WASHINGTON – Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko met with representatives of Ukrainian American organizations on June 8 here at the Ukrainian Embassy.
Attending the meeting were several executive board members of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA), the nation’s largest representative body of Americans of Ukrainian descent, including Tamara Olexy, UCCA president; Michael Sawkiw Jr., Ukrainan National Information Service (UNIS) director and Andrij Dobriansky, UCCA director of communications.
The special gathering was arranged to welcome the prime minister back to the United States; it was the delegation’s first stop after the minister’s arrival in the U.S. Among fellow Ukrainians, the ministers shared the message the delegation planned to deliver to U.S. leaders and media about the state of Ukraine’s economic, legal and constitutional reforms, as well as the latest on the defense efforts in Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine.
Over the course of three days, the official visit would include meetings with Vice-President Joe Biden, who had just returned from the funeral of his son, Beau, as well as meetings with the Speaker of the House John Boehner, Sen. Rob Portman, and both Democratic and Republican congressional leaders.
Congressional Ukrainian Caucus members Eliot Engel, Nita Lowey, Mike Quigley and Bill Pascrell also met with the Ukrainian delegation, together with House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer in his offices. The Congressional Ukrainian Caucus, which was initiated at the request of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, currently boasts a bipartisan roster of 50 Members of Congress.
That evening, Ms. Olexy, Mr. Sawkiw and Mr. Dobriansky were invited as guests of American Jewish Committee’s Executive Director David Harris to the AJC Global Forum in Washington. Together with a delegation of 50 flag-waving Jewish Ukrainians, the crowd of over 2,000, including diplomats from 30 countries and representatives of Jewish communities from across the U.S. and over 70 countries around the world, welcomed Prime Minister Yatsenyuk to the podium – the first visit ever to the Global Forum by a Ukrainian prime minister in the AJC’s history. (Mr. Yatsenyuk delivered a video message to last year’s Global Forum, much like those delivered this year by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.)
In introducing Ukraine’s prime minister, Mr. Harris declared that the AJC stands “strong and united with Ukraine in its struggle to chart its own democratic destiny and preserve its territorial integrity.”
In 1991, the AJC became the first Jewish organization outside of Ukraine to call on President George H.W. Bush to recognize the country’s independence from Moscow. Since then, it has staunchly supported a free and democratic Ukraine.
During his address to the Global Forum, Prime Minister Yatsenyuk stated, “Today, Ukraine is the only country in the world fighting against the regular Russian army… This is a war not just between Ukraine and Russia. This war is between the past and the future, between day and night, between freedom and dictatorship.”
Mr. Yatsenyuk concluded his remarks by declaring that unity of Western democracies would help Ukraine win the war. “We will regain control of Donetsk and Luhansk, and Crimea will again be part of Ukraine. …We will never surrender. We will fight and win. We will succeed.”
Following the evening session, the UCCA’s president was invited to a private, off-the-record dinner hosted by the AJC where national and global directors of the organization had the opportunity to speak candidly with Prime Minister Yatsenyuk and Minister Jaresko.