Romanian President Nicusor Dan praised the “heroic struggle of the Ukrainian people’ on Wednesday, during the B9 Summit in Bucharest.
He called it “extremely important for our security, the security of Europe, for NATO… It is important to continue to support Ukraine in this fight,” he said.
“Welcome… The fact that you are here, as a special guest, is yet another confirmation that the heroic struggle of the Ukrainian people is extremely important for our security, the security of Europe, for NATO,” President Dan said as Volodymyr Zelensky made a late arrival.
“We talked… not only about the past and present, but also about the future and how this will have an impact on European security. .. It is important that we continue to support Ukraine in this fight. We must stay close, (and) constitute a robust framework of security guarantees. …Transatlantic cooperation remains essential,” he added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday told the B9 Summit that “Central and Eastern Europe are under Russian threat.”
Zelensky touched down Wednesday afternoon on a A319 Ukrainian plane, believed to be stationed in Poland for safety reasons.
He went straight to the summit at the Cotroceni presidential palace to join fellow guests Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary-General and Polish President Karol Nawrocki.
“This format is important,” he told NATO and regional leaders. “Central and Eastern Europe are under Russian threat,” Zelensky said.
He told participants from nine countries in the region and NATO that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine should not happen elsewhere.
NATO Allies’ airspace has been violated by Russian drones regularly in the past two years. Moscow has denied they are intentional but neighboring countries see the breaches as a test of their resolve and a gauging of their response.
Since Russia’s invasion, Sweden and Finland, which were previously neutral, joined NATO.
The Bucharest Nine (B9) format was launched in 2014 as a Polish-Romanian initiative aimed at coordinating positions and exchanging views in the field of security between the nine countries located across the Baltic and Black Sea regions.
The Bucharest Nine comprises Poland, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia.
