Swedish Burlöv and Ukrainian Zlatopil become twin cities

Zlatopil and Burlöv met through the Cities4Cities | United4Ukraine initiative in early 2024 and signed a partnership agreement in September. Spatial planning of the city, interaction between local organizations and entrepreneurs of both countries, experience in resilience and civil protection are of common interest to this partnership.

Both cities are located near large district centers: Burlöv near Malmö in southern Sweden, and Zlatopil (formerly Pervomaisky) near the district center of Lozova in Kharkiv region. The agreement was signed by the heads of the municipalities, Sara Vestering and Mykola Baksheiev, during a visit of the Ukrainian municipality to their Swedish partner. 

The head of Burlöv’s municipal council is well acquainted with the challenges of war: at the age of 12, during the Yugoslav wars, she fled Sarajevo:

“I come from a region that once faced difficulties similar to those that many parts of Ukraine are currently experiencing. That is why it is extremely important for me to establish this partnership in order to support Ukraine on its way to the EU and later to help rebuild the country,” said Mayor of Burlöv Sara Vestering. 

This is not the first partnership for Zlatopil, but it is one of the most active. The main areas of cooperation between the municipalities are the exchange of experience in public safety, as well as strengthening ties between institutions, NGOs and businesses. This includes cooperation in spatial development.

“Even before signing the memorandum, we, together with our Swedish colleagues, discussed plans to submit a project to the Swedish Institute for a grant to develop the terms of reference for the city’s spatial planning plan. Both cities have a fairly large department in this area. We even talked about the fact that if we do not win this grant, the Swedish municipality is ready to mentor us in the development of a spatial planning document,” says Mykola Baksheiev, Mayor of Zlatopil.

As of 2022, the Cities4Cities network of Swedish-Ukrainian partnerships includes 15 partnerships. Municipalities cooperate with each other most often in the following areas: democracy, administration, waste management, water, energy, education, urban planning, culture, and sustainable development.

Cities4Cities | United4Ukraine are partnership initiatives that joined forces in September 2022.  Cities4Cities was founded by the German city of Sindelfinden under the auspices of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe. The United4Ukraine initiative was launched by SALAR International and the Ukrainian city of Lviv with the support of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). Since 2024, Cities4Cities | United4Ukraine has been a part of Sweden’s reform cooperation Programme Polaris “Supporting Multilevel Governance in Ukraine”.