President Volodymyr Zelensky called newly appointed Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro to discuss a future security agreement between Ukraine and Portugal.
Zelensky and his Finnish counterpart, Alexander Stubb, signed on April 3 a 10-year security agreement between the two countries. Finland became the eighth state to sign a bilateral security deal with Kyiv, as previously the U.K., Germany, France, Denmark, Canada, Italy, and the Netherlands did so.
The agreements are based on a pledge made by the Group of Seven (G7) last July, which aims to bolster Ukraine's ability to resist Russian aggression. Portugal also joined the G7 Group in the summer.
"We discussed the status of prior agreements on defense and assigned the teams to begin the preparation of bilateral security agreement within a G7 declaration framework," Zelensky said, adding that parties coordinated their future contacts as well.
Zelensky also congratulated Montenegro on his appointment and thanked him for the "principled position" toward Ukraine's support.
Earlier, Portugal joined the Czech-led initiative to provide Ukraine with hundreds of thousands of artillery shells, pledging 100 million euros ($108.9 million) to the effort.
Portugal is also one of 11 members of an international coalition to train Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets, which was announced by former Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov at the NATO summit in Vilnius in July 2023.
Daniil Ukhorskiy
