Hadja Lahbib (MR), the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, is at the heart of a controversy. The credibility of the new minister is now tainted because of a trip and statements she made when she was still a journalist. In July last year, Hadja Lahbib traveled to Crimea to attend a festival organized by “Russian Seasons”, a Russian government propaganda initiative. We also found among the organizers an institution headed by one of the daughters of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
As a reminder, Crimea was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014. The international community has never recognized this annexation and has continued to consider Crimea as Ukrainian territory. On the Belgian Foreign Affairs website, it is also stipulated that Ukraine “does not accept” transit through Crimea from Russia. And this is where things get complicated for Hadja Lahbib. Back from her trip, she had made several statements on social networks. She had thus spoken of an unforgettable trip and had revealed that she had used a Russian visa. She had therefore not followed the more complex Ukrainian procedure.
Moreover, during an interview that followed the said trip, the journalist mentioned a visit to Russia and not to Ukraine. Words that do not pass for Ukrainians.
“Travel (to Crimea) from the territory of the Russian Federation is illegal,” also recalled on his Facebook page Oleg Nikolenko, spokesperson for Ukrainian Foreign Affairs. This specifies that “the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine is entering into a diplomatic dialogue with the Belgian side on this issue through diplomatic channels in order to establish all the conditions of the visit and to agree on solutions for the continuation of contacts. bilateral.” It also notes “positively” that Minister Lahbib “commits to further support Ukraine in its fight once morest military aggression by Russia”.
However, an official representative of Ukraine told our colleagues in Standard that the country “takes the incident (of the 2021 trip) seriously”. Therefore, the Minister might not go to Ukraine for the moment as she wished and even less meet senior officials. For its part, the Ukrainian Embassy in Belgium has indicated that it is awaiting kyiv’s official position on the subject, which should be communicated before the end of the week.
We have tried to obtain a reaction from Hadja Lahbib’s spokesperson, but without success so far.
