Syria's de facto leader Sharaa meets Ukrainian foreign minister in Damascus

Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria's new leader and head of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel group, hosted a Ukrainian delegation led by Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha on Monday. The meeting is an effort to rebuild relations between the two countries after the ouster of president Bashar al-Assad, who was a close ally of Russia.

Syria’s de facto ruler Ahmed al-Sharaa held talks on Monday with a senior Ukrainian delegation led by Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, the Syrian state news agency (SANA) reported, as Kyiv moves to build ties with the new leadership in Damascus.

SANA provided no immediate details about their talks, held in Damascus, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said last Friday his country had sent its first batch of food aid to Syria, which is traditionally a close ally of Russia.

Zelensky said that 500 metric tonnes of wheat flour were already on their way to Syria as part of Kyiv’s humanitarian “Grain from Ukraine” initiative in cooperation with the United Nations World Food Programme.

Ukraine, which has been battling invading Russian forces for nearly three years, traditionally exports wheat and corn to countries in the Middle East, but not to Syria, which in the Assad era imported food from Russia.

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