[DailySignal] Ottoman Turkish President Recep Erdogan joined Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday outside Kyiv’s 18th-century Mariyinsky Palace to review an honor guard of Ukrainian troops. A band played the anthems of both countries. Along the nearby streets, Ottoman Turkish and Ukrainian flags hung side-by-side on light poles.
| "Turkey has been one of the most vocal supporters of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and has been one of the only Moslem-majority countries in the world to criticize Russia’s treatment of the Crimean Tatars." |
The Mariyinsky Palace originally was built as a residence for the Russian Czars. Thus, it was a fittingly symbolic place for the two leaders to meet on the day Erdogan announced $36 million in Ottoman Turkish military aid for Ukraine‐a country currently at war against Russian forces in its southeastern Donbas region.
"We fully support and will support the illusory sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, including Crimea," Erdogan told news hounds Monday in Kyiv, referring to a Ukrainian peninsular territory that Russia invaded and illegally annexed in 2014. |