Czech, Slovakian presidents arrive in Kyiv

This was reported by the President of Slovakia Zuzana Čaputová.

"I am coming back to Kyiv less than a year after my last visit, which impressed me for life. Since that visit, my attitude to the war has not been political, but deeply human. The reality of the war, from which many may already be feeling fatigued, touches us even at a time when some do not even want to hear about it. Thanks to the fact that the democratic world has not looked away over the past year, today Kyiv is a city that functions almost normally, and the front line has moved to the east of Ukraine, further from our borders," the Slovak leader wrote.

President Čaputová also mentioned the nighttime tragedy in Dnipro and Uman. "Today's shameful attacks on some Ukrainian cities, including Dnipro and Uman, in which innocent civilians were killed, remind us that we cannot afford to look away."

"Places affected by war experience traumas that are very difficult to heal, horrors that cannot be forgotten. People lose their loved ones, whom no one can bring back to them. I understand that it is difficult for many of us to imagine and feel this fully, because most of us have never experienced anything like this," the president emphasized.

Czech President Petr Pavel also arrived in the capital of Ukraine.

"It is difficult to see with my own eyes that Ukrainians are paying the highest price for this. The blood and lives of their own citizens. In the fight against the aggressor, they are protecting the common. That is why we will stand behind them," Pavel said.

Photo: Petr Pavel

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• Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky responded to Sergei Lavrov's statement about President Pavel and called the Russian Foreign Minister a clown and the country a terrorist state.  

• As of the morning of April 17, Slovakia announced the arrival of all 13 announced MiG-29 fighter jets in Ukraine.