Dear Editor:
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister was very diplomatic when he assessed the current Ambassador of Ukraine in Washington. “Volodymyr Yelchenko is a classic of Ukrainian diplomacy, and there are no complaints about his work.” Mr. Yelchenko is a Soviet diplomat, the son of an apparatchik, a minister of the Ukrainian SSR under the notorious Scherbitsky. There have been many complaints about his work. He served as Ukraine’s ambassador to Moscow under Yanukovych when the central Ukrainian community organizations in Russia were dissolved. He sided with Russia, blaming the Ukrainian community for not complying with administrative duties. For two years Ukraine was a member of the Security Council at the United Nations and Mr. Yelchenko was its Permanent Representative. This was when the war in Donbas was in full force. Some 500 meetings were held of the U.N. Security Council but only three were devoted to Ukraine. This was and remains the only major war in Europe. Finally, his tenure in Washington has been brief and he did nothing. Godspeed! With the new Biden administration, Ukraine needs an active and devoted presence in Washington.
Askold S. Lozynskyj
New York