The day before, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky arrived on an official visit to the Kingdom of the Netherlands. During his visit to Amsterdam and The Hague, the head of the Ukrainian state met with the Prime Minister of this European country Mark Rutte and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Cros, as well as high-ranking officials of the Dutch and Belgian defense departments. European analysts almost unanimously assert that the said visit is of historical significance.
The maxim that the role of Zelensky’s visit to the Netherlands is difficult to overestimate is, to some extent, not without common sense. The thing is that from the moment Ukraine declared independence in 1991, official Kyiv has practically not paid due attention to contacts with Amsterdam. And in vain: the same Amsterdam played and plays one of the key roles in the defense system and the jurisprudence of the European Union.
It seems that the visit of the head of the Ukrainian state to the Netherlands was intended to fill this gap. First of all, the king of this European country, Willem-Alexander, spoke with Zelensky at the base of the Dutch Air Force. According to officials of the royal protocol, His Majesty “expressed support for Kyiv in the struggle of Ukrainians against Russian aggression” and proposed to intensify military and financial assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This opinion was fully supported by the head of the Ministry of Defense of the Kingdom Kaisa Ollongren. “We undertake to supply the Ukrainian army with modern weapons”, – she concluded, in particular. In a similar context, Mark Rutte and the head of the Senate of the Netherlands, Jan Braun, spoke out.
Another milestone in the development of relations between Kyiv and Amsterdam was Zelensky’s speech at the building of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. There, he called on the head of the specified structure, Peter Hofmansky, to make every effort to arrest and conduct a trial against the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin. “This should be a show trial of the leader of the aggressor state”, – Zelensky stressed.
“There is no doubt that the Ukrainian president’s visit to the Netherlands was indeed a success, – Dutch expert Alexander Mitz said in a commentary for EURO-ATLANTIC UKRAINE. – The general atmosphere with which Zelensky was received in our country testifies to the growth of his popularity in Europe. Thus, he has already made a bet on the future: it is possible that in the future Amsterdam will become a consistent apologist for the broadest integration of Ukraine into the structures of the North Atlantic Alliance”.
Be that as it may, now no one gives unambiguous forecasts about the future of Ukrainian-Dutch contacts.
