The Ukrainian-born congresswoman voted against aid. Her hometown feels betrayed

Recently, the US Congress voted to allocate $61 billion to Ukraine for military aid in the war against Russia. Congresswoman of Ukrainian descent, Victoria Spartz, voted against it, causing a sense of betrayal among residents of her hometown.

US Congresswoman Victoria Spartz (Kulhyyko) was born in 1978 in the town of Nosivka in Chernihiv region. She moved to Chernihiv as a child, and in 1986, her father, an engineer, was involved in cleaning up the consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident, where he received a serious dose of radiation, which later caused cancer. Spartz was 12 years old when Ukraine declared independence in 1991. That same year, her father died. After studying in Kyiv, she emigrated to the USA in 2000 after meeting her husband, Jason. They settled in Indiana, his home state, and had two daughters. She worked in accounting and real estate before being elected to the Indiana State Senate.

Republican Victoria Spartz was born and raised in Chernihiv, where until recently, every resident was proud of their fellow citizen who moved to America and became the first Ukrainian-born member of the US Congress. However, when Spartz voted against the $61 billion aid package for Ukraine last week, pride turned into a sense of betrayal.

The vote took place just as Russians bombed the center of Chernihiv during rush hour, killing 18 people and injuring 60. Spartz likely couldn’t have been unaware of this.

A resident of the building where Victoria Spartz lived, and her former teacher Natalia Khmelnitskaya, says that her fellow countrywoman is no longer Ukrainian, and it shows. Many are disappointed in her.

“We were very proud of her at first and thought she wanted to support us. But now we see that politics and career come before our interests,” Khmelnitskaya added.

Valentina Rudenok, a 65-year-old history teacher who worked as a librarian when Spartz attended school, says she was proud of her former student, who was elected to Congress. However, she was deeply upset by Spartz’s vote. According to her, Victoria seemed like a completely different person.

However, not all locals see her actions as betrayal. Some believe that she is now aligned with Trump, so she is forced to vote in a way that aligns with his position. Therefore, she is not an enemy of the state, she had no other choice.

In 2020, she was elected to Congress as a supporter of Trump. In 2023, Victoria Spartz announced that she would no longer run for office, but she reversed her decision a year later.

The “against” vote in the vote for aid to Ukraine was Spartz’s latest turn in her transformation from a pro-Ukrainian supporter, who toured the war-torn debris in her hometown, to a critic of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, following the narratives of the far-right wing of the Republican Party.

Even the fact that her now deceased grandmother was subjected to regular bombardments and shelling by the Russians in the semi-encircled city couldn’t influence Spartz’s position. The congresswoman visited her hometown in April 2022, a few weeks after the Ukrainian Armed Forces pushed the Russians out of northern Ukraine.

After Russia’s invasion, Spartz vigorously defended her homeland, wore blue and yellow outfits, criticized President Biden for not imposing more sanctions against Russia before the invasion and promised to fight for aid. After returning from her trip to Ukraine in April 2022, she voted for bills providing $40 billion in aid to Ukraine. She also supported Biden when he signed a law for a rapid increase in military aid.

However, from the summer of 2022, Spartz began to harshly criticize Ukrainian President Zelensky and his administration and advocated for conditions on aid and increased control over funds.