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Poland, UK, Ukraine team up amid Russian threat

01.02.2022 17:30
Poland, Britain and Ukraine will step up three-way cooperation based on shared principles amid the danger of a new Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was announced on Tuesday. 
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The Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
The Ukrainian capital Kyiv.PAP/EPA/Zurab Kurtsikidze

News of the drive was delivered by Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, the bankier.pl website reported.

Kuleba revealed that the idea had been put forward by Kyiv in the autumn. Ukraine’s top diplomat thanked his Polish counterpart Zbigniew Rau and Britain's Liz Truss for their “keen response.” 

Kuleba said the new format would bring together countries that shared the same principles, were willing to increase security and develop trade, as well as ready to take concrete action.

The Ukrainian foreign minister added that Kyiv, Warsaw and London were aware of threats to European security and had a strategy to counteract risks from Russia.

He stressed the three countries also shared considerable potential for three-way cooperation in trade, investment and energy, including renewable power, the Polish website reported.

Kuleba said the new three-way deal was part of Ukraine’s strategy of developing "small cooperation formats," such as the Lublin Triangle group of Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania. 

“We can’t wait for security and development until we become members of the European Union and NATO; we need them already today,” he wrote on Facebook. 

“And so already today, we are achieving a practical boost, by bringing together friendly and like-minded countries into small alliances,” the Ukrainian foreign minister stated, as quoted by bankier.pl.  

According to a survey by pollster Rating, some 60 percent of Ukrainians support three-way cooperation with Poland and the UK, while some 20 percent remain opposed to the idea, Poland’s PAP news agency reported.

Polish PM in Kyiv

Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who visited Kyiv on Tuesday, said the foreign ministers of the three countries were developing the details of a potential new format so that Ukraine, Poland and Britain “can work together in many fields,” bankier.pl reported.  

While in Kyiv, Morawiecki met with his Ukrainian counterpart Denys Shmygal and was also scheduled to hold talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Morawiecki announced that Poland would help provide Ukraine with liquefied natural gas and would also send arms and humanitarian aid to its eastern neighbour to support it amid the threat of a new Russian invasion.

Warsaw, London, Kyiv in trilateral pact to boost security: Ukrainian PM

Ukraine's Shmygal told reporters at a joint news conference with Morawiecki that Poland, Britain and Ukraine were preparing a trilateral pact to strengthen regional security.

He said that Poland and Britain had offered security aid to Ukraine in its standoff with Moscow after Russia massed tens of thousands of troops near Ukraine's borders in recent weeks, the Reuters news agency reported.

"I hope that in the near future we will be able to officially launch a new regional format of cooperation Ukraine-Poland-UK, in the context of ongoing Russian aggression, we should sign a trilateral document on cooperation to strengthen regional security," Shmygal said, as quoted by Reuters.

Russia's deployment of troops near Ukraine has raised fears in the West that Moscow, which seized Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in 2014 and has since backed separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine, may be poised for a new attack, Reuters has previously reported.

Russia has denied plans for an assault but says it could take unspecified military action if its security demands are not met, according to Reuters.

(pm/gs)

Source: bankier.plPAP, Reuters