By Burc Eruygur
ISTANBUL (AA) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his team is preparing four new security agreements for Kyiv to bolster the country’s defense as the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war continues into its third year.
“A brief summary of the day. Our team is preparing four new security agreements for Ukraine. Very soon, we will begin negotiations and quite promptly prepare the documents for signing,” Zelenskyy said in an evening video address late Monday.
Zelenskyy said that the security agreement being prepared by his team will cover multiple issues such as defense support, finances, and humanitarian cooperation.
“With these, we will have almost thirty such agreements with our partners. We aimed to include various countries, not just NATO members,” Zelenskyy further said, expressing that all of the countries in question are “equally ready to help us defend our shared values.”
“No matter what happens in the world, we need our own tools to support our people and state, our own security agreements that will work under any conditions. This is exactly what we are doing,” he added.
Ukraine has already signed bilateral security treaties with 24 other countries, including the US, the UK, Germany, France, and Japan, as well as the EU.
The agreements came as the G7 declared during a NATO summit in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius last July that it is launching negotiations with Kyiv to formalize its "enduring support" for Ukraine through "bilateral security commitments and arrangements."