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UK’s Princess of Wales meets Ukraine’s first lady at Buckingham Palace
Britain’s Princess of Wales met Olena Zelenskyy, the first Lady of Ukraine, at Buckingham Palace on Sunday (Sep 18), a day before the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth.
Olena Zelenskiy will represent Ukraine in the absence of her husband President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday (Sep 19) at Westminster Abbey, where scores of world leaders will join King Charles and the rest of Britain’s royal family for the service.
On Monday (Sep 19), Britain, world leaders and royalty from across the globe will bid a final farewell to Queen Elizabeth, the last towering figure of her era, at a state funeral of inimitable pageantry.
At 6.30 a.m. (0530 GMT), an official lying-in-state period ends after four days in which hundreds of thousands have queued to file past the casket of Britain's longest-reigning monarch at London's historic Westminster Hall.
Among the 2,000 in the congregation will be some 500 world leaders, including Biden, Emperor Naruhito of Japan, Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
President Joe Biden paid tribute to the 96-year-old who had spent seven decades on the British throne. "You were fortunate to have had her for 70 years," Biden said. "We all were."
King Charles to ‘turn Queen’s Balmoral home into museum’
Shortly before 11 a.m., the oak coffin, covered in the Royal Standard flag with the Imperial State Crown on top, will be placed on a gun carriage and pulled by naval personnel to Westminster Abbey for her funeral.
The queen's great-grandchildren, Prince George, 9, and Princess Charlotte, 7, the two eldest children of now heir to the throne Prince William, will also be attending.
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