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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has sent his foreign and agriculture ministers to meet Syria’s new leaders in a diplomatic drive to benefit from Moscow’s loss of influence in the region following the overthrow of Russian ally Bashar al-Assad.
“We proceed from the fact that the new Syria will become a state which will respect international law, including Ukraine’s territorial integrity,” said Ukrainian foreign minister Andriy Sybiha, who met Syrian de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa of the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group in Damascus on Monday.
The Putin and Assad regimes had supported each other “because their foundation is violence and torture”, Sybiha said.
Assad, who has now fled to Moscow after his regime was overthrown by rebel forces, had recognised Russian control of parts of eastern Ukraine after Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, prompting Kyiv to cut ties with Damascus.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine was “ready to develop long-term, strategic relations” with the new Syria and wanted to help supply the country with badly needed food supplies.
An initial 500 tonnes of wheat flour are set to arrive in Syria on Tuesday under the humanitarian “Grain from Ukraine” programme in partnership with the World Food Programme, Zelenskyy said. “And there will be more deliveries, as well as more mutually beneficial co-operation in many areas,” he said in a post on X.
The overthrow of Assad on December 8 has thrown the future of Syria-Russia relations into doubt. Historically a breadbasket, Syria had recently come to rely on Russia for wheat supplies as economic sanctions, drought and over a decade of war destroyed its economy.
Following the Islamist-led takeover of Syria, Russian wheat supplies have been suspended, Reuters reported earlier this month, threatening more hunger in a nation where people often have bread with every meal.
The initial Ukrainian wheat delivery is fraction of what Syria needs, but Kyiv says more is on the way. Sybiha said he had delivered a message from Zelenskyy to al-Sharaa to declare that “we are with you and ready to assist in restoring normal life, stability, and food security”. In comments carried by Syrian state media, he said the 20 trucks arriving on Tuesday were a gift and that future shipments would be bigger.
Syria’s foreign minister Asaad al-Shaibani said his country and Ukraine are discussing political, economic, social and scientific strategic partnerships, giving no further details.
In a joint press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart, he said his administration was open to welcoming any and all delegations from Arab and foreign countries and aimed to turn the page on the international “estrangement” under the old regime.
Separately, Shaibani said in a post on X that he would make his first official visit abroad as foreign minister to Saudi Arabia.
