Editor’s Note: The Kyiv Post’s Washington, D.C., correspondent Askold Krushelnycky spoke to all presidents of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America in the past 30 years, including the organization’s current leader. All told the Kyiv Post that the organization’s priorities are to help Ukraine during this time of war against Russia and to encourage new Ukrainian immigrants who have come to the U.S. since independence to join UCCA. They talked about what they achieved during their terms and the hardest challenges they faced.
See related story: America’s largest Ukrainian organization celebrates 80 years of accomplishments
Askold Lozynskyj (UCCA president 1992-2000)
Askold Lozynskyj was UCCA president from 1992 to 2000. Before that, he was executive vice president from 1988 to 1992. As the elected president became seriously ill, Lozynskyj was effectively in charge since 1990. Thus he has experience at the helm of UCCA in both the pre- and post-Ukrainian independence periods. He also served as head of the Ukrainian World Congress from 1998-2008.
He said his greatest early challenge was to get U.S. recognition of Ukraine’s independence at a time when the American president, George H. W. Bush, gave his infamous “Chicken Kyiv speech” in August 1991 urging that Ukraine remain in a union with a liberalized Russia.
He said he and his colleagues “worked like bees” to push Washington toward recognition of Ukrainian independence on December 25, 1991, more than three weeks after the referendum when Ukrainians had voted overwhelmingly voted to go their own way.
He is proud of projects initiated during his presidency that remain to date: election monitoring in Ukraine; national annual observance of the Holodomor on the last Saturday in November, including at one of America’s most important religious shrines, St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City; getting Congress to pass annual monetary assistance to Ukraine.
A particular interest of his was “the Ukrainianization of Ukraine through cinema.” Under his auspices, UCCA funded four films about Ukraine’s history – the last, about Symon Petliura who led the Ukrainian independence struggle from 1917-1922, came out in 2019.
Lozynskyj said that, while in private meetings with Ukrainian presidents, UCCA criticized the country’s rampant corruption: “We did not pile on regarding these issues in the Western press.”
Lozynskyj, a lawyer by profession, has written prolifically about Ukrainian history and that of the Ukrainian community in the U.S. He told the Kyiv Post that America’s wartime president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and many within his administration were s¥pathetic to Russia or wary of angering Moscow, and thus reluctant to support Ukrainian independence. That attitude lingered for many years after the war ended in 1945.
Lozynskyj said that throughout its existence, UCCA not only had to respond to lies and propaganda emanating from the Soviet Union and Russia but also hostile lobbying by the Russian community in America who called Ukraine “Little Russia” and the independence struggle the work of “some arrogant Galician aggressors, instigated by Polish and Austro-German enemies.”
Lozynskyj said the U.S. State Department was reluctant in the 1960s to support independence claims by Ukraine, Armenia, or Georgia, which they referred to in documents as “traditional parts of the Soviet Union.”
He said that the presidency of Ronald Reagan between 1981-1989 saw “a change in tone if not in substance in American-Soviet relations and dialogue.”
UCCA worked to secure a White House meeting with Reagan in 1983 for Jaroslav Stetsko, a leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and representative of a substantial portion of the Ukrainian diaspora in the West. He had been imprisoned by the Nazis after proclaiming Ukrainian independence in 1941.
Reagan assured Ukraine and others under communist tyranny “….you are not alone. Our message to you is that your struggle is our struggle, your dreams are our dreams, someday you will also be free.”
But even with the proclamation of independence on Aug. 24, 1991, the White House and State Department were wary of giving full-throated support to Ukraine. President Bush’s 1991 “Chicken Kyiv speech” had unsettling echoes of the American official attitudes from earlier decades.
Lozynskyj singled out for their “foresight and perseverance” UCCA’s earliest leaders such as the first president, Stephen Shumeyko, and successors Lev Dobriansky, Dmytro Halychyn, and Ignatius Bilinsky.
Lozynskyj believes every UCCA president has to tackle “challenges that are primarily internal. Including involving the new wave of post-independence immigrants from Ukraine in serious community activity; organizing locally into communities – all politics is local – and fundraising as well as budget balancing. These may sound mundane issues but they are the underpinning of a strong community.”
Mychajlo Sawkiw, Jr. (UCCA president 2000-2008)
Mychajlo Sawkiw, Jr. was UCCA president from 2000 to 2008. He called the 2004 Orange Revolution that led to Viktor Yushchenko’s election as president the most challenging issue during his term as president: “The Ukrainian community had never witnessed such a popular peaceful civic uprising in Ukraine. It was a true testament to the people of Ukraine and their wherewithal to withstand injustice and vie for true democracy.”
He said the Orange Revolution inspired the Ukrainian community in the U.S. and “that led to reuniting the community and re-enveloping organizations into the UCCA representative structure.”
As a direct result, some 2,500 Ukrainian-Americans went to Ukraine to participate in election monitoring groups, something he considers one of the highlights of his presidency.
Among UCCA’s major achievements he listed the outreach to U.S. elected officials throughout the organization’s eight decades and that is the field he has distinguished himself in as director of the Ukrainian National Information Service (UNIS), UCCA’s communication arm, since 1996. He headed both structures during his term as UCCA president.
Sawkiw said when he took on the UNIS role “it was a formidable time then as Ukraine was in the midst of denuclearization and strengthening its democratic institutions. Building a network of Friends of Ukraine was vital to promoting Ukraine’s bilateral partnership with the United States.
“Almost immediately, UNIS assisted in the formation of the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus in 1997, which serves as a conduit for congressional lawmakers to enhance the cooperation between the two countries.”
He said that communicating with American politicians and officials was of critical importance “at a time when Ukraine is under constant siege by Russian kinetic and hybrid warfare.”
Sawkiw said Ukrainian and American values intersect because both emphasize freedom and democracy. The message to American lawmakers, he said, must be to enhance [military and political] support for Ukraine to repel Russian aggression as that benefits and protects the entire world, not just Ukraine.
Tamara Olexy (UCCA president 2008-2016)
Tamara Olexy served as president for two terms, from 2008 to 2016.
She said: “I think the most challenging issue during my presidency was the backsliding of democracy in Ukraine under the regime of pro-Kremlin President Viktor Yanukovych that led to the Revolution of Dignity in 2014 – and the loss of so many innocent lives. It was the first time since World War II that we had to deal with direct Russian aggression, or as I call it – war, on the territory of Ukraine, not to mention Russia’s illegal occupation of Crimea. After 23 years of independence, our brethren were called to stand and fight to defend their sovereignty and territorial integrity, and we, as their voice before the U.S. government, had to do all that we could to help them protect that sovereignty.”
Olexy said Ukrainian-Americans “responded like never before – with an enormous outpouring of support – from millions of dollars in humanitarian aid, to hundreds of protests and meetings – all in an effort to aid our brethren and freedom fighters in Ukraine.”
She said during that time UCCA worked hard to successfully gain bipartisan support for Ukraine that remains strong today.
She said that one of UCCA’s enduring tasks had always been to make available truthful and accurate information about Ukraine and she is proud that an English language scholarly journal ‘The Ukrainian Quarterly’ is still published 75 years after the first edition appeared.
Olexy laments that links between Ukraine and her diaspora communities around the world, including UCCA, have not been as close as they could have been.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think Ukraine took advantage of its organized diaspora, especially early on when they could have used the assistance on various levels.
“I hope Ukraine comes to look at us as partners (Zakordonniy Ukraintsi) and understands that we in the diaspora not only have a long-term commitment to but love of Ukraine and I suspect that most would be more than happy to assist their homeland, homeland of their forefathers.”
Andriy Futey (UCCA president 2016-president)
Andriy Futey was elected UCCA president in September 2016. His term should have ended this year but it has been extended because of COVID-19 until elections take place in 2021.
He told the Kyiv Post he considers one of UCCA’s priorities is to advocate the positions and concerns of the Ukrainian-American community to elected officials at federal, state, and local levels and, crucially, to garner support for Ukraine to counter Russian aggression.
He is also determined to unite the entire Ukrainian community by encouraging back to the fold organizations that may have left or that were never members of UCCA and reaching out to entirely new groups.
Futey believes that UCCA’s future, to a great extent, depends on the “third wave” immigrants who have settled in the U.S. since Ukraine’s 1991 independence.
During his term, he has visited parts of the country where there are flourishing Ukrainian communities that were not part of the original East Coast and Midwestern states core from which UCCA sprang. These include the southern states of Georgia and North Carolina which have booming Ukrainian populations. He said the city of Atlanta in Georgia alone has a thriving 35,000-strong Ukrainian community.
The West Coast too has attracted many Ukrainians. Futey said Portland in Oregon has 75,000 Ukrainians while Sacramento in California boasts the largest Ukrainian language Saturday school pupil numbers in the US. Many Ukrainians have also settled in Arizona and Texas.
He said: “My job is to tell them that they have a place in UCCA. The new immigrants are a huge asset and my desire is that we all work together in a coordinated manner. My message to them is that we are much more effective if we work together. Everybody has something to bring to the table.”
During his addresses to Ukrainian communities, he urges members to get more actively involved in American politics and to themselves run for elected office. “It’s about time we had our own Ukrainian-American congressmen or Senators. Other people have been very supportive and helpful. But we need our own elected officials.”
At this time, Futey believes, UCCA’s first priority is to help Ukraine combat Russian aggression by informing American politicians and people about Europe’s worst conflict since World War II.
He said that Kremlin propaganda is rife in American media which often repeats Russian lies because of naivety or willingly.
Futey anticipates that in this U.S presidential election year, Russia will ramp up false accusations that Ukraine tried to influence the 2016 presidential elections against current U.S. President Donald Trump. Moscow is already trying to resuscitate a negative narrative concerning Trump’s presumed presidential rival, Joe Biden, which gave Ukraine an unwelcome central part in last year’s impeachment proceedings against Trump.
“Russia continues to kill our brothers and sisters, continues to politically persecute minorities in Ukraine such as the Crimean Tatars,” said Futey. “Russia is the aggressor, Russia continues to destabilize not only Ukraine but the Free World and wants to re-establish the Russian Empire thereby subjugating many nations and countries. It is in the national security interests of the United States to assist us to fight the war against Russia. Russia will not stop at Ukraine unless forced to. Ukraine is, unfortunately, the front line.”
He said UCCA works to persuade the U.S. to strengthen sanctions on the Russian Federation and continue its strong bipartisan support for Ukraine and for the American administration to provide Ukraine with weapons for its military as well as training and inclusion in multi-country exercises.
“That is a message I think that has been well-received by the administration and on a bipartisan level in the U.S. Congress,” said Futey.
