Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accepted an invitation from his Portuguese counterpart Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa to visit the country, and teams are “still working on the date”, the Portuguese presidency said on Thursday.
“The Ukrainian president has accepted Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s invitation to visit Portugal,” according to a statement published on the official presidency website.
According to the same note, Zelenskyy’s trip to Granada to participate in the European Political Community Summit was decided “at the last moment”, so the visit will be “very short”, making a possible visit to Portugal impossible.
“The respective teams are working on the date for such a visit,” the presidency added.
Earlier this week, several Portuguese media organisations announced a possible visit by Zelenskyy to Portugal on Friday, which has since been cancelled.
Lusa contacted the Ukrainian presidency but could not confirm that he intended to visit the country this week.
Rebelo de Sousa invited his Ukrainian counterpart to visit Portugal in August during a visit to Kyiv. Back then, on the occasion of Ukraine’s Independence Day celebrations on 24 August, Rebelo de Sousa said in an address in Ukrainian that Portugal would always support the country’s independence.
“Portugal will always be, and is, with your independence. Without your legitimate defence, there will be no peace and security in Europe,” he said at the time.
Rebelo de Sousa also spoke during a summit on Crimea, the Ukrainian territory annexed by Moscow in 2014, and said that any peace solution to the conflict that excludes Crimea’s reintegration into Ukrainian territory is “noise”.
The Portuguese president also expressed Portugal’s unwavering support for Ukraine’s aspirations to join the European Union and NATO.
(André Campos Ferrão, edited by Cristina Cardoso | Lusa.pt)
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