“I want to congratulate all the citizens of Ukraine and Moldova on the new year. The year 2021 will strengthen our friendships and will bring us prosperity. I am pleased that Maia Sandu’s first visit is to Ukraine. We discussed a wide range of questions about our countries. We also talked about trade, the fight against smuggling, and the joint cooperation on European integration. Also, we have an ambitious idea to build a highway that will connect Chișinău and Kiyv.

Our countries have common borders and a common past, also a vision of the future as EU members. The European values, regional security, support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, and territorial integrity were important topics. I informed my counterpart about the situation in Donbas. We also discussed the rights of minorities in Ukraine. We agreed on activating expert groups to solve these problems. A special topic was the strategic objective of EU integration of Moldova and Ukraine”, said Zelenskyi.

At the end of his speech, Zelenskyi invited Maia Sandu to Kiyv on August 24 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence.

“Today we are taking an important step towards establishing relations between Moldova and Ukraine. Our cooperation will be based both on discussing and solving existing problems and on jointly exploring new opportunities in the interest of the citizens of both states. We want to be more than neighbors, we want to be friends acting on the basis of a strategic partnership. We agreed to continue discussions on important issues related to regional security, European integration, and the creation of a Council at the Presidential level, which will help to identify feasible and rapid solutions.

We agreed to intensify efforts to ensure border security. We decided to accelerate the agreement that would allow citizens of both states to cross the border only on the basis of identity card, we discussed the need to diversify energy sources, we stressed that the water supply of localities on both banks of the Dniester River is a common priority, we analyzed the option of developing road infrastructure on the route Chișinău-Kyiv, to ensure the fastest route between the capitals of our states. We have many common problems to solve and we are sure that today’s meeting lays the foundations for long-term strategic cooperation between our states”, said Maia Sandu.

Maia Sandu invited Volodymyr Zelenskyi on an official visit to Chișinău.