Kiev urges partners to ease travel bans on their citizens traveling to Ukraine

MOSCOW. Feb 19 (Interfax) - Ukraine is interested in maximizing the attraction of foreign investors, but one of the obstacles to this is bans or restrictions on such trips to Ukraine, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Restoration Alexander Kubrakov said.

"We need more attention, more discussions on the involvement of the private sector in Ukraine's reconstruction. But this discussion should be honest, because we realize that in all your countries from now on there are travel bans for your businesspeople to visit Ukraine to start activities in our country," Ukrainian media quoted him as saying at a roundtable on Ukraine at the Munich Security Conference.

Kubrakov explained that in such conditions it is quite difficult to expect the private sector to start any operations in Ukraine right now, though Ukraine is greatly grateful to all businesspeople and international companies that come to the country.

U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine's Economic Recovery Penny Pritzker backed Kubrakov in this matter.

Pritzker noted that if people could not enter and leave the country to study and see for themselves what was actually going on, then they would not be able to make investments. She added that she had discussed this problem with Kubrakov.

The U.S. embassy in Ukraine has set Level 4 Do Not Travel for travel to Ukraine as of February 12, 2022 at its website.

The United Kingdom updated its recommendations for Ukraine on January 22 of this year, and it still does not recommend travel to the country, but allows necessary travel to four western regions, namely Transcarpathian, Ivano-Frankovsk, Ternopol and Chernovtsy regions.

A latest article on this matter on the German embassy in Ukraine's website, dated December 5, said that German citizens were warned against traveling to Ukraine and urgently asked to leave the country.