Friday14 March 2025
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Chaly: At the inauguration in the U.S., individuals from Ukrainian Forbes were drinking low-quality champagne from paper cups.

Valeriy Chaly, the chairman of the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center and Ukraine's ambassador to the United States from 2015 to 2019, shared in an interview with the chief editor of the publication "GORDON," Alena Batsman, how Ukrainian entrepreneurs participated in the inauguration of the U.S. president.
Чалый: На инаугурации в США украинцы из Forbes пили низкокачественное шампанское из бумажных стаканчиков.

According to Chaly, the inauguration consists of specific measures: the oath, the speech, while everything else is "additional events" organized by various organizations and sponsors.

"In other words, a whole package of such venues is formed, where, as a rule, the president is not present along with the vice president, but enormous sums are paid for it. I recall when one of our politicians wanted to secure a table there for $1 million but couldn't make it – it didn't work out. However, another one did pay, around $250,000, and the vice president [J.D.] Vance was there," the diplomat noted.

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Chaly added that during that inauguration, the most successful attempts were to "get closer to a serious conversation."

"As for the rest of the Ukrainian businesspeople I saw – well, you know, the people who are in our Ukrainian Forbes… The top two or three spots were not represented. But further down, they stood there drinking third-rate champagne from paper cups. Or from plastic ones. It made me quite sad to watch… Because, you know, Americans are also economical and business-oriented in that regard. They are more focused on making money," emphasized the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S. from 2015 to 2019.