According to journalists, the residents of Chernihiv used to have good words for V. Spartz and were very proud of her: after all, after moving to the United States, she became the first congresswoman of Ukrainian origin. Only then did she take it and vote against the United States’ support for Ukraine.
“She is no longer Ukrainian, and I can see it. Politics and career became more important to her than our interests,” said Natalia Khmelnitskaya, a teacher at the 15th secondary school where V. Spartz studied, adding that people naively believed that she would support her relatives in the Congress.
History teacher Viktorija Rudenka, who worked in the library when V. Spartz was still a schoolgirl, says that she is very proud of her former student, but was disappointed with her vote.
“When we read about it, we just didn’t understand – it was like she had become a different person,” she stated.
The article states that V. Spartz is known as an associate of the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump. She was elected to Congress in 2020.
According to journalists, V. Spartz’s vote “against” providing support to Kyiv became the final twist in her transformation from a defender of Ukraine, who visited Chernihiv and saw the consequences of the war with her own eyes, to a critic of President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Journalists recalled that in February 2022, Russian forces were able to reach Chernihiv quite quickly. The city was heavily shelled. V. Spartz’s grandmother ended up in the cloak. Although she withstood all the attacks, she later died at the age of 95.
The Washington Post reports that House Republicans were “delighted” to hand her the microphone to tell her story. She passionately defended her homeland, wore yellow and blue, criticized President Joe Biden for his delay in imposing sanctions on Russia immediately after the invasion, and promised to fight hard for support.
It is reported that when V. Spartz returned from a visit to Chernihiv in April 2022, she voted in favor of bills giving Ukraine $40 billion. dollars, and supported Mr. Biden when he signed the Emergency Military Assistance Act into law.
According to journalists, V. Spartz was twelve when Ukraine declared independence in 1991. In the same year, she lost her father. In 2000, she emigrated to the United States after meeting her future husband, Jason. The couple settled in Indiana, his home state, and the couple had two daughters. Before entering the Indiana State Senate, she worked in accounting and real estate.
