On a surprise two-day visit to kyiv, where he continued to show the United States’ support for Ukraine, Antony Blinken ended his day in an underground bar in kyiv.
Antony Blinken in kyiv, Ukraine, May 14, 2024. (POOL / BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI)
“Inappropriate”, “lack of understanding”, “failure in communication”… The musical performance of the head of American diplomacy, Anthony Blinken, in a bar in kyiv, does not go down well with some Ukrainians, who have judged Wednesday May 15 inappropriate, in the middle of the Russian offensive in the northeast.
“Only one word is enough to describe American Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s evening yesterday in kyiv: inappropriate,” Svitlana Matvienko, director of an NGO specializing in policy analysis, said on Facebook.
Like many of her compatriots, she says to herself
“annoyed” by this performance while the Kharkiv region in the northeast “is being razed”
by a Russian offensive for a week and denounced “a total lack of understanding of the situation” and “empathy” on the part of American officials.
On a surprise two-day visit to kyiv, where he continued to show the United States’ support for Ukraine, Antony Blinken ended
an intense day of official meetings on Tuesday
including with President Volodymyr Zelensky, playing guitar and humming Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in The Free World” in a downtown basement bar.
“A very, very difficult time”
“I know this is a very, very difficult time. Your soldiers, your citizens, especially in the northeast, in Kharkiv, are suffering greatly. But they must know, you must know, that
the United States is with you
“, he said before beating time.
For Bogdan Yaremenko, a deputy from the presidential party and former diplomat, the context is nevertheless poorly chosen after months of delays in American military aid to Ukraine, which have weakened the Ukrainian forces on the battlefield. “The message is not complicated but it does not get through,” he said on Facebook.
“With all respect, this is a mistake”
comments in the same vein a former Ukrainian ambassador to the United States, Valéry Tchaly.
Antony Blinken’s musical performance also provoked the ire of some Ukrainians on social networks, with some Internet users r
blaming American officials for the slow pace of American military aid.
“A model visit to communication failure,” summarizes Serguiï Sydorenko, editor of the influential news site, on Facebook.
Evropeiska Pravda
(“European Truth” in French, editor’s note). “The public signals (sent) did not work as intended by their authors.”