Politico claims that the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak , is irritating representatives of the Donald Trump administration who have had the opportunity to communicate with him.

This is reported by Censor.NET with reference to  European Truth .

Politico published a story on Yermak titled “The Ukrainian Official Washington Loves to Hate.” The story is based on interviews with 14 people — congressional aides, former U.S. and Ukrainian officials, and others familiar with Yermak’s interactions in Washington.

“Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Yermak has regularly visited Washington and acted as a mediator in relations with the Ukrainian president. However, many in Washington consider Yermak to be ignorant of American politics, harsh and overly demanding of American officials, and generally incapable of navigating the internal processes of the Washington establishment on Capitol Hill,” the material says.

Some of the newspaper’s interlocutors also fear that Yermak has been inaccurately conveying the US position to the Ukrainian leadership. One person familiar with Yermak’s interactions with the Trump administration described him as a “bipartisan irritant.”

Biden administration officials were also frustrated with Yermak, but were able to largely conceal their irritation, given the emergency and Washington’s key role in bolstering Ukraine’s defenses, according to a former senior administration official and three other people familiar with U.S.-Ukraine relations at the time. The Trump administration is not showing such complacency.

During a last-minute visit to Washington in early June, Yermak struggled to arrange meetings with senior Trump administration officials, according to five people familiar with the visit. Yermak reportedly arrived without a clear plan, and the response from those he did meet was, “We don’t know why he’s here,” said one of the people familiar with the visit.

According to the source, Yermak’s meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio was canceled at the last minute. However, they said, Yermak did meet with Rubio, who also serves as national security adviser, at the White House.

According to a person familiar with the visit, Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, made Yermak wait at the White House and then canceled the meeting, and Vice President J.D. Vance’s office did not respond to a request for a meeting at all.

People familiar with Kyiv’s relations with the United States described Yermak’s interactions with both administrations as tense and complicated. They said Yermak, nearly six years after becoming Zelensky’s closest aide, is still trying to navigate the corridors of power in Washington.

“He believed, for example, that the critical minerals deal was so important to Trump that in exchange for it, Ukraine would get security guarantees,” said a second insider familiar with the visit, calling the idea “absurd.”

In private conversations with like-minded people, Yermak accused Trump administration officials of being Russian agents, according to a source familiar with the visit, including Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who met with Putin four times.

People familiar with U.S.-Ukraine relations, as well as Kyiv supporters in Washington, fear that the tensions caused by Yermak’s actions could quickly spread and undermine Ukraine’s position in relations with its most important partner.

Author:  Volodymyr Yanchenko Джерело: https://censor.net/ua/n3558879

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