The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, will officially visit Spain in the coming days, according to government sources. The visit, of which the exact date has not been revealed for security reasons, resumes a previous one that had to be canceled in April of this year so that the Ukrainian leader could attend the funeral of Pope Francis in the Vatican.
Although the program of the trip has not been announced, which is still being worked on, a visit to the Reina Sofía National Art Center Museum is being considered to see the Guernica by Picasso, a work of art that has become an international symbol of the rejection of war.
During a previous visit to Spain, in 2022, Zelensky gave a speech before the Cortes in which he referred precisely to the bombing of the Basque city by German troops during the Civil War to compare it with the situation in his country, attacked by Russia: “We are in April 2022, but it seems that we are in April 1937.”
The Spanish Government will take advantage of the visit of the Ukrainian president to convey its full support and the need to continue putting pressure on Russia, according to the same sources.
On October 21, Zelensky agreed in a telephone conversation with Pedro Sánchez to hold a new meeting between the two, although the place and date were not revealed at that time. In that conversation, the Ukrainian president thanked Spain for the shipment announced by Spain of 70 generators to support the reconstruction of the country’s energy system in the face of constant Russian bombings.
“We have agreed on a new meeting and new measures to support our country, the Ukrainians and our common European security,” Zelensky said.
On that occasion, Sánchez explained in a message on the social network
The talk between the two leaders took place shortly after they both signed, along with other European leaders, a declaration to support the US position in favor of an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and to enter into negotiations with the line of contact as a starting point and the inviolability of international borders.
From a visit to Madrid in May 2024, the Ukrainian president took away an agreement by which Spain contributed 1,000 million euros in military aid, added to the 330 that it had already supplied to kyiv since the beginning of the invasion, in March 2022, according to the Kiel Institute (Germany). In an appearance at La Moncloa, Zelensky praised the Spanish Government as a “reliable partner, which has not closed its eyes” to the Russian invasion, “nor has it been weak when difficult political decisions had to be made,” and thanked the new delivery of weapons, especially armored vehicles and missiles.
