Top Republican wants Ukrainian ambassador to US fired, ahead of Zelenskiy visit

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Republican Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives demanded that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy "immediately fire" his ambassador to the United States on Wednesday, a day before Ukraine's leader was due to visit the U.S. Congress.

Some Republicans, particularly those closest to former President Donald Trump, have been fuming over Zelenskiy's visit on Sunday to an ammunition plant in President Joe Biden's hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is one of the swing states seen as crucial to victory in the Nov. 5 presidential election.

During the trip, Zelenskiy appeared with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro - who has campaigned for Democratic presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris - Senator Bob Casey and U.S. Representative Matt Cartwright. All are Democrats.

"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," wrote Johnson, who is not expected to meet with Zelenskiy when the Ukrainian leader comes to Congress.

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

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

TRUMP BLASTS ZELENSKIY

Trump has repeatedly criticized 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, Zelenskiy. 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 Wednesday. "You have a country that has been obliterated, not possible to be rebuilt."

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

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

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

Additionally, a series of foreign leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have traveled to Florida, in recent months to meet with 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 Harris and Trump.

On Thursday, Zelenskiy is expected to thank congressional leaders for approving billions of dollars in funding for his country as it grapples with a 2-1/2-year-long Russian invasion, and to make the case for more.

After becoming speaker last year, Johnson, who had voted repeatedly against aid for Kyiv, waited until April before allowing the House to vote on Biden's October request for financial assistance for Ukraine.

However, he said on Wednesday his letter to Zelenskiy was not a threat to stop funding.

"I'm not making any threats," he told reporters.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, additional reporting by Bo Erickson; editing by Jonathan Oatis)