2024-08-24 10:34 update: 2024-08-26, 15:15
Photo PAP/Łukasz Gągulski
Polish President Andrzej Duda has arrived in Kyiv to take part in the 33rd Ukraine's Independence Day events, President's Office (KPRP) has announced.
August 24 marks the anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine by the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991.
Ukraine Independence Day, a state holiday, was instituted in commemoration of the event.
"President Andrzej Duda's visit to Ukraine has started," KPRP wrote on the X platform on Saturday morning, adding that he is taking part in the celebrations of the 33rd anniversary of Ukraine's Independence in Kyiv.
The post included a video recording of Duda being welcomed in the Ukrainian capital.
This is Duda's fifth visit to Kyiv since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
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Together with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, he visted Kyiv on February 23, 2022, on the eve of the Russian aggression.
"Today, together with the President of Lithuania, we are coming to Kyiv as a sign of our solidarity with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian people, we appeal to Russia for peace and calm," Duda said at the time, referring to Russia's aggressive policy immediately preceding the invasion of Ukraine.
After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Duda, along with Nauseda and the presidents of Latvia and Estonia, Egils Levits and Alar Karis, returned to Kyiv on April 13, 2022.
This was the first visit by foreign heads of state to the Ukrainian capital since the outbreak of the war.
The presidents met with Zelensky, then visited the towns of Bucha, Borodyanka, and Irpin, liberated by Ukrainian forces, near Kyiv, to witness first-hand the damage inflicted on Ukraine by Russia’s armed force.
Duda visited Kyiv again on May 22, 2022, when he delivered a speech to the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada as the first foreign leader since the beginning of the Rusian invasion.
"Poland has supported Ukraine and will continue to do so. I personally will not rest until Ukraine becomes a member of the European Union in the full sense of the word," he said then.
Duda travelled to the Ukrainian capital again in August 2022 at Zelensky's invitation, and took part in the Crimean Platform summit, a forum of leaders working to regain control over the Crimean Peninsula.
He said Crimea should be returned to Ukraine, after the peninsula was annexed by Russia in 2014.
“Crimea was and is as much a part of Ukraine as Gdansk or Lublin are parts of Poland, as Nice is part of France, Cologne is part of Germany, as Rotterdam is part of the Netherlands,” he told the summit.
Duda and Nauseda also visited Kyiv at the end of June 2023, shortly before the July summit of the North Atlantic Alliance in Vilnius.
After meeting with Zelensky, Duda said that Poland and Lithuania are doing their best to ensure that the upcoming Nato summit brings a clear perspective of Ukraine's membership in the alliance. (PAP)
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