U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg will represent the United States at the Crimean Platform summit set to take place on August 23 in Kyiv.
This was reported by Suspilne with a reference to an interview with Mustafa Dzhemilev, a member of the Crimean Platform, deputy of the Verkhovna Rada (European Solidarity) and leader of the Crimean Tatar people.
"The United States will delegate Pete Buttigieg, the Secretary of Transportation, who is a very influential figure in the U.S. Government," Member of Crimean Platform, Ukrainian lawmaker Mustafa Dzhemilev said in an interview with Suspilne.
He added that the visit of President Joe Biden had been discussed in diplomatic circles earlier but the White House leader would not arrive.
"I met with Kurt Volker [diplomat, U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations in 2017-2019] and he said that Biden would not arrive for a number of reasons. And, in addition, Biden has a specific relationship with Ukraine because Trump tried to use [Ukraine] in his election campaign, so he [Biden] is unlikely to arrive. Even if he really wants to, his entourage will try to discourage him," Dzhemilev added.
Earlier, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs George Kent said that the United States would be headed by members of the government at the Crimean Platform summit.
Peter Buttigieg is an American politician who currently serves as the 19th Secretary of Transportation, having been sworn in on February 3, 2021.
Prior to joining the Biden-Harris Administration, Secretary Buttigieg served two terms as mayor of his hometown of South Bend, Indiana. A graduate of Harvard University and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, Buttigieg served for seven years as an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, taking a leave of absence from the mayor’s office for a deployment to Afghanistan in 2014.
He has repeatedly stated that Russia is a "destructive", "hostile" great power on the world stage, and its form of "oligarchic capitalism" poses a serious threatto the United States.