Ukrainian defense minister, Armed Forces commander-in-chief visit eastern, southern borders of Ukraine

WASHINGTON. Nov 15 (Interfax) – Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Lt. Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhny, Presidential Deputy Chief of Staff Roman Mashovets, and First Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Ruslan Demchenko have paid a working visit to the eastern and southern borders of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s press service said on Sunday.

As he was summing up results of the trip, Reznikov said, "It is now important to pool efforts of the entire civilized world, because this is a hybrid war. The situation currently unfolding on the border between Belarus and Poland, the border between Belarus and Ukraine and, primarily, the border between Belarus and Lithuania is exactly what we call a manifestation of the hybrid war."

"We have traveled along the entire line that I earlier called a contact line, a line of contact, in the military sense – a line of demarcation or fire contact. All units are in combat mode. I have spoken with commanders of brigades and other units, I have had the honor to visit a platoon stronghold in Zolote 4, and have seen the hostile positions from a distance of 100 meters. There is fighting spirit, and the defense capacity is being maintained on a high level. Yet, of course, there are things we should take care of to help our soldiers," the Ukrainian defense minister said.

He also spoke about military cooperation between Belarus and Russia.

"They are forming their alliance, and we have an alliance of our own – Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. We also have partners, Lithuania and Poland. We are arriving at a direct partnership with the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, There is the NATO alliance that scares Russia a lot. We are partners of NATO, and our cooperation has been active. We are also stepping up cooperation with Turkey, and that’s an important area," Reznikov said.

Reznikov said he "has seen with his own eyes how the defense system is built in the east. We checked the condition of naval sites and the preparedness of our marines in the south. I wanted to see for myself the situation with the naval bases to appear in the near future. The enhancement of our fleet and the creation of relevant infrastructure are among our priorities."

In his words, the Defense Ministry and the Ukrainian Armed Forces have drawn up a list of tasks, both imminent, medium-term, long-term, and strategic.

In turn, Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Lt. Gen. Zaluzhny described the working trip as highly effective.

"The main task was to show the defense minister how the operation was organized and carried out. We managed to visit combat details and saw how our servicemen were accomplishing their missions and were provided with food. I would like him to make an assessment," Zaluzhny said.