Verkhovna Rada MP: Ukrainian people grateful to Azerbaijan for support

Ukraine and Azerbaijan are strategic partners.

"This is enshrined in the National Security Strategy adopted on September 14, 2020, as well as in the Joint Declaration on deepening strategic partnership signed by Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Volodymyr Zelenskyy on January 14, 2022," Valeriy Kolyukh, a member of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine from the ruling party Servant of the People, told Report.

"Azerbaijan gave a hand to Ukraine during the Russian aggression and provided us with important humanitarian aid. As of August alone, its volume exceeded 1,700 tonnes and continues to grow. This includes medicines, personal hygiene products, baby food, and other necessary materials and supplies. All this is distributed to the needy internally displaced persons in Dnipropetrovsk, Vinnytsia, Cherkasy regions, and those affected by the Russian aggression in Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, and Zaporizhzhya regions," Kolyukh said.

The Ukrainian MP also reminded that the SOCAR company has already joined the reconstruction of the city of Irpin and built school building No. 12. Azerbaijan is also considering its participation in the restoration of cultural facilities in Akhtyrka, Chernihiv, and Kharkiv.

Equally important is the fact that ethnic Azerbaijanis are fighting in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. On 16 May, for example, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy awarded the highest title of Hero of Ukraine to senior lieutenant Kirill Aghasiyev. Unfortunately, there have also been fatalities amongst the Azerbaijanis of Ukraine. Here it is worth remembering Rafael Aghaev, who died in April while defending Mariupol, and Karim Gulamov, who gave his life in July for the freedom of the Kherson fields.

"The Ukrainian people are sincerely grateful to the Azerbaijani people for the support, the sympathy, the understanding that they never stop giving us. Indeed, a friend in need is a friend indeed. Azerbaijan and Azerbaijanis have once again proved their devotion to friendship and partnership with Ukraine and Ukrainians," the Ukrainian MP said.

Commenting on the recent Armenian provocations on the border between Azerbaijan and Armenia, he noted that Kyiv consistently supports the course of Baku and Yerevan on the political and diplomatic settlement, based on the principle of territorial integrity, inviolability of borders, and respect for sovereignty: "Ukraine is extremely interested in the full and comprehensive normalisation of the situation between Azerbaijan and Armenia with appropriate mutual respect for sovereignty."