WASHINGTON: The US State Department told the Ukrainian government to refrain from hitting US interests following a Ukrainian attack on the Russian port of Novorossiysk on the Black Sea, Kyiv’s ambassador to Washington said on Tuesday. Ambassador Olha Stefanishyna described the message as a demarche, a formal, official message, but declined to elaborate on how it was received and whether she was summoned by the State Department. She said Ukraine had taken note of the communication.
The State Department declined to comment.
Stefanishyna, speaking on the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, said the State Department reached out after Ukraine’s attack on Novorossiysk “because it affected American (and) Kazakh economic interest.” Most of Kazakhstan’s oil is sent to Novorossiysk for export. The port halted its November oil exports briefly on Friday after a Ukrainian drone attack.
Stefanishyna said the message focused on strikes affecting US interests, not halting attacks on Russian infrastructure.
“This reach-out was not related to encouraging Ukraine from refraining to attack Russian military and energy infrastructure. It was related to the very fact that American economic interest was affected there,” she said.
She said the incident made clear that Ukraine had failed to establish similarly close economic ties with the US in the decades since its independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and she was determined to change that. Her job as ambassador was focused on working with the US to achieve a peace deal, as well as ensuring that Kyiv built sustainable and long-lasting American economic interests in Ukraine, she said, adding this would provide her country with one of the most powerful security guarantees.
Two days of peace talks in Geneva between Ukraine and Russia last week have failed to produce a breakthrough.
Not feeling abandoned
Stefanishyna, who later attended President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address in Congress, said her country was grateful for Trump’s personal engagement on ending the war and does not feel abandoned by Washington, despite the failure to reach a ceasefire and his decision to scale back military support. The ambassador, who served as Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration before going to Washington, urged Congress to pass a comprehensive sanctions bill that would lay the groundwork for further sanctions against Russia, after last year’s moves to designate Russia’s two largest oil companies, Lukoil and Rosneft. She said Ukraine was working closely with US lawmakers on the legislation, predicting that it would have overwhelming bipartisan support once introduced, and that she expected Trump to sign it once it passed.
“So it should be either passed now, or we will just have to recognize that there’s no will to do it,” she said.
Ukraine was also working with the US government on new ways to deprive Russia of revenue to fund the war, but declined to give details.
“There’s a number of engagements which are ongoing,” she said. “What I can say is that we have not been abandoned by the US government.”
Stefanishyna said she expected Trump’s address to Congress to touch on foreign affairs and ending Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Ukraine warned not to hit US interests in strikes on Russia energy infrastructure, envoy says
https://arab.news/bx9ub
Ukraine warned not to hit US interests in strikes on Russia energy infrastructure, envoy says
- State Department demarche came after strike on Russian port
- Ukraine does not feel abandoned by US, envoy says
US congresswoman supports censure of colleague over comments against Arabs, Muslims
- Republican Randy Fine ‘spreading hate,’ Democrat Robin Kelly tells Arab News
- ‘Members of Congress should not be targeting Muslims for political gain’
CHICAGO: Illinois Congresswoman Robin Kelly has said she supports calls in the US House to censure Florida Congressman Randy Fine, who has repeatedly made derogatory comments about Muslims and Arabs on his official social media accounts.
Kelly, a Democrat, denounced anti-Muslim and anti-Arab statements made by Fine, a Republican, saying she expects a censure resolution to be put together by House members possibly next week.
“There’s just no room for hate. That’s just the bottom line. I’ve seen hate. It causes people to lose their lives. It causes people to not have the same opportunities as other people. It causes people to have extra stress, extra trauma. And to categorize a whole group of people is so unfair,” Kelly told Arab News.
“I come from a family with a lot of different ethnicities or cultures, and I’ve seen the damage that hate has done in categorizing any one community.
“The Islamic community is just always presented as the bad guy in the movies and on TV … Being a person of color and seeing things that even my own family have gone through, I’m just very sensitive to it.”
Last month, when a supporter of New York’s Muslim Mayor Zohran Mamdani said on social media that dogs have no place in a Muslim home, Fine wrote: “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”
Then on Feb. 20, Fine introduced to Congress the “Protecting Puppies from Sharia Act,” cosponsored by nine Republicans.
Fine has been criticized in the past for making Islamophobic and anti-Arab comments on his social medial pages.
Last May, when Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib said it was “a crime to use starvation as a weapon in Gaza,” Fine responded: “Tell your fellow Muslim terrorists to release the hostages and surrender. Until then, #StarveAway.”
During his election campaign in December 2023, in response to an anonymous poster on X who criticized delays in getting food trucks into Gaza, Fine wrote: “Stop the trucks. Let them eat rockets. There are plenty of those. #Bombsaway.”
Before running for Congress, responding to a New York Times report and photo of 67 Arab children killed by Israel, he said: “Thanks for the pic.”
Muslim groups in Florida have been complaining about Fine’s rhetoric since 2021, including after he sent a private Instagram message to a Florida Muslim saying: “Go blow yourself up!”
Kelly said she is also disturbed by the comments of Fine’s allies, citing them as a broader undercurrent of Islamophobia rising in the US.
She insisted that Islamophobia is no different than antisemitism or racism against other groups, including African Americans like herself.
Fine and Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles “are spreading hate and should be censured,” Kelly wrote on her own Facebook page this past week.
“Our country is already divided enough, members of Congress should not be targeting Muslims for political gain.”
Ogles, a cosponsor of the “Protecting Puppies from Sharia Act,” declared: “Muslims don’t belong in American society. Pluralism is a lie.”
Kelly, who was elected to Congress in 2013, said: “I think they should all be censured. I say to people that feel the Islamophobia, ‘Don’t get weary, don’t get lost in the chaos. That’s what they want you to do. You can’t go in your house and close the door. You have to be a voice. You can’t stay on the sidelines because this isn’t acceptable.’”
Arab News reached out to Fine for comment.
