The 2024 conference of heads of Ukraine's foreign diplomatic missions concluded in Kyiv
On Wednesday, 21 August, Kyiv hosted the third and final day of the meeting of heads of Ukraine's foreign diplomatic missions 2024 ‘Wartime Diplomacy: Resilience, Weapons, Victory’.
On the third day, plenary sessions were held with the participation of NSDC Secretary Oleksandr Lytvynenko, Vice Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olha Stefanishyna, Ministers of Energy Herman Halushchenko and Education and Science Oksen Lisovyi, as well as senior officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.
In his speech to the Ukrainian diplomats, the NSDC Secretary outlined current tendencies in the development of the geopolitical situation in the world and key challenges and threats to Ukraine's security. Among other things, he drew the attention of the meeting participants to such pressing issues as the need to increase military assistance to Ukraine, strengthen sanctions against the aggressor state and bring it to justice, update approaches to interaction with the Ukrainian international community, and maintain global attention to Russian aggression against Ukraine.
Olha Stefanishyna, Vice Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, spoke in detail about the priority tasks Ukraine faces on its path to EU and NATO membership. She outlined the prospects for advancing negotiations on Ukraine's accession to the EU, as well as further steps towards Euro-Atlantic integration, taking into account the decisions of the NATO Washington Summit, especially the irreversibility of Ukraine's membership in the Alliance.
The session with Minister of Energy Herman Galushchenko and his deputy Svitlana Hrynchuk focused on the state of Ukraine's energy system under the aggressor state's shelling, the current needs of the energy sector in preparation for the heating season, and the priorities of international cooperation in this context.
The key issue of communication between Ukrainian diplomats and Minister of Education and Science Oksen Lisovyi and his First Deputy Yevhen Kudriavets was ensuring the educational process for Ukrainian children living abroad. The meeting participants discussed challenges in this area, mechanisms for providing education abroad and opportunities to improve them, taking into account the specifics and experience of foreign countries.
The meeting concluded with a summary session with the participation of the MFA leadership: First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha, Deputy Ministers Iryna Borovets and Yevhen Perebyinis, Deputy Minister of Digital Development, Digital Transformation and Digitalisation Anton Demokhin, Special Representative for the Middle East and Africa Maxym Subkh, and State Secretary of the MFA Oleksandr Bankov. In the context of implementing the tasks set by the leadership of the state, the MFA leaders detailed the key tasks of the diplomatic service in the near future. In particular, they discussed priorities in the political and security, international legal, consular, economic, humanitarian, and information and image sectors.
The First Deputy and Deputy Ministers outlined key priorities on Ukraine's path to EU and NATO membership, in developing relations with foreign countries and international and regional organisations, as well as in cooperation with the Ukrainian international community, digitalisation and cybersecurity.
The meeting allowed for a substantive discussion of all the current challenges facing Ukraine, primarily in the context of repelling Russia's armed aggression and identifying priority tasks on the path to victory and the restoration of a just peace with the support of foreign partners, as well as Ukraine's further integration into the European and Euro-Atlantic space.