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Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, are currently in Ukraine, where they visited the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, the first American lawmakers to do so since it reopened last week.
The embassy had shuttered its doors and relocated operations in the days prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine earlier this year.
“The flag is flying once again, and it was very special for me because that’s where I worked when I was in Kyiv,” Fitzpatrick said in a phone interview with Fox News Digital.
The United States Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, on April 25. (John Moore/Getty Images)
The congressman in the past served as an FBI special agent, and his last assignment was in Ukraine.
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He said the reopening of the embassy is “a very important symbolic sign for Ukrainians.”
The two House members arrived in Kyiv Tuesday morning as part of a multi-day trip. The congressmen plan to meet with members of Ukrainian parliament, and will be discussing the $40 billion aid package and what Ukrainian officials can expect from it.
“We want to make sure it’s getting in the right hands,” Fitzpatrick said about the aid in an interview with Fox News.
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Also this week, Fitzpatrick and Crenshaw plan to meet with the mayors of various towns that have been hit during the war, and the Ukrainian Ministers of Defense, Interior, and Foreign Affairs.
On one stop on the trip, they were outside a school that had been bombed. Fitzpatrick said a kindergarten student and her mother were present, because they young girl had been asking why she could not go to school – so her mother showed her.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick speaks with kindergarten student and her mother after her school was damaged in war (Image courtesy of Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick)
Fitzpatrick said that the people of Ukraine want lawmakers like him – and Biden administration officials – to visit to show their continued support.
“They don’t want us to forget about them,” Fitzpatrick said, noting that as the war drags on it no longer is front page news.
“There are still war crimes going on,” he said.
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The two Republicans join a growing list of U.S. lawmakers visiting Ukraine to show solidarity. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., and Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., were the first to do so in April. In early May, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a group of House members on a trip to Ukraine. They included Reps. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., Jim McGovern, D-Mass., Bill Keating, D-Mass., Adam Schiff, D-Calif., Barbara Lee, D-Calif., and Jason Crow, D-Colo.
Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich contributed to this report.
