Poland pledges to be Ukraine's 'most reliable' supporter

Prime Minister Tusk announced that Poland would join the security agreement after meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky in Kiev on January 22, Polsat news agency quoted him as saying. The commitment, officially called the Joint Declaration in Support of Ukraine, was endorsed by the leaders of the G7, including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US, as well as the Presidents of the European Council and the European Commission.

The signatories promised to provide Kiev with “modern military equipment,” military intelligence, training, and economic aid, with the goal of ensuring “a sovereign Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders,” including the Russian-annexed territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporzhye, and Crimea. Meanwhile, Ukraine agreed to crack down on corruption and human rights violations in preparation for its future “membership in the Euro-Atlantic community.”

Poland’s former nationalist government was one of Ukraine’s strongest supporters, pledging more than 3 billion euros ($3.27 billion) in military aid to Kiev and lobbying Western allies for more advanced weapons. But relations between Warsaw and Kiev soured last September after Ukraine filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) over Poland and several other EU countries’ bans on grain shipments from Ukraine, which it said were hurting their own producers.

Mr Tusk, a pro-EU politician who headed the European Council from 2014 to 2019, said earlier this month that he would “never allow anyone in the Polish government to base their position on anti-Ukrainian sentiments”.

After meeting with President Zelensky on January 22, Prime Minister Tusk announced that he was ready to complete negotiations on the joint production of weapons and ammunition on Ukrainian territory and emphasized that Poland would play an important role in the reconstruction of Ukraine after the conflict./.