March 6, 2024 (EIRNS)—The office of Elena Zelenskaya, Ukraine’s first lady, confirmed today that the Ukrainian Embassy had received an offer for her to attend President Biden’s State of the Union address yesterday, but she had refused. The office stated: “However, due to scheduled events … the First Lady, unfortunately, won’t be able to participate.” Biden’s SOTU is on Thursday, March 7.
The Washington Post, while citing an unnamed White House official giving the same reason ("schedule conflicts"), also cited unnamed people “familiar with [Kiev’s] deliberations” who suggested that Ukrainian authorities are still angered by Alexei Navalny’s comment a decade ago that Crimea was historically Russian. Curiously, there was no report that Kiev was concerned over Navalny’s overt racism against non-whites.
The Post reported that the White House’s “intent had been to seat First Lady Jill Biden near [Zelenskaya] and Yulia Navalnaya,” with the two women representing a “symbol of resistance to Russian President Vladimir Putin.” The hope was that the trio would be a “powerful backdrop to President Biden’s address.”
Further, Navalny’s longtime representative, Kira Yarmysh, explained that Navalnaya also was not interested in attending: “Yulia’s husband died two weeks ago. She’s been traveling all this time. Today is the first day she’s been home at all. Like any human being, she needs time to recover.” So, she’s pushed the “evil Putin” narrative everywhere, every day.
