Central European states have called on the EU to ramp up financial and other aid for Ukraine to help it cope with more than 1.7 million people who have been displaced by fighting between government forces and Russian-backed separatists.
In a bid to boost regional ties, Kiev also urged Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia – which make up the so-called Visegrad group – to work with Ukraine to stop smuggling across their shared borders, after the arrest of a man with an arms cache on the Ukraine-Poland frontier stoked concern.
The Visegrad states said they were willing to lead an EU-funded development programme for Ukraine, to help the cash-strapped country better integrate and support internally-displaced people (IDPs) in their new homes.
Daily fatalities
During two years of sporadic fighting in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, about 10,000 people have been killed, 20,000 injured and more than two million displaced.
People are killed and injured every week, despite a supposed ceasefire agreed in February 2015, and international monitors have recorded a sharp increase in hostilities over recent weeks. The ceasefire was part of a plan for lasting peace in Ukraine.
The prime ministers of the four Visegrad countries wrote to the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, to say it was a “matter of urgency” the EU provide Ukraine with a regional development and protection programme, which the bloc has previously employed in countries of the Middle East.