What did Zelenskyy's 8 February 2023 London visit involve?
A look back at the Ukrainian president's second trip abroad since the Russian invasion began, and the onward stops that followed.
What did Volodymyr Zelenskyy do in the United Kingdom on 8 February 2023? The president of Ukraine visited the country in what was his second trip outside Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion. His first, as later background accounts describe, was a visit to the United States in December 2022.
During the visit, Zelenskyy met Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and had an audience with King Charles III. He also addressed members of parliament from Westminster Hall in the Houses of Parliament.
Onward to France
The London stop was reported at the time as the first leg of a wider tour. After the British visit, Zelenskyy was due to travel to France, where he was expected to meet President Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The pairing of the two meetings in France placed the leaders of France and Germany alongside the British prime minister in the Ukrainian president's schedule within a short span of time.
A separate domestic development
On a different subject, two days earlier, on 6 February 2023, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church announced that the church would begin using the Gregorian calendar from 1 September for all feasts except movable ones. He said the decision came from the church's Synod of Bishops.
Taken together, the reports from those days showed a Ukrainian leader travelling to Western European capitals in person, while institutions at home, including major religious bodies, continued to take decisions of their own.
