WARSAW, Poland (AP) — New Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Tuesday that his government will mobilize to keep the world committed to helping Ukraine.
Tusk said it hurts him to hear that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has to keep trying to persuade world leaders about the need to continue supporting Kyiv’s struggle against Russian aggression.
He said it will be a priority for his coalition government to persuade leaders that they need to continue to help Ukraine defend itself, and that is also in the interests of the free world.
He said he would “loudly and decisively demand the full mobilization of the free world, the Western world, to help Ukraine in this war.”
“There is no alternative to this way of thinking. I can no longer listen to some European politicians from other Western countries who say something about being tired of the situation in Ukraine. They are tired. They say it to President Zelenskyy’s face that they no longer have the strength, that they are exhausted.” Tusk said.
“Poland’s task, the new government’s task, but also the task of all of us, is to loudly and firmly demand the full determination from the entire Western community to help Ukraine in this war. I will do this from day one,” Tusk said.
Tusk was making his policy speech in parliament Tuesday, a day after lawmakers chose him as the new prime minister.
Tusk, a centrist leader who was previously prime minister from 2007-2014, returns as the head of a broad alliance that spans the ideological spectrum from left-wing via his own centrist Civic Platform party to more conservative parties.
He was elected by parliament on Monday and faces many challenges, from restoring democratic standards in his own country, working for the release of European Union funding frozen due to democratic backsliding by his predecessors and facing the implications of the war just across Poland’s eastern border in Ukraine.
One of his easier challengers will be restoring ties with the EU, which were badly strained during the past eight years of rule by a national conservative government.
Tusk, who served as European Council president from 2014-2019 and has strong connections in Brussels, is expected to improve Warsaw’s standing in the bloc’s capital.
Tusk’s ascension to power came nearly two months after an election which was won by a coalition of parties that ran on separate tickets, but promised to work together under Tusk’s leadership to restore democratic standards and improve ties with allies.
