WORLD NEWS | Israeli foreign minister visits Kiev as pressure mounts for military aid

KIEV, Feb. 16 (AP) — Israel’s foreign minister traveled to Kiev on Thursday, the first public visit by a senior Israeli official to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion last year.

But there is no sign that Israel is preparing to significantly increase its modest support for Ukraine or meet Ukraine’s demands for arms.

Read also | Tesla fired dozens of Gigafactory workers in New York following the union announcement.

Foreign Minister Eli Cohen’s visit comes ahead of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion and as Western nations seek to increase aid to the country.

Since the war broke out, Israel has walked a tightrope between aiding Ukraine and avoiding friction with Russia, with which it has regional strategic interests. Unlike other Western countries, Israel has not imposed sanctions on Russia or Russian officials, nor has it supplied weapons to Ukraine.

Read also | United States: Fairmount Heights officer jailed for having sex with woman in custody.

It has provided humanitarian support to Ukraine, including a field hospital, and pledged to provide a defensive air strike warning system. Ukrainian leaders have spoken of some intelligence cooperation with Israel, but Israeli officials have not publicly confirmed those ties or the extent of any such cooperation.

Cohen met with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba, who later tweeted that he was “thankful to Israel and the Israelis for all the support they have provided over the past year.”

“In our detailed and frank talks, we focused on ways to strengthen our bilateral relationship, increase aid and address shared security challenges,” he said.

Yevgen Korniychuk, Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel, said Israel had “reassured us again that they would bring in an early warning system, but did not say when.”

As part of the brief visit, Cohen also plans to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and leaders of the country’s Jewish community.

It was unclear whether Cohen would announce more aid to Ukraine during his lightning visit, or if the visit meant further Israeli involvement.

“We’re here in solidarity with the Ukrainian nation, which has really gone through a very difficult time in the past year,” Cohen said during a tour of the mass grave memorial in Buta outside Kiev. Israel has always supported Ukraine and provided humanitarian aid and will continue to do so, he said.

As he entered the Ukrainian foreign ministry, air raid sirens sounded, reminding Cohen of the hardships Ukrainians endured.

Cohen said earlier this year that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government “is definitely going to do one thing: In public, we’re going to talk less” about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but continue to provide humanitarian aid to Ukraine. Shortly after taking office, he spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Israel has good working relations with both belligerent countries and has a large Russian and Ukrainian immigration population. Israel also relies on security coordination with Russia on neighboring Syria, where it has carried out hundreds of airstrikes on Iranian military positions over the past decade. Russian warplanes also backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, with Russia and Israel in communication to avoid conflict.

Israel is under pressure, including from the United States, to share some of its sophisticated military with Ukraine as other Western countries step up aid to Ukraine

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said after a meeting with Netanyahu in Jerusalem last month that he stressed the “importance of providing support for all of Ukraine’s needs – humanitarian, economic and security”.

Yossi Shain, a former member of the Knesset’s foreign affairs and defense committee, said Israel’s ultra-nationalist government – which has clashed with the Biden administration over West Bank settlements – may try to win Washington’s favor by providing Ukraine with defense capabilities, At the same time “will not cross certain lines that would jeopardize its lesser involvement” in neighboring Syria “due to threats from Russia”.

Last year, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett attempted a brief mediation between the two sides, flying to Moscow and meeting with President Vladimir Putin shortly after the Russian invasion. Bennett said in an interview earlier this month that Putin assured him at the time that Russia would not kill Zelensky. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)