Warning sirens sounded during the visit of Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias to Kyiv when he was at the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to meet with his counterpart Dmytro Kuleba.
The Greek foreign minister was taken safely to a shelter in the Ukrainian capital.
Right now, the foreign ministers of Greece and Ukraine are having a private meeting in Kulebas’ office, Proto Thema reported.
Before going to the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Dendias walked in the city of Kyiv.
“Welcome to Kyiv, we finally meet here ,” said the Ukrainian Foreign Minister to his Greek counterpart, with the latter replying: “I saw you yesterday on the screen, today in person .”
Kuleba then referred to Monday’s rocket attacks, saying: “I woke up and literally heard something like it was vibrating. On Monday there were these airstrikes from 08:00 to 09:00.”
The Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs, speaking about the course of the war, said for his part: “there is a feeling that you are doing well”.
Diplomatic relations with Ukraine as well as issues related to the diaspora were on the agenda of Nikos Dendias’ visit to Kyiv, from where he condemned revisionist movements.
As he tweeted from the visit, the Greek Foreign Minister also met with the Rector of the State University of Mariupol.
“Agenda: parliamentary diplomacy, Greece-Ukraine relations, Russian invasion of Ukraine, European academic issues and Greek diaspora. I completely condemned revisionism. I thanked Lina Themistokleous for her contribution to the repatriation operations from Ukraine, including Greek citizens and expatriates,” Dendias wrote on Twitter.
Κατά την έναρξη επίσκεψής μου στο Κίεβο, συναντήθηκα στην 🇬🇷 Πρεσβεία με τον Πρόεδρο της Ομάδας Φιλίας 🇬🇷-🇺🇦 του Ουκρανικού Κοινοβουλίου, T.Plachkova, τον Πρύτανη του Κρατικού Πανεπιστημίου Μαριούπολης, M.Trofymenko, και την Επιτετραμμένη της Πρεσβείας 🇨🇾 @LThemistokleous.
(1/2) pic.twitter.com/l2w9ibHBT0— Nikos Dendias (@NikosDendias) October 19, 2022
Nikos Dendias arrived in Kyiv, by train via Poland, and was received by the head of the Greek embassy, Manolis Androulakis.
He was already guided to a nearby area where the security officer of the Kyiv municipality showed him buildings that have been damaged by the recent missile attacks by the drones that Iran has supplied to Ukraine.
The visit to Kyiv is the third visit to Ukraine by the foreign minister during the war. His two previous visits were to Odessa, a city of immense importance for Hellenism.
However, his presence in Kyiv is also interpreted as a move to symbolise “that the Greek government, Greek society, the Greek people as a whole, stand by the countries whose national independence and national sovereignty are threatened”.
“International law, the charter of the United Nations is ‘gospel’ for Greek foreign policy. I will repeat this in Kyiv as well”, Dendias noted yesterday during the briefing of the representatives of the parties.
READ MORE: “Greece is in our coverage area”, writes Turkish media about the Tayfun missile.
