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Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Roman Mashovets had a meeting with Chargé d’Affaires a.i. of the United States in Ukraine Kristina Kvien to sum up bilateral cooperation in the field of national security and defence in 2020 and outline plans for the next year and beyond.

Roman Mashovets stressed invariability of Ukraine’s course to join NATO and thanked the United States for its assistance in developing Ukraine’s defence capabilities and achieving Alliance’s standards. The parties positively assessed Ukraine’s status of NATO Enhanced Opportunities Partner obtained in June. Regarding further cooperation, the Deputy Head of the President’s Office proposed to start drafting a bilateral framework agreement on defence cooperation. The document should cover all areas of Ukrainian-American cooperation in this area, including defence reform, human resources policy, development of combat capabilities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, comprehensive provision and armament of troops, reform of the defence industry, training of military units, military education, science and development of defence technologies, treatment and rehabilitation of wounded servicemen, social protection of veterans, servicemen and members of their families, mutual participation in international formats of cooperation and other issues important for Ukraine’s defence capabilities.

Kristina Kvein noted the large amount of work in the defence sector and stressed the importance of Ukraine’s accession to NATO’s Enhanced Opportunities Programme, which is to become operational next year. She reaffirmed the willingness of the United States to continue to provide assistance in the development of Ukraine’s defence capabilities and to develop new formats of bilateral cooperation.

The parties agreed to work next year on the further development of the agreement base between Ukraine and the United States on defence cooperation and to make efforts to effectively use US assistance to Ukraine’s defence forces scheduled for 2021.