(Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Thursday met his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda for nearly two hours of talks during his trip home from the United States.
“We summed up the year, which brought historic challenges due to a full-scale war,” Zelenskiy said on the Telegram messaging app after meeting Duda in Rzeszow, south-eastern Poland.
“We also discussed strategic plans for the future, bilateral relations and interactions at the international level in 2023.”
While the United States is strategically Kyiv’s most important ally, Poland is Ukraine’s neighbour and the two countries have deep historical ties.
Video footage showed Duda and Zelenskiy embracing warmly after Zelenskiy’s plane was greeted by Polish officials.
“They talked for a long time, almost two hours. First of all, about President Zelenskiy’s visit to the United States and the importance of the visit for support for Ukraine, but also about bilateral relations between Poland and Ukraine,” Pawel Szrot, Duda’s top aide said.
Another official from Duda’s chancellery, Jakub Kumoch, told private broadcaster TVN24 that Poland was informed about Zelenskiy’s trip from the outset and helped to organise it, but had to keep the information confidential for security reasons.
Zelenskiy addressed the U.S. Congress on Wednesday after his first trip outside Ukraine since the war started in February.
(Reporting by Dan Peleshchuk and Aleksandar Vasovic; Additional reporting by Anna Koper and Pawel Florkiewicz in Warsaw; Editing by Alison Williams and Barbara Lewis)
