The Prime Minister stated that the visit this Saturday, December 20th, to Kiev, Ukraine, has “a special meaning”, as it is a country at war, and he wants to bring “the expression of Portuguese support” from the first minute and also affection.
Luís Montenegro was speaking to journalists upon arrival at Kiev train station, where he arrived shortly after 8:00 am (6:00 am in Lisbon), two days after a European Council that approved support of 90 billion euros for Ukraine in the coming days.
“This visit is above all an expression – and not exactly an announcement – of support which has been ongoing since the first minute that Russia’s unjustified, unfair aggression began, that Portugal has been on the side of Ukraine and the Ukrainians”, he stated.
Montenegro admitted that, despite having already made several trips in this year and a half at the head of the PSD/CDS-PP Government, this visit to Kiev has “a very special meaning because we are in a country that has been attacked, is being attacked, invaded, is under war”.
“More than anyone else, he is naturally more in need of our solidarity and our closeness, not to mention our affection, that is what we also bring”he stated.
The Portuguese Prime Minister added that, at this time, “Ukraine needs financial support, it is not worth ignoring it”.
“Portugal has done so from a bilateral point of view, Portugal has helped Ukraine in multiple programs of the most varied nature: from a humanitarian point of view, from a social point of view, from a military point of view, from a political point of view, but Portugal also has a relationship that is a close relationship between our communities and governments also have an obligation to represent and express for the people what the whole people feel”, he stated.
The Portuguese Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, arrived this morning in Kiev for a one-day visit to Ukraine, which includes a meeting with the President of the Republic Volodymyr Zelensky.
This is Luís Montenegro’s first visit to Ukraine – a country invaded by Russia on February 24, 2022 – since heading the PSD/CDS-PP Government (April 2024) and takes place around a year and a half after Zelensky was in Portugal, in May last year.
The leader of the Portuguese executive, accompanied by the Minister of Defense, Nuno Melo, traveled on a night train to Kiev from the Medyka train station (Poland), having disembarked at the Kiev train station at 08:13 (6:13 in Lisbon).
During his presence in the Ukrainian capital, at an institutional level, in addition to the meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky, the Portuguese prime minister will also have a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, Yulia Svyrydenko, and with the president of parliament, Ruslan Stefanchuk.