Yuri Kobzar16:56, 30.04.26

The former president of Poland was in Kyiv on February 23, 2022, just hours before the Russian invasion.

Former Polish President Andrzej Duda was moved to tears by the courage of Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy when he refused to leave Kyiv at the very beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Duda said in an interview with journalist Dmytro Gordon.

“I will never forget what Volodymyr Zelenskyy told me on February 23, a few hours before the Russian aggression, when we were saying goodbye here in Kyiv, when I was leaving for Poland, when I hugged him goodbye and was sincerely so moved that I had tears in my eyes,” recalls the former president of Poland.

According to Duda, Zelenskyy then told him that he would stay in Kyiv with his family and fight “to the end.”

“I will never forget what he told me. He told me: ‘Andrzej, if Putin thinks that he will seize Ukraine the same way he seized Crimea in 2014, without a fight, that he will come – and like they just entered Donetsk and Luhansk, and only some people defended themselves there – that it will happen. Then he is mistaken,'” Duda said.

The former Polish president noted that he has “unlimited respect” for Zelensky and considers his decision to stay in the capital the most important factor that helped Ukraine successfully defend itself at the very beginning.

“[The Russians] would certainly like to capture Volodymyr Zelensky, and it would probably end in his death. So it was really a huge sacrifice that he was ready to make at the time, for which I have boundless respect for him as the then president, and today the former president of Poland,” Duda said.

(C)UNIAN 2026