PRAGUE/KYIV (Reuters) – When headlines flashed on Tuesday morning that the leaders of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia have been on a prepare to Kyiv for talks with the Ukrainian president, it was information to some members of their rapid households.
The journey to a metropolis beneath siege, the place Ukraine’s army is preventing invading Russian forces just some kilometres from the periphery, was swiftly organized and identified solely to some folks.
Public pronouncements by the leaders and by a participant and a diplomatic supply who spoke privately level to an arduous and risky diplomatic mission that underlined the sense of urgency amongst European nations to finish the conflict.
While different European leaders have been knowledgeable of the proposed journey throughout a summit in Versailles final Friday, solely a small variety of nations have been straight concerned.
The three that finally took half are deeply suspicious of how Moscow views nations as soon as beneath its affect earlier than the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, considerations which were heightened by its invasion of Ukraine that started on Feb. 24.
More than 3 million folks have additionally fled Ukraine within the final three weeks, almost 2 million of them into neighbouring Poland.
Asked concerning the hazard concerned, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala advised reporters on Wednesday after his return from Ukraine that he believed it was well worth the danger.
“There are conditions the place you must resolve for your self, and I made the choice I made,” the 57-year-old mentioned.
“I used to be not alone, I had colleagues – the prime ministers, I had colleagues from my workforce and from the safety service who have been keen to finish the journey with me.”
He advised his spouse about his plans, however requested her to not inform his mom or three kids.
“They discovered about it when it was printed.”
With him in Kyiv have been Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Slovenian counterpart Janez Jansa and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, highly effective chief of Poland’s ruling celebration.
They travelled on a particular prepare from Poland’s japanese border into Ukraine on Tuesday morning. By the time the journey grew to become public, they have been on their technique to the capital.
A social media submit on Wednesday confirmed Fiala in a flak jacket and helmet, a cell phone and standing between two beds in a slender, rudimentary sleeping compartment.
It was not clear whether or not Russia knew of the go to.
Fiala posted on his Facebook web page that the worldwide group was knowledgeable of it through worldwide our bodies just like the United Nations.
Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Pawel Jablonski mentioned the individuals didn’t focus on it straight with Moscow upfront.
“We wish to have someone credible to debate issues with in Russia however Russia is now not an affordable accomplice for any discussions,” he mentioned on Wednesday.
The Kremlin didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon whether or not it had been made conscious of Tuesday’s mission and had agreed to supply protected passage.
LONG WAIT, NO LIGHTS
A European diplomatic supply mentioned the plan was first talked about to Charles Michel, European Council president, on the sidelines of the Versailles summit.
Morawiecki then let Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen know on Monday that they meant to journey the next day, based on a EU official. There was no European mandate.
It shouldn’t be clear who else was approached to affix them. French President Emmanuel Macron was not requested, based on the diplomat, and nor was German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a spokesman mentioned.
Slovakian Prime Minister Eduard Heger consulted his safety providers about it, a authorities spokeswoman mentioned, however was strongly suggested to not go.
On the morning the 4 politicians and their small entourage of advisers and safety personnel crossed into Ukraine, not less than 5 folks had been killed in air strikes and shelling of Kyiv as Russia’s assault intensified.
The metropolis’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, declared a 35-hour curfew from Tuesday night, saying that the capital was going through a “harmful second”.
Thousands of individuals have been killed within the battle. Russia calls its actions a “particular operation” to demilitarise and “denazify” Ukraine, a cost Kyiv rejects as a false pretext to invade.
One participant within the mission, who declined to be recognized because of the sensitivity of the go to, mentioned the prepare journey took some 10 hours and that darkness had fallen by the time they reached Kyiv.
The delegation was taken in vans by largely empty streets to the presidential palace, the place they waited for round 4 hours to see President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. They weren’t allowed their cell phones throughout this era.
After the assembly, which lasted about 2.5 hours, they addressed a small group of reporters earlier than departing again for Europe, and the participant mentioned they in all probability bought round three hours’ sleep throughout the entire journey.
According to a Reuters witness, on the palace sandbags have been piled up at numerous factors and closely armed Ukrainian safety personnel escorted the delegation with flashlights alongside darkened corridors to keep away from making the constructing a goal.
Dressed casually, the leaders gave a press convention by which they expressed assist for Ukraine’s push to affix the European Union and admiration for the nation’s resilience.
“The primary message of our mission is to say you aren’t alone. Europe stands along with your nation,” Fiala mentioned.
DAMNED IF YOU DO…
While the mission had many admirers, some EU sources mentioned it raised eyebrows amongst some member states who frightened {that a} main incident involving the delegation may have dragged them nearer into direct confrontation with Russia.
Polish state media, which broadly helps Kaczynski’s PiS celebration, and Morawiecki himself have drawn parallels between the Kyiv mission and a visit made by Kaczynski’s late twin brother Lech to Georgia in 2008 throughout tensions with Russia.
Lech Kaczynski, then Poland’s president, got here beneath fireplace close to a breakaway Georgian province backed by Moscow, and lashed out towards what he referred to as Russian “imperialism”.
“There’s at all times one other step. If you permit imperialists, there are at all times extra nations in line,” the president’s aide advised Polish tv on the time.
Lech Kaczynski died when his airplane crashed in thick fog over western Russia in 2010.
Radek Sikorski, a European parliamentarian for the principle Polish opposition celebration Civic Platform, criticised Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s participation within the Ukraine mission, saying on Twitter that it smacked of a PR stunt.
Slovakian premier Heger’s defence minister, Jaroslav Nad, took to Facebook to defend his chief’s determination to not be a part of the journey, after a media backlash.
“I stand behind … Heger and say repeatedly that this was the fitting determination,” he wrote.
It is unclear whether or not the mission could have a big influence on the conflict. Kaczynski proposed sending a world peacekeeping mission to Ukraine, however the concept doesn’t seem to have gained rapid traction in talks between Kyiv and Moscow.
The symbolism of the journey, nonetheless, was not misplaced on Zelenskiy, who has vowed to repel the Russians and urged the West to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
Noting that many ambassadors had left Kyiv, he mentioned the visiting leaders have been “not afraid of something.”
(Reporting by Robert Muller, Jan Lopatka and James Mackenzie; further reporting by Alan Charlish and Justyna Pawlak in Warsaw, Andreas Rinke in Berlin, Michel Rose in Paris and John Chalmers in Brussels; Writing by Mike Collett-White; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
