Romania makes pilot training centers and grain warehouses available to Ukraine

Our country will double the storage, transit and export capacity of Ukrainian grains, according to the political statement signed, at the end of last week, in Bucharest, by Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu and his Ukrainian counterpart Denys Shmyhin.

"Romania will continue to be involved in facilitating Ukrainian grain exports to international markets. We hope that more than 60% of the total volume of grain exports from Ukraine will transit through Romania. Together we set an ambitious target: doubling the volume of Ukrainian grain transit from 2 million tons per month to 4 million tons per month. In this sense, we will develop the existing transport and transit capacities, in this case the Sulina canal and the Port of Constanţa. We signed a political declaration on strengthening bilateral cooperation and ensuring a viable transit, as well as on the continuation of the projects we have in the works to increase rail, road, river and sea traffic. For the realization of these projects, Romania made extraordinary efforts and allocated resources from national funds to increase storage, transit and shipping capacities on all these components. The results of the efforts to improve this infrastructure can already be seen: we have increases of 200% at some of the main transit points, respectively 500% in the Port of Constanţa South", declared Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu.

However, the Head of Government wanted to assure Romanian producers and farmers that they will be treated equally with those from Ukraine, whose products and grains transit through our country.

"I emphasized very clearly that the measures we adopt at the national level, as well as those at the European level, will equally take into account the need to support Ukraine but also the legitimate expectations and concerns of Romanian producers and farmers. Protecting the Romanian domestic market and Romanian farmers is one of the major objectives of this government and I will make sure that things go in the right direction. These things and these objectives do not overlap", said Marcel Ciolacu.

Despite the assurances provided by the head of the Government, we remind you that this spring Romanian farmers complained of losses of at least 50 million euros due to the price losses they faced because last year and at the beginning of this year part of the cereals Ukrainians that had to be transited were actually imported by some agro-food industry producers in our country, due to the low price, which did not contain any customs duty. The European Commission offered a support of 10 million euros, later supplemented with another 10 million euros and, following the scandal caused by Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary, suspended twice, until September 15, 2023, the import without customs duties of Ukrainian grain in the European Union.

Regarding the transit of Ukrainian grain through our country, the head of the government in Kyiv, Denys Shmyhal, stated, after signing the political declaration, that the border infrastructure will be rehabilitated, the transport infrastructure destroyed by the Russian Federation and that the points of entry will be expanded crossing the border between Romania and Ukraine to facilitate the transit of grain from the neighboring country.

"We will modernize the infrastructure, simplify border checks and, where possible, have a common control to simplify the transit of goods. We will facilitate the transport of our products from the Ukrainian ports to the Romanian ones and we will strengthen the collaboration in the Danube region by using the current port infrastructure, as well as by investing in the development of this infrastructure. Currently, Romania ranks third for Ukraine in terms of facilitating the transit of Ukrainian goods," said Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal.

A first step regarding the expansion of the transit of Ukrainian goods is the signing by the two heads of government of an agreement on the opening of the border crossing point at Sighetu Marmaţiei, which will operate 24 hours a day, permanently, as stated by the prime minister Ukrainian.

In order to solve the situation of Ukrainian citizens who are refugees on the territory of Romania and who want a job in our country according to the professional qualification that each of them has, the two prime ministers also signed an agreement on the mutual recognition, by the two states, of study documents.

The political declaration signed by the two prime ministers takes place after the withdrawal, in July 17, of the Russian Federation from the international agreement on the Ukrainian grain transport corridor through the Black Sea and after the bombings applied in the last three weeks by the Russian forces, by means of the Iranian Shahed drones, on grain warehouses in the Ukrainian ports of Odessa, Izmail and Reni and on the related port infrastructure.

In order to avoid the blockade established by the Russian naval forces on the transport of goods from Odessa and from the Danube ports of Ukraine, in the last days a transport corridor was established ad hoc through the territorial waters of Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey, but very few commercial ships s -they dared to use this corridor because of the threats looming over the exit/entry of vessels on the Ukrainian side of the Chilia arm. At the NATO level, the need to protect the new transport corridor by the air and naval forces of the military alliance is being analyzed, but a decision has not yet been made in order not to sensitize the Russian side and not lead to an escalation of the conflict in the Black Sea, escalation which could draw even the forces of the allied states into the conflict.

• The US has given the green light to the training of Ukrainian pilots for the F-16 jets

However, the Biden Administration gave the green light to the training of Ukrainian pilots who will serve the F-16 fighter jets requested by the authorities in Kiev, training that will be carried out for the first time in two centers in the European Union - Denmark and Romania - and in - a center in Great Britain. Thus, the establishment of the regional training hub for Romanian pilots is on track after, at the end of last week, the US Government officially approved the transfer to the EU of the first training materials for the respective aircraft.

The first country to benefit from the entire pilot training package is Denmark, where one of the three EU training centers for Ukrainian pilots will be built, according to an article published by the Politico.eu website. Approving the transfer of training materials - such as instruction manuals and flight simulators - was the final bureaucratic hurdle for the US before training could begin.

Ukraine has sent the US government a list of 32 pilots it says are ready for training, but White House sources told Politico.eu that only eight have the English language skills to complete the course. The other 24 must go through a British-run English language teaching program before they can begin training on fighter aircraft.

At the same time, the US has provided written assurances to Denmark and the Netherlands that they will expedite the approval of all necessary transfer requests so that the F-16s available in the two states will be sent to the battlefield as soon as the pilots are trained to use them, according to the statement given to the source cited by a State Department spokesman.

"This way, Ukraine can take full advantage of its new capabilities as soon as the first set of pilots completes their training," the State Department spokesman said.

Denmark and the Netherlands, which lead an 11-nation coalition that will help train Ukrainian pilots to fly the F-16s, have yet to officially say they will send planes to the battlefield. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken says in a letter to the governments of the two European countries that when either requests the transfer of F-16 jets to a third party, Washington will quickly approve it.

"The United States is in active discussions with our European partners about how we can support efforts to provide Ukraine with F-16 pilot training as quickly as possible," the State Department spokesman said.

However, the Ukrainian authorities will not be able to operate F-16 fighter jets until next spring, said Yuriy Ihnat, the spokesman of the Ukrainian Air Force, quoted by Euractiv.com.

In fact, American officials told the cited source that the F-16s would not have changed Ukraine's current counteroffensive much and will not have much impact next year either, given Russian air defense systems.