deepening of practical cooperation in the economic and trade spheres and accelerating the implementation of key infrastructure projects," said the First Deputy Prime Minister.

In addition, the issue of humanitarian demining of Ukrainian lands was discussed at the meeting.

"We are sincerely grateful for the decision of the Government of Slovakia to provide funds for the purchase of two demining machines, "Bozhena-4″ for humanitarian demining of the liberated territories of the Kherson region. Over the past year, we returned to use more than 10% of territories or about 18 thousand square kilometers of Ukrainian lands. We are working on attracting private capital and investments to speed up humanitarian demining processes. We will be grateful to Slovakia for any support in this matter, particularly participation in donor programs to clean up the territory of Ukraine," Yuliia Svyrydenko emphasized.

Another topic for bilateral discussion was the return of Ukrainian children who were forcibly taken to Russia from the occupied territories. Ukraine is interested in Slovakia's active involvement in this process. In addition, the parties discussed the importance of the European Commission's approval of the Ukraine Facility for implementing joint projects.