Ukrainian defense minister Andrii Taran has met a delegation of senior EU officials headed by the bloc's foreign affairs and security policy chief, Josep Borrell, in Kiev, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd September, 2020) Ukrainian defense minister Andrii Taran has met a delegation of senior EU officials headed by the bloc's foreign affairs and security policy chief, Josep Borrell, in Kiev, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.
The official visit comes amidst heightened tensions in the Donbas region, located in eastern Ukraine, with three violations of the July 22 ceasefire reported on Monday by the Ukrainian military.
"On 22 September, a delegation of the European Union led by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell paid an official visit to the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine. Foreign guests were met by Ukrainian Defence Minister Andrii Taran," the ministry's website said.
The ministry added that "the purpose of the visit of the EU delegation to the defense ministry is to discuss the situation in the Joint Forces operation area."
The two sides also discussed bilateral cooperation between Ukraine and the EU, specifically the "current state of cooperation between the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine and the EU in military-political, military-technical and military areas."
The ministry added that Borrell and the members of the delegation visited the memorial erected in honor of the Ukrainian soldiers killed in the conflict in the Donbas region.
"Foreign guests in concert with the Minister of Defence of Ukraine Andrii Taran honoured Fallen Ukrainian Defenders and laid flowers to the Remembrance Stela," the website adds.
The civil war in the Donbas region has remained one of Ukraine's key security concerns since its onset in March 2014, when authorities in Kiev sent troops into the region to quell an uprising in response to the Euromaidan revolution in February of the same year. The conflict has left a total of 3,367 civilian casualties, as reported by the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine chief Matilda Bogner during a recent press conference in Kiev.
