Poland's Duda to meet informally with Trump in New York

Polish President Andrzej Duda on Wednesday said he would hold a "private visit" with former US President Donald Trump.

The meeting will take place in the evening, Duda told Polish press representatives during a visit to New York on Wednesday.

"I was invited by Mr Donald Trump to his private flat, so this is a purely private visit," said Poland's head of state.

Trump, who is currently on trial charged with illegally falsifying business records to hide hush money payments to a porn star, has a day off from court on Wednesday.

Poland's president, who comes from the ranks of the national conservative PiS, has never made a secret of his admiration for Trump.

Duda is currently in New York for a UN meeting. Before his departure from Warsaw, he had already said that he wanted to meet Trump if the opportunity arose.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Tuesday that everyone in Poland was aware that a victory by Trump in the US presidential election in November would be unfavourable for the security of Poland, Europe and the future of NATO.

According to Tusk, almost every speech by Trump shows his anti-Ukrainian and pro-Russian stance.

The prime minister said that he expected the Polish president to "firmly raise the issue of clearly siding with the West and Europe in the Ukrainian-Russian conflict," if he met with Trump.

EU and NATO member Poland is a close military ally of Ukraine, which is under attack from Russia, and has taken in almost a million refugees from there. The country is a hub for Western military aid to Kiev.