The Ukrainian president is struggling to find someone of sufficient influence to represent Kyiv to the Trump administration, according to two former senior Ukrainian officials and four lawmakers, Politico reports.
Zelenskyy fast-tracked his government reshuffle plans so he could offer the ambassadorship to Yulia Svyrydenko, the outgoing prime minister, according to a former senior Ukrainian official and a Republican foreign expert.
“It is no secret that I counted on and offered Yulia Svyrydenko the post of ambassador to the United States,” Zelenskyy said at a press conference in late July.
He added that he was looking for a candidate with the highest possible qualifications: “a person at the level of a deputy prime minister, minister, or prime minister.”
Since then, however, other prospective candidates have proved equally reluctant, spurning what would in any case be the difficult job of handling Donald Trump’s “unpredictable White House,” Politico wrote.
Ukrainians with sufficient heft and skill for the ambassadorship are looking at it askance, “worrying that they would not enjoy the conditions they would need to do the job properly,” former Ukrainian deputy prime minister for European and Euro-atlantic integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze said.
She noted that Zelenskyy’s options are shrinking. The person would likely have to come from his tight inner circle of trusted aides, Klympush-Tsintsadze said, but there is no one there who seriously fits the bill.
One former Ukrainian diplomat who spoke on the condition of anonymity said there are people in Zelenskyy’s team who want the position, but none of them “really measure up to it.”
“Framing it as if nobody wants the job would be a kind of oversimplification,” he said. “Of course, there are people who want the job, but there’s no one who really measures up to it. Zelenskyy is having a hard time filling the position.”
Journalists noted that the White House may soon seek to revive stalled peace negotiations.
“That would put a premium on having an ambassador in Washington with the political weight to get through the door, the authority to speak for Zelenskyy, and the skill to navigate an administration where policy can change quickly. And also to lobby Congress,” Politico wrote.
The outlet added that Ukraine could find itself without a heavyweight operator in Washington just as decisions are being made over weapons, air defense, logistics, and intelligence sharing, as well as the terms of any renewed peace push.
“It is quite likely that Zelenskyy won’t appoint anyone this side of the midterm elections in the United States,” lawmaker Yaroslav Yurchyshyn said. “It will be hard to judge who would fit the political landscape best until those elections have been held.”
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