Long hugs, virile handshakes and always a good word to relax the tense faces. The scene is reminiscent of a campaign meeting. Except that it takes place in Izioum, a small town in Donbass about fifty kilometers from the front, and that the audience is mainly made up of Ukrainian trellis soldiers.
These men, members of various brigades deployed in the sector, were gathered alongside drone stacks, starlink antennas and electric generators. The latest equipment funded by former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko (2014-2019), who came in person, on January 13, to deliver them to the combatants.
“My goal is not only to provide them with the equipment that soldiers need, but also to recharge them in energy. Despite the smiles they make when they meet me, I see that they are exhausted ”, confides the former head of state, who claims to meet a dozen brigades each week, when he is not kyiv, where he sits as a deputy for the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament, or abroad, where he meets Western leaders and cultivates his networks.
About Donald Trump, whom he met in 2017 when they were both presidents, Petro Poroshenko says he is convinced that his return to the White House is an opportunity for Ukraine, recalling that it is under his first mandate that Washington began to provide Kiev with lethal weapons. “We have to find the right arguments with Trump. It is also the interest of the United States and its reputation in the world. That's why anything is possible “says the former Ukrainian president.
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Source: Lemonde