Kyiv says Qatar will provide it with $100 mln in humanitarian aid

KYIV: Qatar will provide Ukraine with $100 million in humanitarian aid to support health, education and demining, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Friday.

He made the announcement after talks with visiting Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, who also discussed global food security and the expired Black Sea grain deal with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. "This money will be channelled for reconstruction in the health and education sectors, humanitarian de-mining, and other important social and humanitarian projects," Shmyhal told a briefing.

Shmyhal said he and Sheikh Mohammed, who is also foreign minister, had discussed Ukraine's peace formula - a 10-point peace plan aimed at ending Russia's war on Ukraine that calls for nuclear, energy and food security, and the restoration of Ukraine's international borders. Shmyhal also thanked Qatar for its readiness to mediate in efforts to repatriate thousands of Ukrainian children taken to Russia since Moscow's invasion.

Moscow says it wants to protect orphans and children abandoned in the conflict zone. Ukraine says many children have been illegally deported, and the United States says thousands of children have been forcibly removed from their homes. Zelenskiy said his own meeting with the Qatari prime minister had been "meaningful" and that investment by the Gulf state in Ukraine's reconstruction had been on the agenda.

He said on the Telegram messaging app that their talks included discussion of how to continue the safe functioning of the Black Sea grain corridor allowing shipments of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea, but gave no details. The corridor, established under a deal brokered by Turkey and the United Nations in July 2022, has not been operating since Russia withdrew from the agreement on July 17.