The President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, will travel this Wednesday afternoon to France for an official visit in which he will meet with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, and the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, sources from the Elysee confirmed to Europa Press, a visit that will take place hours before the start of the next summit of leaders of the European Union.
His visit to Paris, the French capital, takes place after the Ukrainian president traveled to London, where he met with the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, the King, Charles III, and gave a speech to Parliament. Precisely Macron and Scholz went together last June to Kiev to meet with Zelenski, to whom they pledged their full support in requesting Ukraine’s accession to the European Union.
During his visit to London, Sunak announced the expansion of his support to Kiev, including the presence of military aircraft pilots and marines in British training programs.
Brussels is eventually scheduled to be the third European capital he will visit on this outing, although diplomatic sources in Brussels ask that it not be seen as a «competition» between countries but as an opportunity for the EU-27 to reinforce the message of their political support for Ukraine in the face of the Russian invasion, while recalling that arms deliveries are a national competence that rests with individual governments and not with the EU as a bloc.
The Ukrainian president had so far made only one visit abroad since the outbreak of the war. He traveled to the United States on December 21, where he met with U.S. President Joe Biden and gave a speech to Congress. On his return, he stopped in Poland for a meeting with his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda, before arriving in Kiev.
Although there is no official confirmation so far, Zelenski is expected to travel to Brussels on Thursday, coinciding with a summit of heads of state and government of the EU-27, in what is the first visit to Europe of the president since the beginning of the war, a few weeks before the first anniversary of the Russian aggression.
In the absence of details of an agenda that has not yet been officially confirmed for security reasons, the European Parliament has scheduled an extraordinary plenary session to listen to the Ukrainian president and the EU leaders also expect to receive him at the Council headquarters during the summit.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
