President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has announced the creation of a new institution, saying that it should actually be the Ministry of Ukrainian Unity and Countering Russian Influence on Ukrainians. He said this at a meeting of heads of foreign diplomatic missions of Ukraine "Military Diplomacy: Resilience, Weapons, Victory," UNN reports.
"The Ukrainian global community. This is a rather painful issue today. Just as any state has a geographical center, the Ukrainian state should be a real center for our already global Ukrainian people. Our people are in all parts of the world, in most countries. These are diasporas of different times, different waves of migration. Somewhere in the world there are more Ukrainians, somewhere there are fewer, but we must realize our nation as a global one, because it is a fact. Therefore, we must modernize our state institutions so that they meet the modern task of uniting all Ukrainians around Ukraine, around the defense of Ukraine, around strengthening our position in the world," Zelensky said.
He believes that this requires strengthening Ukraine's institutional presence in partner countries.
"This will be done in two ways. Thus, it has already been decided to open new Ukrainian consulates abroad, in particular in Poland, Germany, Bulgaria, Italy, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and France. Some of them are additional, some are the first in history, but it is very important - where there is a presence of Ukrainians, where Ukrainian communities need more attention," Zelensky said.
МЗС працює над цифровізацією консульських послуг 13.08.24, 15:03
According to him, the launch of a new institution is being prepared to ensure that global Ukrainian unity is sufficiently strong.
"Along with this, and along with the usual work through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, we have talked about this with the Prime Minister, we are preparing to launch a new institution that will provide sufficient strength for global Ukrainian unity. Millions of our people in other countries, their ties and relations with Ukraine, protection of our common interests as a nation - all this will be the responsibility of the new institution. In fact, this should be the Ministry of Ukrainian Unity and Countering Russian Influence on Ukrainians. First of all, abroad," Zelenskyy said.
МЗС розробляє стратегію стосовно українців за кордоном13.04.24, 10:47
He noted that Russia is using a huge propaganda resource abroad, in particular, targeting Ukrainians.
"We see how many aspects of the spiritual independence of our people are not regulated and how Russia uses its own church structures for agent work and sowing schisms. We also see that the educational, cultural, and informational needs of Ukrainians in other countries require more activity from our state. And this is a fundamentally new task for Ukraine - we have never had such a part of our people abroad before," Zelensky said.
The President believes that the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry system alone will not be able to cope with this.
"Because we are talking about millions of our Ukrainians. It would be wrong to simply expect different ministries and agencies to implement the relevant tasks. We need an institution that will lead other state institutions to achieve certain goals. We will present all the details in the near future," Zelenskyy announced.