Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda met today in the Ukrainian city of Lutsk and honored the memory of the victims of the Volyn massacre, UNIAN and Reuters reported, BTA reports.
Volodymyr Zelensky and Andrzej Duda visited the Cathedral “St. Peter and Paul”, Ukrinform specified.
The visit of the two leaders to the northwestern Ukrainian city was not announced in advance.
The two presidents marked the anniversary of the massacre of Poles by Ukrainian nationalists in World War II. The killings were a source of tension between the two allied countries, Reuters recalls. Warsaw is one of Kiev’s most important backers in the war launched by Moscow in 2022. However, the Volyn massacre continued to weigh on bilateral relations, especially as the anniversary of the July 11 event approached.
Footage broadcast on television shows Zelensky and Duda together in a church in Lutsk for a ceremony in memory of the victims.
According to Polish historians, up to 12,000 Ukrainians may have died in Polish retaliatory operations after the massacre.
“Today we pay tribute to all the innocent victims of Volhynia! The memory unites us!” Duda’s office said on Twitter. “Together we are stronger”.
Zelensky also published the same statement on Twitter, in Ukrainian and Polish.
Place a rating:
☆
☆
☆
☆
☆
3.9
Rating 3.9 from 21 votes.
2023-07-09 10:31:00
#Volodymyr #Zelensky #surprise #visit
