New ambassador to US appointed, tasked with Biden’s visit to Ukraine

President Volodymyr
Zelensky signed a decree Feb. 25 to appoint former finance minister Oksana
Markarova Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States of America, the
presidential press service reported. Zelensky said that the new ambassador
should focus primarily on establishing an effective dialogue with the
administration of Joe Biden.

Ukraine’s president
paid special attention to the need to strengthen the US sanctions against
Russia, in particular regarding the Nord Stream 2 project, his press service
highlighted. “I am also confident that Oksana Markarova will set an
example in the development of economic diplomacy: in attracting foreign direct
investment in
Ukraine, in promoting Ukrainian exports and defending the interests of
Ukrainian business, which is a particularly important issue for all our
diplomats and what I demand of them,” Zelensky added.

Markarova has been
tasked with organizing the visit of U.S. President Joe Biden to Ukraine,
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba further elaborated. “We have not
hosted the U.S. President since 2008, and given the dynamics of our partnership
and the role that the United States has played in Ukraine since 2014, I believe
that now is the time to do so, especially considering that this is a very
special year for Ukraine,” Kuleba said during a panel discussion by the
American CEPA Center.

Yuri Svirko: The news about Markarova’s new position
and task to bring Biden to Ukraine was followed by a Friday statement of the
press service of Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs which praised a fresh
local court’s ruling to dismiss a complaint by former prosecutor general Viktor
Shokin against a police investigator who closed a criminal case involving
Biden. The press service reminded that the case in which Biden was involved was
closed in September 2020, “a few months before the U.S. presidential election.”
However, this press statement may also remind that even several months after
the U.S. election, Ukraine seems to remain
toxic for any U.S. president, since the ill-famous
published phone conversation between Trump and Zelensky which mentioned Biden
and eventually led to the first failed impeachment of President Trump.

The task for Markarova to organize Biden’s visit to Ukraine came one
week after former US envoy to Ukrane Kurt
Volker urged on SEPA’s website to organize merely “a call from President Biden to President Zelensky.” If it takes months to organize the first phone
call between the two presidents, the task for Markarova to organize Biden’s
looks even harder.