Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Roman Mashovets had a meeting with Chargé d'Affaires a.i. of the United States in Ukraine Kristina Kvien to sum up bilateral cooperation in the field of national security and defense in 2020 and outline plans for the next year and beyond.
Roman Mashovets stressed the invariability of Ukraine's course to join NATO and thanked the United States for its assistance in developing Ukraine's defense capabilities and achieving Alliance’s standards. The parties positively assessed Ukraine's status of NATO Enhanced Opportunities Partner obtained in June.
Among the most important results were the reform of the management system of the Armed Forces of Ukraine according to Alliance’s standards, the establishment of the Intelligence Committee and the Ministry of Strategic Industries of Ukraine, changes in the list of senior military ranks in accordance with the standards of leading NATO member states.
Special attention was paid to the joint strategic command and staff exercise "Joint Efforts - 2020", which involved representatives of the armies of NATO member states, including the United States and the United Kingdom, together with Ukrainian units. These exercises have shown that Ukraine is not alone in the war in Donbas.
Regarding further cooperation, the Deputy Head of the President's Office proposed to start drafting a bilateral framework agreement on defense cooperation. The document should cover all areas of Ukrainian-American cooperation in this area, including defense reform, personnel policy, development of combat capabilities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, comprehensive provision and armament of troops, reform of the defense industry, training of military units, military education, science and development of defense technologies, treatment and rehabilitation of wounded servicemen, social protection of veterans, servicemen and members of their families, mutual participation in international formats of cooperation and other issues important for Ukraine's defense capabilities.
Roman Mashovets also stressed that the National Security Strategy of Ukraine approved by Presidential Decree № 392 of September 14, 2020 launched the development of 15 drafts of important strategic documents in the areas of human development, defense industry, public, military, economic, energy, environmental, biological, food, information and cybersecurity, intelligence, foreign policy and integrated border management.
Kristina Kvien noted the large amount of work in the defense sector and stressed the importance of Ukraine's accession to NATO's Enhanced Opportunities Program, which is to become operational next year. She reaffirmed the willingness of the United States to continue to provide assistance in the development of Ukraine's defense capabilities and to develop new formats of bilateral cooperation.
The parties agreed to work next year on the further development of the agreement base between Ukraine and the United States on defense cooperation and to make efforts to effectively use US assistance to Ukraine's defense forces scheduled for 2021.