Former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Olena Zerkal has accused the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's office of trying to conceal information about the freezing of US military aid.
Olena Zerkal told this in an interview to The New York Times.
In addition, in her interview, Ms. Zerkal said that she had resigned as a sign of her protest against the "secret" contacts of the people close to President Zelensky with the Trump administration this summer and with representatives of the Kremlin this autumn. In particular, she disclosed the details of the correspondence between the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry and the Ukrainian Embassy in the USA and told when exactly they found out about the freezing of the US military aid in Kiev and how the Ukrainian leadership "tried to hide this information".
The issue of the time when Ukraine learned about the delay in military aid is critically important because of the hearings on Donald Trump's impeachment in Congress. Democrats are trying to prove that President Trump was putting pressure on President Volodymyr Zelensky delaying assistance and postponing a meeting at the White House to get an investigation to be conducted in Ukraine on Trump's political rival, Joe Biden.
President Trump and his allies claim that Ukrainian politicians could not feel the pressure from freezing aid because they did not know about it.
Olena Zerkal made the first public statement that key figures in Kiev knew about the aid freeze, but Zelensky's administration, as she stressed, is trying to conceal this fact.
Zerkal said that her leadership had blocked the trip to Washington, which she had planned to hold in October to meet with members of Congress. The authorities were afraid that she would discuss impeachment-related issues and involve the President in an interrogation that he would like to avoid.
"They were worried. Zelensky's advisors said it wasn't the time for me to go to Washington now," Mirror recalled.
Congress confirmed the cancellation of this visit.
Evidence of Zerkal was also confirmed by Laura Cooper, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia, during her testimony in Congress.
Zelensky's press service did not comment on Zerkal's statements about the government's awareness of freezing aid. They also did not respond about the cancellation of the visit of the official to Washington and the planned meetings with the Congressmen.
Zelensky notes that he wants to stay away from impeachment and told about his desire to maintain good relations with the Trump administration. When he appeared in front of the press in New York in September, he said that he was not pressured by Trump.