Ukraine is confident of continued support of the United States, regardless of who wins the presidential election next week, Foreign Minister Andriy Sibiga said, highlighting strong bipartisan support, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA.
Earlier this month, Donald Trump accused President Volodymyr Zelensky of helping start the war with Russia, a comment that also suggested the Republican would likely reduce US support for Ukraine if he wins the election.
„We have strong bipartisan support, both Republicans and Democrats. And of course, we have strong support from the American people," Sibiga said in English to reporters in Montreal, answering a question about the election result.
„I would like to emphasize that support for Ukraine is not charity, (it is) a contribution to transatlantic security, and we are confident that this support will continue,” Sibiga said at the end of a conference dedicated to the return of Ukrainians , detained by Russia.
Trump frequently criticized Zelensky during the election campaign, while Democratic candidate Kamala Harris pledged to continue supporting Ukraine.
Trump and Harris are in a hotly contested race for the election next Tuesday.
The US Congress has approved almost $175 billion in aid and military assistance to Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. Sibiha said the US aid is unprecedented.
„We are confident in the support of the USA because we also protect our common values – we defend democracy. And this war is not (only) a war for Ukraine, this war is for restoring the world order”, said the Ukrainian first diplomat.
The Republic of South Africa, the Vatican and Qatar made a commitment at a conference in the Canadian city of Montreal to mediate to facilitate the return from Russia of about 20,000 Ukrainian children displaced by the war, France Press reported, quoted by BTA.
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Doha has also pledged, along with Lithuania, to serve as a transit country to contribute to the return of Ukrainians abducted to Russia under the new “Montreal Commitment for the Return of Ukrainians”.
Qatar, a longtime mediator in this sensitive issue, has since July 2023 helped repatriate Ukrainian children transferred to Russia and Russian-occupied territories since Moscow's February 2022 invasion.
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The United Arab Emirates will play a crucial role in brokering the exchange of Russian and Ukrainian prisoners of war.
„The Montreal commitment sets out the measures we will take collectively to bring these people home,” said Melanie Joly, Canada's foreign affairs minister, at a press conference.
The 70 countries gathered for two days in Montreal also pledged to cooperate in gathering data to help Ukraine identify missing children as well as prisoners of war.
„Russia, in the process of Russification, changed the names of these children, sent them to different camps to try to erase their Ukrainian identity,”, Joly emphasized. “The fact that we coordinated today is a huge step forward,”, she added.
Kiev insists on the return of nearly 20,000 minors, “deported or forcibly displaced” in Russia since the beginning of the invasion, a number many observers believe to be an understatement.
„I am happy to return to Kyiv with concrete results, which many Ukrainian families expect, at a time when we see that international humanitarian law unfortunately does not offer protection,” said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sibiga.
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In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Children's Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for the war crime of “illegal deportations”.
These accusations have been repeatedly denied by Russian authorities, who say they are protecting the children from the fighting and say they are ready to hand the children over to their relatives in Ukraine if they ask.
According to Kyiv, about 860 of these children have already been repatriated.