The Deputy Prime Minister for the Restoration of Ukraine - the Minister for Communities and Territories Development of Ukraine, Oleksii Kuleba, held a working meeting with the US Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Ukraine, Bridget Brink.

Oleksii Kuleba thanked the United States of America and Brigitte Brink personally for supporting Ukraine, especially since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion.

He expressed hope for further bilateral cooperation and outlined priorities and joint plans for solving Ukraine’s priority needs, as determined by the Government. The most important thing is to provide Ukrainians with heat in winter. Equally important is the provision of water for half a million residents of Mykolaiv and the region, who have not had constant access to clean water for more than two years.

"We are preparing for the heating season and are considering the worst possible scenarios for Ukrainian cities. Currently, Ukraine has received 160 cogeneration plants from USAID. Creating a distributed generation system will be a priority for the coming years. We are also continuing the construction of structures for the passive protection of the energy infrastructure," said Oleksii Kuleba.

The Deputy Prime Minister for the Restoration of Ukraine separately noted that the Ministry’s competence was expanded to include the policy of building social housing for internally displaced persons.

Ambassador Bridget Brink congratulated the Deputy Prime Minister and the new Ministry team. She emphasized that the key directions of bilateral cooperation remain: support for the decentralization reform, further implementation of the DREAM ecosystem, digitalization and reduction of corruption risks, and development of the internal control and audit system.

Using the opportunity, Oleksii Kuleba introduced the new head of the State Agency for Restoration and Development of Infrastructure of Ukraine. Serhiy Sukhomlyn outlined the agency's primary tasks and informed the American partners that the Agency, in addition to directly restoring and protecting critical infrastructure, continues the processes of organizational transformation: increasing institutional capacity, creating a central procurement service, an audit and internal control service, and improving the project management group.

"On the agenda is protecting regional energy supply facilities and small substations in the territories close to the front line. Maintaining the proper condition of the transport infrastructure is also extremely important for ensuring logistics in the frontline regions. We are implementing a project to provide communities with solar panels and install modern LED lighting systems," said Serhiy Sukhomlyn.

The parties also discussed the reconstruction of existing checkpoints and the opening of new ones on the border between Ukraine and the EU, the protection of energy facilities, the attraction of private investments for JSC "Ukrzaliznytsia" and other large state-owned enterprises and companies, and the stable operation of the Ukrainian maritime corridor.

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