The people of Ukraine voted overwhelmingly for independence from the Soviet Union in a referendum on December 1, 1991, and a day later Poland recognized the country's independence, Marcin Przydacz told reporters at a joint news conference with his Ukrainian counterpart.
Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau on Thursday extended his wishes to Ukraine, saying that Poland was the first country to recognize Ukrainian independence 30 years ago.
"I sincerely wish our Ukrainian friends that they further strengthen this independence," Rau wrote in Ukrainian.
Rau last week warned that Russia could be plotting a new attack on neighbouring Ukraine.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to warn him face-to-face of the "serious consequences" Russia would suffer if it invaded Ukraine and to urge him to seek a diplomatic exit from the crisis, the Reuters news agency reported.
Blinken last month said that "a rehash" of the 2014 aggression against Ukraine would be "a serious mistake" for Russia.
In 2014, Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine and fomented a separatist conflict in that country's eastern Donbas region, leading to a wave of EU and US sanctions against Moscow and Russian officials.
Poland's Rau said in the summer that ensuring a peaceful resolution to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict would be one of the priorities of Poland’s presidency of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 2022.
Polish President Andrzej Duda in August visited Kyiv to mark the 30th anniversary of Ukrainian independence.
His participation in Ukrainian Independence Day celebrations was “an important element of the process of building regional and international endorsement for the territorial integrity of Ukraine,” according to the head of the Polish president's International Policy Bureau, Jakub Kumoch.
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Source: IAR, PAP, TVP Info