Ukraine sending large delegation to recovery talks in Switzerland
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Ukrainian rescuers work outside a damaged residential building hit by Russian missiles, in Kyiv, on June 26, 2022,
PHOTO: AFP
BERN, SWITZERLAND (AFP) - Kyiv said on Thursday (June 30) that Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal would lead a delegation of around 100 people to Switzerland next week for an international meeting on rebuilding Ukraine.
Ukraine is sending "a very high-level delegation", Kyiv's ambassador to Switzerland, Mr Artem Rybchenko, told reporters in Bern, adding it would mark the largest delegation to leave his country since the Russian invasion.
They will be among delegations from dozens of countries at the Ukraine Recovery Conference to be co-hosted by Kyiv and Bern in the southern Swiss city of Lugano on July 4 and 5.
The conference had been planned well before Russia launched its full-scale invasion on Feb 24, and had originally been slated to discuss reforms in Ukraine before being repurposed for war reconstruction.
It will not be a pledging conference, but will instead attempt to lay out the principles and priorities for a rebuilding process aimed to start even as Russia's war in Ukraine continues to rage.
'Road map'
"Lugano will be one of the first, and maybe the first platform on recovery of Ukraine,... the road map," Mr Rybchenko said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had initially been scheduled to come and co-host the event alongside his Swiss counterpart Ignazio Cassis, but he is now due to attend only virtually.
Mr Rybchenko said that laws in Ukraine prohibit the President, "the first responsible person", from leaving at a time of war.
In addition to Mr Shmyhal, six other Ukrainian government ministers, including the country's top diplomat, Mr Dmytro Kuleba, will be present in Lugano, as well as a number of parliamentarians and regional leaders.
Mr Rybchenko said that sending the delegation was a complicated task.
It is no longer a question of a two-hour flight from Ukraine to Switzerland, he said, pointing out that it now takes "around one and a half to two days, by train, by flying, by cars".
In addition, the male delegation members between the ages of 18 and 60 have had to apply for exceptions from a wartime law barring them from leaving the country, he added.
In all, 38 countries and 14 international organisations will send delegations to Lugano, with eight heads of government in attendance, including from Poland and the Czech Republic, the Swiss organisers said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has also confirmed she will come.
The conference will be aimed at laying out a framework for how to approach the towering challenges of rebuilding Ukraine.
Kyiv will present its vision, and the parties will try to nail down priorities for rebuilding and also a number of principles, including that the process must be Ukrainian-led, and that it must go hand-in-hand with reforms.
