Statement by the President of Ukraine During a Joint Press Conference with the President of Cyprus

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Dear Mr. President, dear Nikos!

Ladies and gentlemen, our teams, and all present!

Dear journalists!

Today, I am glad to welcome the President of Cyprus to Ukraine on his first visit. And it is significant that this visit comes shortly before Cyprus assumes the EU Presidency, beginning in January. We see today's visit both as a sign of support for Ukraine and as a signal of our shared readiness to continue working together - for the benefit of both our states and all of Europe. Today, I briefed the President on the situation in Ukraine - the situation on the frontline, our priorities, and our team's work in negotiations with our partners. We held a very detailed discussion of our shared European agenda. Europe is now shaping a new global role for itself - all the events that have been taking place for almost four years now show that Europe's role must be truly strong. This depends on every nation and every leader. Ukraine has given Europe a significant unifying momentum, and this energy works to strengthen Europe. This will continue. We also expect the European community to stand with Ukraine as needed to achieve peace and guarantee reliable security.

I want to thank Cyprus for its support at the political level, including with regard to the negotiations on Ukraine's EU membership. We expect the coming months to bring more progress in Ukraine's path toward the European Union, and Cyprus's Presidency can become historical in terms of opening clusters for Ukraine and enabling other necessary decisions. I also want to thank Cyprus for supporting the sanction policy against Russia, against its aggression, for this war, and for all the destruction caused by it.

Leaders of the European Union are currently preparing a new sanctions package, and we want to make it truly effective. And this means continued pressure on Russia's energy sector, first and foremost, and on everything else that provides Russia with budget revenues, and therefore the means to prolong this war. We will be grateful to Cyprus for its continued cooperation with us and all Europeans on issues concerning the Russian tanker fleet and Russian schemes to circumvent sanctions. We count on Cyprus's support for joint European decisions regarding Russian assets. It is an absolutely just principle that Russia must pay for the war it started itself and continues. The funds needed for defense and recovery after Russian strikes should absolutely rightly come from the amounts the aggressor has left itself in the hands of the free world.

One more point: yesterday at the UN General Assembly, a resolution was supported regarding Ukrainian children abducted by Russia. Cyprus was among the countries whose voice advocated for the need to return all our abducted Ukrainian children. I want to thank Cyprus for this. We thank the people of Cyprus for their support and expect that Cyprus will continue to participate in such work of ours - in resolving humanitarian issues. Russia has been holding Ukrainians in captivity since 2014 - holding both military personnel and civilians, including many political prisoners who lived in occupied Crimea. Thousands of Ukrainian children are now scattered across Russia, where they are being indoctrinated, unfortunately, with hatred toward us - toward their homeland, toward their native home. Ukraine needs global support to address this. I want to thank Cyprus for standing with Ukraine.

Glory to Ukraine!