OP-ED

Marta Zielyk: 30 years after independence, Ukrainian is now the lingua franca in US-Ukraine diplomatic relations

Published Aug. 20, 2021 at 7:49 am

In this file photo U.S. President Bill Clinton gets the traditional bread-and-salt greeting upon arrival at Kyiv Boryspil International Airport on June 5, 2000.

Photo by AFP

I spent New Year’s Day in 1996 with 200 strangers on a transatlantic flight to Kyiv. The weather had turned bitterly cold, snowy and windy on both continents, but, as they say, the show must go on. In this case, the show was the high-stakes visit to Ukraine of Secretary of Defense William Perry.