During the briefing in Lviv, Petro Poroshenko spoke in detail about the meetings that were planned in Poland and the USA. As you know, this morning the border guards did not allow Petro Poroshenko to leave on a business trip, which was officially approved by the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Stefanchuk. As it turned out, Stefanchuk’s order was illegally canceled by his deputy Kornienko on the basis of his own letter.
“The next two weeks are decisive for the further fate of Ukraine. I am not exaggerating. Ukraine has unique opportunities that we should take advantage of. And Ukraine has huge challenges and threats. On December 14-15, the summit of the European Council will be held, where the proposals of the European Commission on the start of negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the EU must be approved. It is absolutely fundamental for us that all member states, including representatives of heads of states and governments, support the start of negotiations with Ukraine,” Poroshenko said.
“The window of opportunity is very narrow. And we cannot let anyone – not Slovakia, not Hungary, not anyone else – stop Ukraine on our way to membership in the European Union,” the fifth President believes.
“No less important is the mission currently taking place in the United States. It is very important that by the new year, the Congress, where the Republicans have a majority, using the bipartisan support of Ukraine, should decide on the allocation of funds for the purchase of arms for Ukraine, ammunition, the allocation of funds for financial support of Ukraine’s budget deficit. The insuring of our state actually depends on this,” Poroshenko notes.
“We are at the front every week and know what shell hunger is like. Our business trip, our team, our parliamentary group to Poland, to the United States of America, where we have to solve extremely important tasks, was also connected with this,” says Poroshegko.
“In Poland today, meetings were scheduled with the leadership of the Sejm, with the head of the foreign affairs committee, the head of the European integration committee. Among the topics was the coordination of partnership positions and support for Ukraine’s European integration aspirations. And a number of projects within Poland, starting with solving the problem of carriers. Today we have specific proposals that we wanted to discuss with the Polish side. And concluding with the joint production of weapons and ammunition on the territory of Poland, where there are specific proposals, we will not disclose them. But we are doing everything possible to improve the provision of our Armed Forces and make them more independent from external factors,” Poroshenko said.
“Then we had to fly to the USA. This is an invitation from the Senate, here is an invitation from the Congress, an invitation to a special panel dedicated to Ukraine in the International Democratic Union (IDU) – this is the most authoritative world political organization, the collective member of which is the European People’s Party, the Republican Party of the United States of America, the Conservative Party Great Britain, parties of Canada, Australia. The whole world. The special panel where Ukraine will be discussed was introduced there on my initiative. I am a speaker there, I am the only representative of Ukraine who was supposed to speak there,” Poroshenko explains.
The Fifth President noted that the program in the USA is 9 pages long. “A bilateral meeting with the leadership of the Pentagon, the United States Department of Defense, participation in the Council on Foreign Relations, a bilateral meeting with current and former national security advisers, the opening of the forum, a meeting with Steve Harper, the former Prime Minister of Canada, a meeting with the chairman of the Conservative party of Great Britain, a meeting with the vice-presidents of the European Commission, who came to the IDU and invited this meeting, a meeting with the leadership of the Ukrainian caucus in the United States Congress, meetings with the chairman of the intelligence committee of the House of Representatives of the United States Congress, Republican congressman Mike Turner. And participation in a public event and a bilateral meeting with the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States of America, Mike Johnson,” Poroshenko listed.
“But not only diplomacy in the States, not only diplomacy in Poland, but also contracts for the purchase of defense weapons, contracts for the purchase of components and negotiations in Poland for obtaining transit licenses for military cargo that we carry from Belgium, Holland, Britain and other countries Poroshenko notes.
“In May 2022, I was also denied permission to participate in the NATO PA in the Lviv region of Kraków. Then there was a huge scandal. It was a blow to Ukraine’s image,” Petro Poroshenko recalled.