French Foreign Minister in Kyiv for a support visit

“Hello Ukraine, France is by your side,” Ms. Colonna tweeted, accompanying her message with a photograph of her in a square in Kyiv covered with mist with French Ambassador Etienne de Poncins.

During this visit, her third to Ukraine since the start of the war, Catherine Colonna is due to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba and Prosecutor General Andriï Kostine.

She must also visit the airport of Gostomel, in the Kyiv region, which was the subject of fierce fighting at the beginning of the war. Russian forces had finally withdrawn from the area at the end of March.

“The Minister wishes to demonstrate France's solidarity with the Ukrainian people and its full determination to strengthen its support for Ukraine and its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the ministry said in a statement. /p>

According to the ministry, this visit also aims to underline “the strengthening of the support provided by France, both in terms of the supply of defense equipment and the fight against impunity and on the plans financial and humanitarian”.

The ministry refers to the sending of a humanitarian boat to Ukraine with “more than 1000 tons of aid on board” and the efforts to create a “protection zone” around the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, occupied by Russian forces and the target of multiple bombardments.

The visit comes as Russia ends Friday the organization of referendums of annexation in four regions of Ukraine under its total or partial control. These polls have been denounced by kyiv and its allies as “simulacra”.

French President Emmanuel Macron called them last week a “parody” and a “provocation”, on the sidelines of the Assembly General of the United Nations.