Today, on July 24, a meeting took place between the Deputy Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine for European Integration, Taras Shevchenko, and the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Kingdom of Norway to Ukraine, Helene Sand Andresen. The discussion focused on supporting Ukraine in the fields of culture and media, as well as joint efforts to counter russian disinformation.
“We are very interested in widely popularizing Ukrainian history because russia uses history to create fake narratives and to make false history essentially the reason for the invasion, this war,” said Taras Shevchenko.
He thanked all Norwegians for their support of Ukraine and mentioned that combating disinformation and promoting media literacy are among the top priorities of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy. Additionally, he emphasized that Ukraine aims to institutionalize the work with intangible cultural heritage and, in the future, have a dedicated institution to manage the cultural assets of the Ukrainian people. This is also a part of their identity and history. Ukraine, like Norway, believes that this is very important for national identification.
“Following the full-scale invasion, Norway’s partnership with Ukraine has been significantly intensified. Last year, we adopted a five-year cooperation program. This is a support program for Ukraine, consisting of civil and humanitarian components, as well as a substantial military component. I believe it was one of the first multi-year support programs, which, in my opinion, is important to show that we are in a long-term partnership. And this is not about donor assistance. We truly see this as a partnership. Because I believe that russia’s full-scale invasion has made all of us understand that Ukraine’s place is with us in Europe. And although we are not in the European Union, we believe that Ukraine wants to be and should be there,” emphasized Helene Sand Andresen.
She explained that the support program for Ukraine is administered by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), particularly its civilian component. The scale of this program is larger than anything Norway has ever done in any country, considering Ukraine’s needs for recovery.
The parties agreed to strengthen cooperation in the fields of culture, media, and countering disinformation.
