Opening remarks

Thank you very much. Dear Secretary General, dear Ministers, friends, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, I am glad to be here among you on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Charter on the Distinctive Partnership between NATO and Ukraine. The decade we worked together proved that our co-operation is mutually beneficial and, to be frank, in Ukraine it has promoted and produced real changes in many, many spheres of our life much beyond the only military sphere which I always represent.

In fact, Ukraine in 1994 was the first post-Soviet country that joined the Partnership for Peace program and now, as Secretary General said, it is the only Partner country that supports and participates in all NATO-led military operations and it's our attitude and we will follow that way and our participation can only be limited by our finance base or some other technical factors. But there is political will and that political will is shared even by the current coalition which is not simple in its composition.

So we are looking forward and we believe the following years will produce much more positive results and will make also qualitative changes in even format of our relation.

Thank you very much.