President Duda visits symbolic cemetery in Lviv and receives applause from Ukrainians

Leaders of Poland, Ukraine, and Lithuania met on Wednesday in Lviv at the summit of the Lublin Triangle presidents. There, Andrzej Duda, Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Gitanas Nauseda signed a joint declaration affirming, among other things, Ukraine's inalienable right to defend its sovereignty and territotial integrity. The also underscored their will to cooperate in the process of rebuilding Ukraine once the conflict has ended.

In the afternoon that day, Andrzej Duda and Volodymyr Zelenskiy laid flowers at the Cemetery of the Defenders of Lwów. Head of presidential International Policy Bureau Jakub Kumoch informed that the two leaders had also honoured the Ukrainians fallen in battles for Lviv of 1918 and visited the part of the cemetery where Ukrainian soldiers killed in the war against Russia were buried.

In the evening, Kumoch published a video on Twitter showing residents of Lviv applauding president Andrzej Duda in the centre of the city. The Ukrainians exchange handshakes with Duda while others chant "thank you" and "hail Ukraine".

At a press conference upon his return to Poland, Andrzej Duda was asked about the meeting with Lviv residents who had applauded him. The president replied that this support was important to him because he had been elected by the people and represented the Polish people. "This ovation was for the Polish people, not myself. This ovation was for our whole society for showing heart, for openness," he said at the airport in Jasionka, near Rzeszów.

Duda said that the Poles were helping the Ukrainians despite the crisis and many other worries. "Our Ukrainian neighbours see it and acknowledge it. This cordiality towards the president of Poland, who - I believe - represents the Polish people in their eyes, is a touching expression of this sentiment to all my compatriots," the president added.

Polish president also said the visit to Lviv had included two symbolic elements. One of them, Duda explained, was the signing of the joint declaration by the three presidents. "In this joint declaration we say that our three nations were facing aggression from the east, that were facing evil coming at us from the east and wanted to crush us. That what our three nations stood up against in the January Uprising," he said.

Duda said that the second symbolic element was the visit to the Cemetery of the Defenders of Lwów. "This cemetery is a burial ground of defenders of Poland, defenders of Lviv against Soviet aggression, the Lviv Eaglets. This time we paid homage to Polish soldiers, but also to Ukrainian soldiers who had died defending Ukraine in 2014, as well as those who earlier on, shoulder to shoulder with Polish soldiers, had defended Poland," he underscored.