Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has agreed to hold debates with frontrunner of the presidential vote Volodymyr Zelenskiy, having posted a video response on Twitter early on Thursday to the conditions put forth by Zelensky to meet at Kyiv’s Olympiyskiy Stadium.
“The rules of the debate are stipulated in the Law on Presidential Elections – please read them. It can be arranged on the basis of public television with broadcast on all television channels for tens of millions of people. If it’s the stadium – let it be the stadium. I am looking forward to seeing you, Volodymyr Oleksandrovych [Zelenskiy],” Poroshenko said.
“Being a president and supreme commander is not a game and not wanting to please [anybody] … it means being responsible for the people, for the country – both domestically and internationally. And debates are held not for a spectacle,” he said.
“You and me – we are very different. The main difference is that the arrows of [our] geopolitical compasses are pointing towards diametrically opposite parts of the world. My country is a strong European Ukraine, which will not be brought down to its knees before anybody under any circumstances,” Poroshenko said.
He also recalled that the debate of presidential candidates is not a show, but a serious discussion about the strategy of the state’s development, its values, the historical vector and priorities. And the election campaign determines the future of the country for years and decades ahead.
“The country not just chooses but it hands its future in,” he said.
