The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has abolished the visa-free travel with Russia from July 1, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.
“We are finally breaking ties with Russia. To counter the unprecedented threats to national security, sovereignty and territorial integrity of our state, the government, in pursuance of the order of the President of Ukraine, has just decided to terminate the visa-free agreement with the Russian Federation,” Shmyhal said on the Telegram channel on Friday.
According to him, from July 1, 2022, Russians will not be able to enter Ukraine without obtaining a visa.
Ukraine is introducing a visa regime for Russian citizens, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky told the Telegram channel on Friday.
“As part of countering unprecedented threats to national security, sovereignty and territorial integrity of our state, I proposed to the Cabinet of Ministers to work out the issue of revising the regime of entry of Russian citizens into the territory of Ukraine,” he wrote.
“And today the Cabinet of Ministers must adopt this important resolution ‘On the termination of the Agreement between the Government of Ukraine and the Government of the Russian Federation on visa-free travel of citizens of Ukraine and the Russian Federation and the application of certain international treaties of Ukraine with the Russian Federation,’” the president also wrote.
According to him, “according to the planned decision of the Cabinet of Ministers, from July 1, 2022, Ukraine will introduce a visa regime for entry for citizens of the Russian Federation.”
The international investment group Solway, which owns Pobuzhsky Ferronickel Plant LLC (PFP, Kirovohrad region), has confirmed its exit from Russian assets due to Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine.
“In March 2022, the group condemned the actions of taken by the Russian government against the people of Ukraine and decided to exit all its projects in Russia. At the moment, this process has been legally completed,” the company told Interfax-Ukraine on Saturday.
Earlier, the media disseminated information that the international mining and metallurgical group Solway exited the project for gold mining at the dumps of the Klyuchevskoye deposit in Transbaikalia and the existing enterprise for the extraction of gold and silver in the Kuril Islands.
Pobuzhsky Ferronickel Plant is the only enterprise in Ukraine that produces ferronickel on an industrial scale.
In 2003, after a long downtime, the international company Solway Investment Group acquired the assets of the plant and restarted it a year later.
Turkey does not leave attempts to resume the dialogue between Ukraine and the Russian Federation, and also expresses its readiness to provide platforms for these negotiations, Ukrainian Ambassador to Turkey Vasily Bodnar said.
“Now Turkey does not leave attempts to resume this dialogue, they express their readiness to provide platforms for these negotiations. Today’s meeting (of the Foreign Ministers of Turkey and Russia – IF) was also aimed at finding common ground for continuing these negotiations. What was publicly stated says that they are more focused on the communication of the parties, that there is a readiness for a possible resumption, and for their part they declare their readiness to contribute to this,” Bodnar said at a briefing at the Ukraine media center on Wednesday.
He added that “so far there is no talk of any specific steps towards this, since it should be clear what conditions which side is expressing.”
“Our immediate condition is the withdrawal of Russian troops. Then the negotiations may have a chance of success and end with the signing of a certain document. Otherwise, the so-called theory of “peace in exchange for territories” does not work for us. And the Turkish side understands this very well, at least trying to find out now the position of the Russian side and help in the resumption of this dialogue,” Bodnar said.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky says that neither he nor Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba were invited to a meeting in Ankara on June 8, which will, in particular, consider the issue of Black Sea shipping and which will be attended by the Minister of Foreign Affairs RF Sergey Lavrov.
“I was not invited. The Minister of Foreign Affairs has not been invited to date,” Zelensky said during a conversation with reporters on Monday, answering a related question.
According to him, he discussed with Turkish President Recemop Tayyip Erdogan, among others, the issue of mediation by the Turkish side in unblocking Ukrainian ports.
“For us, it is important that we are ready to produce grain… For us (important – IF) that there is a safe corridor of ships – that this or that fleet of this or that state will ensure the export of this grain to us. That’s all. And here we talked both with Britain and Turkey. Turkey is now finding a format to give us guarantees… I think because of this they are meeting with the Russians so that Russia will give Turkey guarantees that nothing will happen to their ships. I think so. But, however, the details of their meeting are unknown to me yet,” Zelensky said.
The President also said that negotiations on the export of grain are being held with the UN, as well as with the Baltic countries and Poland – on the export of some volume by rail, but this direction is not a priority due to the long delivery times. Through Odessa ports, according to him, Ukraine can export 10 million tons of grain monthly. “If now we have 22-25 million tons blocked there, but in the fall we may already have 75. What are we going to do? Therefore, we won’t be able to do without ports,” Zelensky stressed.
When asked under what conditions Ukraine can go for demining the coast of Odessa ports and who should be the guarantor for the Ukrainian side to do this, he replied: “I consider the strongest guarantee is our appropriate weapons that will be deployed in the region, the unblocking of another corridor to the port for the export of grain”.
“We are working on this with specific states, with specific anti-ship systems. We are working and are already getting a little, I can already state. I think this is the best guarantee,” Zelensky added.
Representatives of Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the UN will gather in Istanbul in the coming days to discuss a plan of action on the situation around problems with grain exports, the Turkish Anadolu agency reports, citing its own data.
“The details of the road map will be discussed in the coming days during the meeting, which will be attended by Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and UN representatives,” the statement said.
According to Anadolu, the meeting will consider issues related to “insurance and security of ships, as well as demining the region.”
The agency indicates that it is planned to create a coordination center in Istanbul, which “should allow sending about 20 million tons of grain and sunflower seeds from Russia and Ukraine to world markets.”
