Meanwhile, Indonesia and Ukraine continue to strengthen bilateral relations. In February, a civil society delegation from Kyiv visited Jakarta as part of efforts to promote enhanced trade and economic partnership and an end to the conflict. A senior representative from the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry identified the agriculture, energy, information technology, food processing, and pharmaceutical sectors as ripe for new partnerships and investment given the complementary nature of Ukraine and Indonesia’s economies.
But grasping these opportunities will only be possible once Ukraine has regained control over its sovereign territory. As it stands, bilateral trade between Ukraine and Indonesia, which totaled $1.24 billion before the Russian invasion, has slumped by 93% since the war.
The Ukrainian delegation to Jakarta also highlighted Russia’s systematic persecution of the 1 million Ukrainian Muslims, and particularly the Crimean Tatars, the indigenous Muslim population of Ukraine, who once made up 95% of Crimea’s population. Today the Tatars comprise only 13% of Crimea’s population, after hundreds of years of persecution by Russia, including since the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
