Updated March 4, 12pm
Roberta Metsola met with Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday as part of an unannounced visit to the war-torn country.
The European Parliament president arrived in the country on Friday evening and immediately met with Ruslan Stefanchuk, the president of Ukraine's parliament, promising him that cooperation between Ukraine and the EU's parliament would "only grow stronger".
On Saturday, Metsola was hosted by Zelensky at a palace in Lviv, the largest city in Western Ukraine.
Zelensky was quick to publicise the visit on social media and thanked Metsola for her "leadership in supporting Ukraine from the first days of this terrible war and the important decisions made by the European Parliament."
Metsola responded by quoting Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko.
"Keep fighting, you are sure to win," Metsola wrote. "True in the quest for peace and freedom as it is in life. Never give up."
On Saturday morning, before her meeting with Zelensky, Metsola joined Stefanchuck at a wreath-laying ceremony at a memorial to fallen soldiers at Lychakiv cemetery in Lviv.
Her visit to Ukraine comes less than a month after Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the European Parliament in person, and just days after the country marked the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion.
That invasion shows no signs of letting up: Russian troops continue to attack Ukrainian positions, towns and villages and Kyiv continues to push for additional aid to help repel the attackers.
On Friday, the USA announced a new $400 million security aid package for Ukraine that includes a variety of ammunition types. EU countries have been more reluctant to commit to donations of military equipment and ammunition. Metsola has called on national governments to overcome that hesitation and send long-range military systems to Kyiv.
The visit also coincides with a surprise visit made by US Attorney General Merrick Garland to the country. Garland travelled to Lviv in western Ukraine to meet with his counterpart and address a justice conference.
Garland told the conference the United States stood beside Ukraine's war crimes investigators as they collect and catalogue evidence from blast sites that include hospitals, apartment buildings and schools, exhume mass graves and study human remains -- "in order to tell the stories of those who no longer can," according to a Justice Department transcript of his remarks.
Metsola was the first high-level EU official to visit Ukraine after Russia invaded the country, doing so at the end of March 2022. She was also among the first to call for Ukraine to be given a pathway to eventual EU membership.
During that visit, she met with top Ukrainian officials including Zelensky, who bestowed her with the Order of Princess Olga, a Ukrainian civil decoration given to women who display excellence.
On Saturday, Zelensky said Ukraine intends to complete the implementation of European Commission recommendations as soon as possible "and start negotiations on joining the EU already this year."