The visit of the First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska to the Portuguese Republic continues. On the second day of the visit, the President's wife met with Prime Minister of Portugal António Costa and paid a visit to the Ukrainian IDPs.
During the meeting with the head of the Portuguese government, Olena Zelenska thanked Portugal for humanitarian and military support to Ukraine. The First Lady also noted the need to strengthen Ukrainian air defense to protect against regular Russian shelling.
"We want to show all the solidarity with the Ukrainian people we feel. Everything that happened on February 24 completely changed Portugal and the Portuguese people," António Costa emphasized.
The President's wife also expressed gratitude for Portugal's initiative to rebuild Ukrainian schools. On July 7, during the negotiations between the Zhytomyr RMA, the ministries of education of Ukraine and Portugal, and the Portuguese state enterprise Parque Escolar, several objects for restoration in the Zhytomyr region were agreed on.
The First Lady of Ukraine and the Prime Minister of the Portuguese Republic also discussed the readiness of the management of Portuguese schools to create conditions for Ukrainian schoolchildren to be able to combine live education in Portugal and online education in their homeland if they wish.
In addition, Olena Zelenska together with Cascais Mayor Carlos Carreiras visited the center for Ukrainian temporarily displaced persons.
It was organized as part of the SOS UCRÂNIA campaign in support of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people implemented under the leadership of the city mayor.
The center has 232 beds for adults and cots, a playground, a recreation room, prayer rooms, a kitchen, a dining room, a laundry, a social supermarket, a box for pets and a veterinary consultation, wireless Internet access.
Citizens of Ukraine who live in the center are not limited in the time of their stay and live there until the city hall finds another place of residence for them.
As of today, Cascais is the second city in Portugal in terms of the number of registered temporarily displaced persons from Ukraine (more than 3,310 people).
Olena Zelenska thanked the city and its leadership for the support for Ukrainians and humanitarian aid to our country. She also noted the importance of the decision of the Cascais municipality to establish fraternal ties with the cities of Bucha and Irpin (Kyiv region). On July 5, the City Hall of Cascais decided to provide financial support to the city councils of Irpin and Bucha (EUR 500,000 each).
"This friendship is confirmed every day, because true friends can be seen by their actions," Olena Zelenska said.
On the second day of the visit, she also took part in the activities of the Web Summit - the largest annual European technology conference, which takes place in Lisbon on November 1-4.
Within the summit, the First Lady spoke with journalists from the world media: Reuters, Bloomberg, CNBC, Globo, The Guardian. In particular, the President's wife answered questions about the consequences of Russian aggression in Ukraine and the importance of technology in resisting the aggressor.
"I use any platform to convey the truth about what is happening in Ukraine. Yes, IT specialists are a new audience for me, because I'm more of a user. But at the same time, they are the people of the future, who develop technologies for the world to live with. It depends on them whether these technologies will be used for development or whether they will be a weapon of dictators," said Olena Zelenska.
