According to Mr. Van Quickenborne, the head of Ukrainian diplomacy Dmytro Kuleba replied on July 29 to the letter sent to him by Mrs. Lahbib on the occasion of the Day of the Ukrainian State. The Belgian minister expressed Belgium’s “unwavering solidarity” with Ukraine and recalled, among other things, that Crimea was illegally occupied by Russia. “This exchange has shown that Belgium and Ukraine are on the same wavelength,” Van Quickenborne told the private television channel. The Ukrainian foreign minister “does not doubt for a single second that our country and the foreign minister defend the territorial integrity of Ukraine”, he continued. “So I can say that there is no problem between our two countries.”
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The Minister of Justice assured that Belgium would continue to support and supply arms to Ukraine.
Asked regarding the controversy Ms Lahbib is facing, Mr Van Quickenborne stressed that he might only comment on “his skills as a minister, not as a journalist”.
The head of Belgian diplomacy is at the center of a controversy for having traveled in 2021, as a journalist, to Crimea – a peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014 – provided with a Russian visa to attend a cultural festival. This trip was also intended to scout for the filming of a documentary, which Ms. Lahbib has given up on.