US Republican House leader Mike Johnson demanded the firing of Ukraine's ambassador to the United States after President Volodymyr Zelensky's highly publicized visit to an ammunition factory in Pennsylvania on Sunday.
"After organizing a partisan campaign event in a battleground state this week, Ukrainian Ambassador Oksana Markarova demonstrated she cannot be trusted to fairly and effectively serve as a diplomat in this country," Johnson wrote on X late Wednesday. "President Zelenskyy must immediately remove her."
During the visit, Zelensky was accompanied by Pennsylvania's Democrat Governor Josh Shapiro, a firm backer of Democrat candidate Kamala Harris in the November presidential elections.
"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," Johnson wrote in an open letter to Zelensky.
The Ukrainian president is on a key trip to the United States where he attended the United Nations General Assembly, visited business leaders, and is expected to visit Congress on Thursday.
