Top US Republican wants Ukrainian ambassador fired over Zelensky factory visit

WASHINGTON - The Republican Speaker of the US House of Representatives demanded on Sept 25 that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky fire his ambassador to the US,

over Mr Zelensky’s trip this week

to a factory in Pennsylvania.

“I demand that you immediately fire Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova,” Speaker Mike Johnson wrote in a letter to Mr Zelensky.

Mr Johnson released the letter a day before Mr Zelensky was due to visit the US Capitol in Washington for meetings with lawmakers.

Mr Johnson was not expected to meet the Ukrainian leader.

The Ukrainian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Some Republicans have been fuming over Mr Zelensky’s visit earlier in his week-long trip to the US to an ammunition plant in President Joe Biden’s home town of Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania is one of the swing states seen as crucial to victory in the Nov 5 presidential election.

During the trip, Mr Zelensky also met Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Senator Bob Casey and US Representative Matt Cartwright, who are all Democrats.

Mr Biden’s vice-president, Ms Kamala Harris, is the Democratic candidate running against Republican former president Donald Trump in the race for the White House.

“The facility was in a politically contested battleground state, was led by a top political surrogate for Kamala Harris, and failed to include a single Republican because – on purpose – no Republicans were invited,” Mr Johnson wrote.

“The tour was clearly a partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference,” he said.

Trump blasts Zelensky

Trump has repeatedly criticised

the Ukrainian president on the campaign trail this week.

“Those cities are gone, they’re gone, and we continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refused to make a deal, Zelensky. There was no deal that he could have made that wouldn’t have been better than the situation you have right now,” Trump said on Sept 25.

“You have a country that has been obliterated, not possible to be rebuilt.”

The former president also blamed Mr Biden and Ms Harris for Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The Republican-led House Oversight Committee had already announced that it would investigate whether Mr Zelensky’s trip was an attempt to use a foreign leader to benefit Ms Harris’ campaign.

It is common practice for governors to meet foreign leaders who travel to their states. In July, Mr Zelensky visited a factory in Utah and was hosted by that state’s Republican governor, Mr Spencer Cox.

Additionally, a series of foreign leaders,

including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

, have traveled to Florida in recent months to meet Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home. Trump won Florida by only 3 percentage points in the 2020 election, and recent polls have shown a close race there between Ms Harris and Trump.

On Sept 25, Mr Zelensky is expected to thank congressional leaders for approving billions of dollars in funding for his country as it grapples with a 2½ year-long Russian invasion, and to make the case for more.

After becoming Speaker in 2023, Mr Johnson, who had voted repeatedly against aid for Kyiv, waited until April before allowing the House to vote on Mr Biden’s October request for financial assistance for Ukraine.

However, he said on Sept 25 his letter to Mr Zelensky was not a threat to stop funding.

“I’m not making any threats,” he told reporters. REUTERS