Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris at Shannon airport in the west of Ireland on Saturday. About President Biden’s slip of the tongue at the NATO summit he said: “We can forget mistakes”.
Ukrainian President Zelenskyy made a short stop in Shannon, Ireland on his way home from the NATO summit held in Washington DC.
Zelenskyy met Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Simon Harris and when asked by journalists about President Biden introducing him as “President Putin” he said it was a “mistake” and that because the US had “done a lot” for Ukraine, “we can forget some mistakes”.
On Thursday, at the final press conference of the NATO Summit, Biden confused Zelenskyy with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and also referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as “Trump”.
Zelenskyy then went on to thank Ireland for their help housing refugees.
“Thank you so much for your support, thanks to the people of Ireland for hosting a lot of Ukrainian refugees. You are with us from the very beginning of [the] Russian invasion. Thank you so much,” said Zelenskyy.
The Taoiseach said he will visit Ukraine’s capital Kyiv “in the coming weeks”.
Harris also confirmed that the two leaders had discussed a potential bilateral agreement on demining, energy, humanitarian assistance and food security.
He stated: “Of course, Ireland is militarily neutral, but we’re not in any way neutral in terms of understanding the difference between right and wrong, evil and good, freedom and oppression. And we’ve provided very practical assistance to Ukraine in terms of advancing their cause for EU membership.”
Harris also promised to work towards bringing Ukrainian children abducted by Russian forces home.
The Irish government has provided €250m in non-lethal military assistance to Ukraine under the European Peace Facility and the country has welcomed over 108,000 Ukrainians under the EU Temporary Protection Directive.
