On June 27^th the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for European Integration Olena Zerkal had a meeting with the Chairman of the Parliamentary Group of Friendship with Ukraine of the Bundestag Omid Nouripour (member of the faction “Alliance 90 / The Greens»).

The German MP stated that as a Chairman of the Group he was very interested in strengthening the Ukrainian-German bilateral cooperation and supporting Ukraine “in a particularly dramatic period of its development”.

Olena Zerkal expressed gratitude to the German Government and German politicians for their solidarity with Ukraine in defending the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our state.

Deputy Minister informed the interlocutor of the progress achieved in implementing systemic reforms in our state in the framework of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. The particular attention was paid to the state of the energy market reform as an important element of the integration of our country into European energy space.

During the meeting the importance of deepening bilateral cooperation in countering Russian hybrid threats was outlined. In this regard, Olena Zerkal drew attention to Russia's constant attempts to destabilize situation in Ukraine, to prevent an effective course towards European integration by cyberattacks, spreading fake news and distorted information about our country.

Olena Zerkal was also concerned over Russia's neglect of the UN resolutions on monitoring the human rights situation in occupied Crimea. It was emphasized that Moscow refuses to grant access to the temporarily occupied territory of the peninsula to international monitoring missions and in this way ignores the provisions of the important UN resolutions.