Ukraine Plans to Cancel Visa-Free Regime with Israel and Request Its Exclusion From Ramstein

Kyiv is considering canceling the visa-free regime with Israel and will request the country be excluded from Ramstein meetings due to its “unfriendly actions towards Ukraine and pro-Russian position on the international arena,” Kyiv Post has been told.

“The Israeli authorities never provided any real help,” a source in Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council (RNBO) told Kyiv Post.

“Instead, the information received during the meetings is used by Israel in its own interests.”

The Ramstein meetings – also known as the Ukraine Defense Contact Group – are gatherings involving an alliance of 54 countries, including all 30 NATO members and 24 additional countries.

Through monthly meetings at Ramstein or virtually, the group’s job is to coordinate ongoing donations of military aid to Ukraine.

The RNBO source added that Ukraine believes there is a “real danger” that information discussed with Israel at the Ramstein meetings “will probably fall into the possession of the aggressor state.”

The decision to cancel the visa-free regime with Israel comes amid an ongoing diplomatic tussle between the two countries over how they treat each other’s citizens while in the other's country.

Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel, Yevhen Korniychuk, has claimed around 10 percent of Ukrainian tourists are being deported from Israel without explanation and has recently criticized the ending of health insurance benefits for Ukrainian refugees.

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The RNBO source told Kyiv Post, that Israel is trying to obtain security guarantees for the tens of thousands of Jewish pilgrims who make the annual journey to the Ukrainian town of Uman in September where the tomb of Tzadik Nachman is located.

“During constant missile attacks, it is impossible to provide these guarantees,” the source said.

They added that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine is currently preparing a submission about the visa-free regime to the Cabinet of Ministers and will be considered “in the coming weeks.”

When approached by Kyiv Post, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine did not confirm this information.

A placard reading "We pray for peace in Ukraine" is seen as Hasidic Jewish pilgrims pray at the tomb of Rabbi Nachman last year. PHOTO: Sergei SUPINSKY / AFP 

Every year in September the population of the town of Uman in Cherkasy region (190 km south of Kyiv), quadruples as tens of thousands of Hasidic Jews pour in to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

Uman is the burial place of one of the founding fathers of Hasidism, Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, who died in the town in 1810.

In line with his wishes, he was buried in the local Jewish cemetery next to the graves of the victims of the Haidamak massacre of 1768.

Before Russia’s full-scale invasion, dozens of charter flights from Israel and the U.S. landed in Kyiv, those aboard then traveling on to Uman using hundreds of chartered buses and cars accompanied by Israeli police for a celebration that can last more than a month.

In 2022, despite the war and the Israeli police saying Uman did not meet their security requirements, 20,000 pilgrims still made the journey into Ukraine by train and bus.

The Israeli Embassy in Kyiv has been contacted for comment.