Poroshenko: I thank Poland for advocating for Ukraine in this difficult time

"This is not one year, but nine years’ war – one of the most difficult and most bloody war of the continent after WWII," Ukraine's former president Petro Poroshenko told Michał Sznajder in a televised interview for TVN24.

"And if you ask me what was the most difficult day of my life, it was exactly the 24^th of February when the Russian missiles blew (up) two kilometres from my house during the night.

He added he had reached Kyiv within the first hour after the attack and saw "the flow of the cars, flow of the people evacuating from Kyiv to the western border and most of them going to Poland". "And I want to thank the Polish people and their hospitality you do for the Ukrainian refugees," he stressed.

"With these nine years that we – my team and me as a Commander-in-Chief – created a new type of forces of Ukraine based on the NATO standard, which surprised the world and who stopped Putin in 2014-2015 and in 2022," the former president said.

He then reiterated his gratitude for Poland. "I want to thank Poland that you were advocating for Ukraine in this difficult time. You were one of the first nations who supplied us weapons, who supplied us ammunition, and who supported the sanctions (against Russia – edit.). In this situation, it will stay forever with us, and this is a completely new era – the last nine years - of the Ukrainian and Polish relationship," he added.

He also spoke about U.S. President Joe Biden's recent visit to Kyiv. "First of all, I want to thank Joe Biden. I worked with him as a vice-president and held a meeting as president. He demonstrated great leadership in the world because it is mainly his achievement to keep all nations united. Putin expected NATO would be disintegrated, that he would definitely find at least one nation that would stop and block, and use a veto right for all NATO decisions," Poroshenko explained.

"Great leadership of yours, president Joe Biden. Great leadership of the U.S. Congress, U.S. administration, and mainly United States people who have a unique bipartisan support for our fight, for the freedom, for democracy. His visit was a great inspiration for us because that visit was dedicated to the Revolution of Dignity. I remember nine years ago standing on the Maidan and that was such a great position of our nation who demonstrated that we are ready to fight for our future perspective, European and Euro-Atlantic," Ukraine's former head of state underscored.

"That visit was dedicated to that, president Biden put flowers and sent a great symbol, a great message to the whole world that the United States and NATO would be together with us until our victory," Poroshenko said.

WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH PETRO POROSHENKO AT TVN24 GO