Poland’s new prime minister pledges to work to keep the world committed to helping Ukraine

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — New Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Tuesday that his government will mobilize its efforts to keep the world committed to helping Ukraine.

Tusk said that it pains him to hear that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky must continue trying to convince world leaders of the necessity of continuing to support Kiev’s struggle against Russian aggression.

He said it was a priority for his coalition government to convince leaders that they needed to continue helping Ukraine defend itself, which was also in the interest of the free world.

He said he would “demand loudly and decisively for 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 are saying in the face of President Zelensky that they no longer have power, that they are exhausted.” Tusk said.

“Poland’s task, the task of the new government, but also the task of all of us, is to loudly and firmly demand from the entire Western community the complete determination to help Ukraine in this war. I will do that from day one,” Tusk said.

Tusk was delivering his political speech in Parliament on Tuesday, a day after lawmakers chose him as the new prime minister.

Tusk, a centrist leader who was previously prime minister from 2007 to 2014, returns as head of a broad coalition spanning the ideological spectrum from the left through his centrist Civic Party to more conservative parties.

He was elected by Parliament Putin faces many challenges, from restoring democratic standards in his country, working to release European Union funding frozen due to democratic decline by his predecessors, and facing the repercussions of the war across Poland’s eastern border in Ukraine.

Among his easiest rivals is restoring relations with the European Union, which have been severely strained during the past eight years of rule by a conservative national government.

Tusk, who served as President of the European Council from 2014 to 2019 and has strong ties in Brussels, is expected to work to improve Warsaw’s standing in the bloc’s capital.

Tusk’s rise to power came approximately two months after the elections It was won by a coalition of parties Which were run on separate tickets, but promised to work together under Tusk’s leadership To restore democratic standards Improving relations with allies.