Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen speaks during a news conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in Kyiv in February 2023. Photo: Reuters/Gleb Garanich

Israel has confirmed that it will continue to provide free medical insurance for Ukrainian refugees in the country following talks between the Israeli and Ukrainian foreign ministers.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba announced on Twitter on Tuesday that he had spoken with his Israeli counterpart, Eli Cohen, to address the issue.

Cohen “assured me that health insurance for Ukrainians in Israel will remain in place; the problem will be resolved soon,” Kuleba wrote. “I thank my Israeli counterpart, who is personally taking care of this. We also discussed a broader bilateral agenda.”

The agreement on the provision of health coverage comes less than a week after Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel, Yevgen Korniychuk, warned that a visa-free travel agreement between the two countries could be suspended because, he claimed, Israel was deporting at least 10 percent of Ukrainian arrivals.

In a scathing statement, Korniychuk accused Israel of failing to protect Ukrainians in their hour of need.

“Not only is the Israeli government refusing to sell Ukraine means of protection against the murder of our citizens by the Russians, Israel is also stopping the provision of medical care to refugees who fled to Israel from the threat of brutal murder by the Russians,” he said last Friday.

Korniychuk expressed his criticisms again on Tuesday in an interview with Radio Liberty, saying that many Ukrainians arriving in Israel had their passports confiscated and were subjected to interviews of up to 10 hours, before being deported without explanation.

“Citizen surveys show that at least 84 percent of Israeli citizens support Ukraine, actively or passively. The problem is with the government,” the envoy added. “And the large amount of humanitarian aid that comes from Israel actually comes from non-citizens and from NGOs, from private companies. Unfortunately, not much comes from the government.”

Israel’s ambassador in Kyiv, Michael Brodsky, announced on Twitter that, at Ukraine’s request, Israel will send “several tons of medicine” to Ukraine.

During his recent interview, Korniychuk also addressed the issue of potentially thousands of Hasidic pilgrims traveling next month for the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah to Ukraine, where they traditionally perform a pilgrimage at the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, a Hasidic sage, in the southern city of Uman.

Last week, Ukrainian authorities urged those thinking of making the journey to cancel their plans, but acknowledged that “at the same time, we understand that some of the faithful, like last year, will still dare to come. Therefore, together with the city authorities, the security and defense sector, and all specialized services, we are already working preventively.”

Kornyichuk protested that “on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the question of the expediency of diverting a huge number of our civil servants during military operations to ensure the safety of pilgrims has again been raised.”

However, he clarified that Ukraine had at no point raised the idea of nullifying the agreement on visa-free travel.

“We are not talking about canceling [the agreement],” Korniychuk said. “The issue of suspension was considered. But no-one was going to cancel the intergovernmental agreement.”