On Tuesday, January 7, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Andrii Sybiha welcomed his Icelandic counterpart, Thorgerdur Katrin Gunnarsdottir, to Kyiv on her first visit as a minister to Ukraine.

The Foreign Minister emphasized that the special ties between the peoples of Ukraine and Iceland date back over a thousand years, and Kyiv even has a special name in Icelandic language — Kaenugardur.

Both sides paid attention to Iceland's continued support for the Peace Formula and the path to a comprehensive, just and sustainable peace, agreed on the necessity of further political and economic isolation of the aggressor, and of an increase of the cost of war for Russia.

Andrii Sybiha expressed gratitude to Iceland for the assistance in the areas of demining, logistical support, training of the Ukrainian military, and support of the initiative for the operational procurement of weapons.

“We are grateful to Iceland for the recent contribution of over 2 million euros to the production of Ukrainian weapons under the “Danish model”. We look forward to further increase of the Icelandic investments in the Ukrainian defence industry,” the minister noted.

Andrii Sybiha particularly noted Iceland’s efforts to provide prosthetics to wounded Ukrainian soldiers: “This year we aim to scale up this project and help restore even more of our servicemen.”

The Minister also expressed gratitude to Iceland for its energy support.

Thorgerdur Katrin Gunnarsdottir stated that Iceland is ready to continue supporting Ukraine. This also includes further financing of the humanitarian initiative of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “Grain from Ukraine”, within the framework of which Ukrainian food is supplied, in particular, to Syria.

The ministerial talks were a follow-up to the security agreement and the visit of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Reykjavik last year, which had opened a new page of the special partnership between Ukraine and Iceland.