- However, over these four years, many beautiful words and compliments have been spoken about Ukrainians. But compliments are not enough. We still remember, Volodymyr, your words from the early days of the war when the Americans offered you safe shelter and transport. The fight is here, it needs ammunition, not a ride. Today, you could say – the fight is still here. We still need ammunition, not compliments - stated Prime Minister Donald Tusk during the Ewald-Heinrich-von-Kleist Prize ceremony at the Munich Security Conference.

- I also remember our first meeting just after you won the presidential elections seven years ago, when we were flying by helicopter over Kharkiv. You told me then with full conviction that you wanted to end the conflict with Russia, that you became president to bring peace to Ukraine, and that you and the majority of Ukrainians desired normal relations with all your neighbors. This war was not Ukraine's or Zelensky's choice - he continued.

- Their choice was to defend themselves against an aggressor, to defend an independent state and its citizens, to defend their dreams of a better world, of freedom, human rights, of joining NATO and the European Union. Today, we are grateful to you not only for paying the highest price for your resistance against an enemy that also poses a threat to us. A threat to Poles, Europeans, to the entire Western world. Yes, to the entire Western world. To understand this, one only needs to recall the symbolic image from the front line in Ukraine. The image of North Korean soldiers with Russian commanders and Iranian drones - he emphasized.

- The Ukrainian nation deserves the highest respect from the entire free world. From all people of good will. From everyone who possesses the elementary ability to distinguish good from evil, truth from lies, and for whom moral order, decency, and dignity are not just relics of the past - stated Prime Minister Donald Tusk during the Ewald Heinrich von Kleist Award ceremony at the Munich Security Conference.

- We admire the Ukrainian nation for the courage and bravery of its sons and daughters, for its extraordinary resilience in the face of inhuman suffering of the civilian population, including thousands of abducted Ukrainian children, for its faith in the meaning of an unequal struggle, deemed by many to be doomed to failure, against a powerful, brutal aggressor - he continued.

- We are also grateful that you have made the entire free world aware that without struggle, without readiness to confront evil, without strength and determination, this world will not survive. We are also grateful for the fact that something that has become a tedious certainty for the West – all these rights and freedoms, the constitution and democracy, prosperity and predictability, which we have stopped caring about, which we have begun to disdain, and even questioned in many situations – constitutes for you values for which you are ready to fight. For you know, and I know too, how nightmarish a reality devoid of principles, laws, and freedoms is - stated Prime Minister Donald Tusk during the Ewald Heinrich von Kleist Award ceremony at the Munich Security Conference.

- Your dreams were once our dreams. Poland is the best example that it was worth dreaming of a free world, that it was worth believing in it and fighting for it. As a Pole, I want to say this clearly and unequivocally today. It was worth fighting to become part of the free world. Yesterday it was about us, today it is about you - he continued.

- It is the Ukrainians who are showing that these values and institutions, scorned by some as outdated, are working, bringing goodness, security, and freedom. Here and there, I hear opinions that Europe is on the verge of collapse, that NATO is outdated, that the world order should cease to exist, and that the era of transactional politics and the concert of powers has now arrived. Nonsense. Those who believe that everything can be bought should also remember that, under this philosophy, everyone can be sold - he emphasized.

- A united West, whose values and institutions within NATO and the European Union are the greatest political invention in human history. We cannot allow anyone from the outside, and what is even more important today, from the inside, to destroy our world. We must be strong, because there is nothing worse in politics than the synthesis of strength and evil - stated Prime Minister Donald Tusk during the Ewald Heinrich von Kleist award ceremony at the Munich Security Conference.

- The quintessence of our civilization has always been to stand on the side of good, with the awareness that good will not defend itself. We must be strong. We cannot stop being good. This is a Ukrainian lesson for all of us. Long live a free and independent Ukraine, Long live a strong and united Europe - he emphasized.