Ministers Skinnari and Mikkonen are visiting Ukraine

Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari and Minister of the Interior Krista Mikkonen are visiting Kyiv, Ukraine, on 9 January. In Kyiv, the ministers are meeting Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for Restoration, Minister of Energy, Minister of Internal Affairs and the Mayor of Kyiv.

The Finnish ministers are visiting Irpin in Kyiv Oblast to attend a viewing of the temporary family homes Finland has donated to Ukraine. Minister of the Interior Mikkonen is also attending the handing over of the armoured mobile accommodation facilities Finland has donated for the use of rescue personnel in Ukraine. The high-quality family homes are designed for temporary and winter use, and they will house at least 200 Ukrainians. The accommodation facilities will help rescue personnel who are working in challenging conditions.

The visit reaffirms Finland’s firm support to Ukraine. Finland supported Ukraine with approximately EUR 330 million in 2022. Among the topics of the ministers’ meetings in Kyiv are Ukraine’s need for support, including preparations for reconstruction. 

“The family homes Finland donated to Ukraine are a concrete example of how we can use Finnish knowledge and expertise to help Ukrainians who have lost their homes. We will continue to support Ukraine through development cooperation and humanitarian assistance, and we are pooling business resources and Finnish expertise to help in reconstructing Ukraine and its energy, digital and education sectors,” Minister Skinnari says.

“The armoured mobile accommodation facilities will help Ukraine’s rescue personnel to keep protecting the civilian population. The Ukrainian rescue personnel have an important role in extinguishing fires caused by bombing and in rescuing people from collapsed buildings,” Minister Mikkonen says.

Finland is supporting Ukraine through humanitarian assistance, development cooperation, defence materiel assistance and civilian material assistance. The civilian material assistance consists mainly of donations from the private and public sectors. It includes energy sector equipment, among other material. The material is delivered to Ukraine through the EU’s Civil Protection Mechanism, which is coordinated in Finland by the Ministry of the Interior. Finland is in the process of preparing a number of new shipments of assistance to Ukraine. These include 35 truckloads of donated energy sector assistance.

Finland’s participation in the reconstruction of Ukraine will take into account the long-standing priority areas for our development cooperation with Ukraine, including developing the education sector, reinforcing the rule of law and increasing energy efficiency and climate resilience. Together with bodies representing Finnish business and industry, it has been have concluded that Finland has relevant expertise especially in the fields of energy solutions, telecommunications and digitalisation, construction, services of planning, engineering and project management, and water resources management and waste management.

Read more

• Finland gives humanitarian assistance, temporary accommodation units and public administration support to Ukraine (Press release, 2  September 2022)
• Civilian assistance sent from Finland to Ukraine and neighbouring regions (Ministry of the Interior)