OPINION: Ukraine – Romania: Gratitude Where It’s Due

Ukraine has received important news from Toledo, Spain, where an informal meeting of EU defense ministers has taken place. The Netherlands and Romania have signed a letter of intent to establish a base for training F-16 pilots and the corresponding maintenance of these aircraft at a training center on the territory of Romania.

This represents another step taken by Romania to supporting Ukraine, this time in strengthening our air defense. It is the logical conclusion of the July initiative of the Supreme Council of National Defense of Romania to create a regional pilot training center with the participation of the Lockheed Martin company. It will meet the training requirements of NATO members and, most importantly, Ukraine’s aces and technical personnel will be trained in this center.

I would like to remind you that, in the spring. there was an agreement between Bucharest and the German defense supplier Rheinmetall on the creation of a service center where military equipment for the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) will be repaired and modernized.

We should also not forget about the joint declaration in support of the Euro-Atlantic integration of our country, which was signed by the President of Romania Klaus Werner Iohannis and President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky at the beginning of the summer.

However, even against this background, special thanks go to Bucharest's efforts to increase the capacity of the grain corridors that were laid through the territory of Romania after Russia's withdrawal from the “grain agreement.”

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In particular, at the end of August, Romania’s Prime Minister Marcel Čolaku announced that Romania would double the capacity of its main Black Sea port of Constanţa and shipping lanes on the Danube within two months. This will be done to help Ukraine transport its grain beyond Russia's reach.

We have to state again that the contribution of Romania to our resistance and our future victory cannot be underestimated.

I am sure that if you approach passers-by on the streets of our settlements and ask them to name the countries that invest the most in helping Ukraine, the most common answers will be the US, Great Britain, Poland and the Baltic countries. This is certainly true, and we are all very grateful to these allies. But what Romania is doing now absolutely deserves to be mentioned as they deserve credit as one of our greatest friends.

This opportunity should be used to turn the existing rapprochement between Ukraine and Romania into strong, dynamic and mutually beneficial cooperation.

Now is the perfect time to finally resolve any past contradictions that may have held back our good-neighborly strategic partnership.

In my opinion, one of the gestures of goodwill on the part of Ukraine could well be the creation of centers of national minorities (communities), which is provided for in the first part of Article 19 of the Law of Ukraine “On National Minorities (Communities) of Ukraine.” In particular, a pilot option can be started in the Odesa region, home to one of the largest Romanian diasporas.

Oleksiy Leonov is co-chair of the Deputy Group of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on inter-parliamentary relations with Romania.

The views expressed are the author’s and not necessarily of Kyiv Post.