PM Netanyahu lays wreath at Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, meets with Ukraine Pres. Volodymyr Zelensky. In Kyiv, PM vows to advance pensions for Israelis with Ukrainian roots

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday morning was welcomed by Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky at the presidential palace in Kiev. An honor guard was present and the two countries’ national anthems were played.

Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Zelensky are currently holding a private meeting. They will then hold an expanded meeting with the two sides’ entourages. Minister Zeev Elkin and Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely will attend the expanded meeting.

Earlier on Monday, Netanyahu participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the Holodomor Victims’ Memorial in Kiev.

Netanyahu is in Ukraine for a two-day trip, where he met with new President Volodymyr Zelensky and announced that Kyiv was considering opening a technology trade and investment office in Jerusalem. Netanyahu said Israel would transmit to Ukraine more information about Israeli immigrants from the Eastern European country who are eligible for pensions, in order to help them start to receive payments.

More than a third of Israeli immigrants from the former Soviet Union hail from Ukraine. In 2014, a bilateral agreement on pensions for Israelis from Ukraine was signed, but it was never implemented.

“This community serves as a human bridge between our countries and it offers immense opportunities to help us develop our ties,” Netanyahu said during a joint press appearance with Zelensky. “I want to thank you for working to advance, in the upcoming parliament, the ratification of the pensions agreement that was signed for these people. You asked to be passed on to you updated information for this purpose — I will definitely do that.”

More than a third of Israeli immigrants from the former Soviet Union hail from Ukraine. In 2014, a bilateral agreement on pensions for Israelis from Ukraine was signed, but it was never implemented.

Later on Monday, Netanyahu was set to visit a memorial at Babi Yar, where more than 30,000 Jews were killed in two days during the Holocaust. Zelensky was set to accompany him to the memorial, which will be the first time a Ukrainian president accompanies an Israeli official to the site.

There are two monuments at Babi Yar, one usually visited by foreign dignitaries that commemorates all victims of Nazism who were killed at the site, and another, with a giant menorah, that was built specifically to honor the more than 33,000 Jews who were shot by the Nazis and their local collaborators in September 29-30, 1941, in what is commonly known as the Holocaust’s deadliest shooting massacre.

On Tuesday, Netanyahu is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, who is also Jewish. Ukraine is currently the only country besides Israel where both the president and the prime minister are Jewish.

During the last elections Groysman ran with his own party, which failed to cross the electoral threshold, and he is expected to be replaced shortly.

PM Netanyahu at the joint statements: "President Zelensky, Volodymyr, congratulations once again on your great victory. Your double victory. I noticed also that since you were elected the growth rate of Ukraine has nearly doubled. I don't think it's [unclear]. I think it reflects the way people are impressed, the way that I've been impressed from this visit, upon your vision of a prosperous and peaceful Ukraine. And I look forward to working with you as we've discussed on advancing our common goal of peace and prosperity. I was here twenty years ago so I can see the changes that have taken place and also your desire to accelerate change.

Both our countries are young, but our peoples are ancient and our common ties go back centuries, many centuries. The Jewish community in Ukraine is over 1,300 years old. And I want to thank you for agreeing on a mutual development project for Uman that is very important for the Ukraine and for the Jewish people as well. We've had periods of great splendor in our joint relations but we've also had periods of unimaginable tragedy. During the Holocaust, hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered in the territory of Ukraine and later today we will visit Babi Yar where tens of thousands of Jews were slain by the Nazis and their collaborators.

Groysman and Netanyahu will also attend an event for Israeli and Ukrainian businesspeople hosted by Netanyahu at his Kyiv hotel. He is also planning to welcome local Jewish community leaders for a short meeting before heading back to Israel on Tuesday afternoon.

Attached photo credit: Amos Ben-Gershom (GPO)