Jessica Mathews / news@whmi.com


Livingston County’s Congresswoman traveled to Kyiv this past weekend with a bi-partisan Congressional Delegation for meetings with President Zelenskyy and other senior Ukrainian officials.

8th District U.S. Representative Elissa Slotkin visited Ukraine as part of a bi-partisan Congressional Delegation through the House Armed Services Committee.

Slotkin – the first member of the Michigan Congressional Delegation to travel to Ukraine since the war began – met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other senior Ukrainian military and security officials.

Slotkin said during the trip, they saw firsthand what the Ukrainians can do with the weapons and training the U.S. is providing. She said they visited Irpin, the last town before Kyiv where Ukrainian soldiers held the Russians off, as well as Bucha, where they learned more about the atrocities carried out by the Russians over the last five months.

Slotkin commented those places were key targets for the Russians when they aimed to take Kyiv, and it was only through the sheer will of the Ukrainian people, and support from the outside world, that the Russian attack was repelled.

Slotkin added that Michigan has a special connection to Ukraine, partly because of the large population of Ukrainian Michiganders, and also because it makes some of the critical equipment that is now supporting their efforts against Putin’s regime.

A press release states Michigan’s official partner nation is Latvia, where we teach how to use the long-range HIMAR system that Ukrainians say has made such a difference against the Russians. Slotkin said "The expedited delivery of the HIMARS and so many other weapons was facilitated by the Ukraine Lend-Lease Act that was signed into law on May 9 – that's one of the reasons why I was determined to see these weapons in action".

Slotkin, a former senior Pentagon official and CIA officer, has introduced a suite of bipartisan legislation to address Putin’s war against Ukraine, including the DICTATOR Act, to investigate whether China is helping Russia evade U.S. sanctions, as well as the American Energy for Europe Act, which would leverage American manufacturing to help wean our European allies off Russian energy resources.

Slotkin also led the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act, which was signed into law by President Biden in May and is helping to expedite shipments of weapons from the United States to Ukraine.

More information is available in the attached press release.