British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made an apparently unannounced trek into war-torn Ukraine for an in-person meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday.
Surprise ? pic.twitter.com/AWa5RjYosD
— Embassy of Ukraine to the UK (@UkrEmbLondon) April 9, 2022
An image shared on Twitter by the Embassy of Ukraine to the United Kingdom confirmed the visit and showed the two engaging in talks, though the details of the conversation are not clear.
CZECH, POLISH, AND SLOVENIAN PRIME MINISTERS TO VISIT ZELENSKY IN KYIV WAR ZONE
Johnson has been positioning himself as one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies against Russia. On Friday, Johnson met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at Downing Street and announced a roughly $130 million new aid package that includes anti-aircraft missiles, anti-tank missiles, and other military equipment to bolster Ukraine’s defense against invading Russian forces.
“Britain and Germany are horrified by Putin’s invasion and have agreed that our two countries must go further to help Ukraine. The UK will send more defensive weapons to Ukraine and will work with G7 partners to target every pillar of the Russian economy to ensure Putin fails,” he tweeted following the meeting with Scholz.
Johnson’s visit follows a meeting with the prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovenia held with Zelensky in Kyiv last month. That meeting took place in the middle of intense fighting in and around Kyiv.
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Fighting in Kyiv has cooled off in recent days as Russian forces have shifted their focus to the Donbas region after facing stiff resistance near Ukraine’s capital. The country, though, has been subject to Russian bombardment since the invasion commenced on Feb. 24, and traveling to Ukraine is widely considered dangerous.
The war has led to concerns about the human toll, with Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who participated in the Kyiv trip, calling for a NATO “peace mission” to Ukraine to distribute humanitarian aid.
