Elkin visits Ukraine ahead of reopening of Israeli immigration offices; Kyiv’s deputy PM to visit Israel

Lawmaker Ze’ev Elkin wraps up a multi-day trip to Ukraine, which he made in his capacity as minister in charge of Nativ, the government office tasked with assessing citizenship eligibility for people from the former Soviet Union.

Elkin, who spoke with The Times of Israel briefly from Dnipro in the country’s east, made the trip with Nativ chairman Alon Shoham. The two decided to order the reopening of the Nativ offices in Dnipro — a city that had tens of thousands of Jewish residents before the war, and that is home the largest Jewish community center in Europe — and in the southern city of Odesa, according to an Israeli diplomatic source. They were accompanied by Dnipro’s Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetzky and Rabbi Meir Stambler, chairman of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine.

A Nativ office is open in Kyiv, while the Kharkiv office remains shuttered.

Elkin met with Ukrainian parliament chairman Ruslan Stefanchuk, and Oleksii Kuleba, the minister responsible for rebuilding damaged areas in Ukraine. Elkin leads the rebuilding of Israel’s northern and Gaza Envelope regions, which were devastated in the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas and the subsequent wars with Hamas and Hezbollah.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Taras Kachka is expected to lead a delegation to Israel on December 4-5 to convene the first meeting of the Israel–Ukraine Intergovernmental Economic Commission since 2021, as well as discuss the full range of diplomatic and political issues between the sides, according to Ukraine’s embassy.