The prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia traveled to the embattled Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday in a show of support for Ukraine even as bombardment by the Russian military edged closer to the center of the city.
The three leaders went ahead with the hours-long train trip despite worries within the European Union about the security risks of traveling within a war zone.
“It is here, in war-torn Kyiv, that history is being made. It is here, that freedom fights against the world of tyranny. It is here that the future of us all hangs in the balance,” Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Twitter.
The long journey over land from Poland to Kyiv by Morawiecki, Poland’s deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski and Prime Ministers Petr Fiala of the Czech Republic and Janez Jansa of Slovenia sent the message that most of Ukraine still remains in Ukrainian hands.
But underlining the deteriorating security situation in Kyiv, a series of strikes hit a residential neighborhood in the city again on Tuesday.
Zelenskyy posted a video on Facebook of him sitting around a table with the leaders briefing them on the war’s developments. After the meeting, he said he was sure “with such friends” Ukraine would be able to defeat Russia.
