Alexander Vasilievich, allow me to greet you in the UAE and congratulate you on your appointment as the charge d'affaires of Ukraine in the UAE. Please tell us briefly about how your diplomatic career began and where you worked before your business trip to the UAE?
I am a career diplomat, candidate of economic sciences, and a graduate of the faculty of "international economic relations." My entire working experience is with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Since 1995, immediately after graduating from the Academy, I have been working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. Prior to arriving in the UAE, I worked in various departments of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as abroad. This region is well known to me. At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I headed the Foreign Relations Department of the State Protocol Department. And in 2009, he was appointed in the UAE as a charge d'affaires of Ukraine. Married, son attends school in Abu Dhabi.
Please tell me what were your first impressions of the Emirates?
This country has certain specifics. It’s very interesting for me to work here, because I feel a potential that, perhaps, will allow me to show my professional and human qualities. The people here are very interesting. And in a very short period, with the help of our Emirate colleagues, we were able to significantly intensify our bilateral relations.
Do you mean the changes that occurred in the work of the Ukrainian Embassy after the official visit of the President of the country, Viktor Yushchenko, to the UAE at the end of 2009?
I mean, first of all, the official visit of President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko on November 16-17, 2009 and December 20-21, 2009, the official visit of Petro Poroshenko, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine to the UAE. These visits, of course, allowed us to open a new page in our relationship. In particular, an agreement was reached on opening the UAE embassy in Kiev in the first half of 2010. This is very indicative, since even in a number of EU member states there is no emirate embassy, and, by the way, not all the CIS countries have a UAE diplomatic mission, but there will be an embassy in Ukraine. This step is also direct evidence of the revitalization of our relations. The immediate plans include organizing return visits by senior UAE government officials to Ukraine, one of which will be the visit of Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE Foreign Minister.
And if we talk about further potential, today we have laid a good foundation for the further work of the embassy, and this is the development of trade and economic relations, since we have projects in the field of agriculture, in the field of aircraft construction, in the space industry. There are already certain developments and agreements with the Emirate side that we will consider the possibility of simplifying the visa regime between our countries. This work has already begun, but I will not reveal all the cards yet. This, of course, will help strengthen relations in all areas, and we hope that the UAE is also interested in simplifying the visa regime, as this will increase the flow of tourists from Ukraine to the UAE and from the Emirates to Ukraine. There is progress, the foundation is laid. It remains only to implement all this. What are we working on.
Do you plan to rely on representatives of the Ukrainian diaspora in the UAE in your daily work?
Of course yes. We try to maintain relations with our compatriots. We are developing here the informational presence of Ukraine. For example, during the visit of the President, a cooperation agreement was signed between the National News Agency of Ukraine UKRINFORM and the emirate’s agency WAM. And today, information about Ukraine is published in WAM news feeds, and vice versa - information about the UAE goes to Ukraine. Until recently, this could have been dreamed of. We are very pleased because we know that many media in the Emirates use the news from WAM.
We are talking with you on the day of the first round of the presidential election in Ukraine. What do you feel?
January 17, 2009 is a significant day in the history of our country. We are holding the first round of presidential elections at a polling station at the Ukrainian Embassy. Traditionally, not a very large number of our citizens take part in the vote, since the Ukrainian diaspora in the Emirates is not numerous, but we hope that this time the turnout of our voters will be good. If it happens that there will be a second round of elections, then we will inform our voters additionally. Every person is important to us. We invited and invite all citizens of Ukraine, regardless of whether they live in the UAE or are here temporarily - on vacation or business trip, to take part in such important events for the country.
In your opinion, after the presidential election, how quickly and successfully will the previous agreements be implemented to strengthen bilateral cooperation between Ukraine and the UAE?
I must tell you that the agreements reached
Acts began to be realized before the presidential elections in Ukraine, and some of them have already been implemented, others are in the process of work. Viktor Yushchenko’s visit to the UAE was the second visit of the President of Ukraine to the UAE, the first to come here in 2003 was Leonid Kuchma, who, incidentally, also made his visit to the Emirates shortly before the 2004 elections. Therefore, it does not mean at all that we need to wait for the election results in order to conduct constant and systematic work to build up our cooperation in various fields. We are working, as I have already said, on the development of a bilateral juridical base, we are awaiting the visit of the UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah to Ukraine. We have several agreements on the agenda that we hope to sign this year and begin to implement. We are talking about agreements that will govern our relations in the field of industrial investment, in medicine, and possibly even in the field of legal relations. We will continue cooperation in leading sectors of the economy. In particular, the Emirate side is very interested in issues of cooperation in the field of agriculture. We see very promising cooperation in the field of aviation and space. Emirates are interested in some models of Antonov aircraft.
For example, at the Dubai Airshow, we showed a new model of the Antonov-148 aircraft, which has no analogues in the world in terms of price category or quality. It is presented in both passenger and other versions. The first production model was already released at the end of 2009, and we demonstrated it to the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The designers and management of the Antonov company introduced the sheikh to the details. Now we are awaiting the visit of a delegation of emirate experts to the Antonov plants with a view to further cooperation in this area.
Alexander Vasilievich, let me wish you success and the implementation of all the tasks. And we will try to support you in everything.
Thanks you. I hope that the cooperation of the Ukrainian embassy with the publishing house "Russian Emirates" will only develop.
