King Charles to Zelenskyy: We've all been worried about you and thinking about your country
During a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, King Charles III said that he was very worried about the president's life and Ukraine as a whole.
Source: BBC News
Quote from Charles III: "We’ve all been worried about you and thinking about your country for so long, I can’t tell you."
Details: The media reported that the King told Zelenskyy that he was pleased to welcome him to Buckingham Palace.
Zelenskyy said what a "big support" both Houses of Parliament had been to Ukraine, to which the monarch replied, "I'm so glad."
Royal correspondent Sean Coughlan believes that for King Charles, the meeting with Zelenskyy was more than a photo shoot.
Quote from Coughlan: "It’s been a deeply personal matter. The King has been unusually outspoken about Ukraine, so the president’s visit will mean much more than a handshake and a photo shoot.
After the Russian invasion, the then Prince of Wales condemned ‘brutal aggression’ in language much stronger than the usually neutral royal tones."
In addition, Charles visited the Ukrainian community in the UK, going to the Ukrainian cathedral in London and meeting those helping refugees.
Charles was also the first senior member of the royal family to unexpectedly visit the Ukrainian-Romanian border in May 2022, where millions of Ukrainian refugees were fleeing the Russian attack.
At an aid centre where food, clothes and counselling were being distributed, he talked about the "nightmare" the Ukrainian people were facing.
Coughlan notes that nine months later, Charles is greeting Ukraine's president as King, and the war is still ongoing.
Background:
- On Wednesday 8 February, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in the United Kingdom on his second foreign visit since the beginning of the full-scale war with Russia.
- There he addressed the members of the UK Parliament and met with King Charles III. Zelenskyy and Sunak also visited a military base in Dorset in the South West of England to meet with Ukrainian military personnel being trained by the British Army.
- Following the visit, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak hinted that British Challenger 2 tanks will arrive in Ukraine as early as March 2023 and also announced the expansion of the training programme for Ukrainian military personnel.
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