Anti-Corruption Ceremony Interrupted to Recall Anti-Corruption Ambassador
Ambassador Yovanovitch represented the United States of America as the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine from 2016 to 2019. She is a non-partisan career public servant, first selected for the American Foreign Service in 1986. President George W. Bush named her as his Ambassador twice, to the Kyrgyz Republic and Armenia, and President Barack Obama nominated her for the posting in Kyiv.1
On the evening of April 24, Ambassador Yovanovitch approached a podium in front of gold drapes at the U.S. Ambassador’s residence in Ukraine’s capital city. She was hosting an event to present an award of courage to the father of Kateryna Handziuk, who was brutally murdered by people who opposed her efforts to expose and root out public corruption in Ukraine. In 2018, attackers threw sulfuric acid at Ms. Handziuk, burning more than 30 percent of her body. After months of suffering and nearly a dozen surgeries, she died at the age of 33.2 Her attackers have still not been held to account.3
Ambassador Yovanovitch began her speech by noting that Ms. Handziuk “was a woman of courage who committed herself to speaking out against wrongdoing.” She lamented how Ms. Handziuk had “paid the ultimate price for her fearlessness in fighting against corruption and for her determined efforts to build a democratic Ukraine.” She pledged that the United States would “continue to stand with those engaged in the fight for a democratic Ukraine free of corruption, where people are held accountable” and commended Ukrainians who “have demonstrated to the world that they are willing to fight for a better system.”4
Ambassador Yovanovitch concluded her remarks by holding Ms. Handziuk’s story up as an inspiration to the many Ukrainians striving to chart a new course for their country in the face of Russian interference and aggression:
- I think we can all see what a remarkable woman Kateryna Handziuk was, but she continues to inspire all of us to fight for justice. She was a courageous woman, who wanted to make Ukraine a better place. And she is continuing to do so. And I’ll just leave you with one thought that was expressed in Washington at the ceremony—that courage is contagious. I think we saw that on the Maidan in 2014, we see that on the front lines every day in the Donbas, we see it in the work that Kateryna Handziuk did here in Ukraine. And we see it in the work of all of you—day in, day out—fighting for Ukraine and the future of Ukraine.5
Ambassador Yovanovitch’s evening was interrupted around 10:00 p.m. by a telephone call from the State Department’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of Human Resources Ambassador Carol Perez warned that the Department’s leaders had “great concern” and “were worried” about her. Ambassador Yovanovitch testified that it is “hard to know how to react to something like that.” Ambassador Perez said she did not know what the concerns were but pledged she would “try to find out more” and would try to call back “by midnight.”6
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