Star Tribune
Ukrainian ambassador visits Minnesota, urges people to remember Ukraine
Inside a gym-turned-medical supply room at the Ukrainian American Community Center in Minneapolis, stacked high with bags of tourniquets and wound treatment kits, the Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States urged Americans not to forget about Ukraine’s struggle.
Ambassador Oksana Markarova’s visit to Minnesota on Thursday was the first of a 10-state tour, primarily of the Midwest, to increase community dialogue about the war and bolster support for Ukraine. Called Whistlestops for Ukraine, the tour is hosted by the think tank German Marshall Fund of the United States the philanthropic Howard G. Buffett Foundation.
“We can win this one. It is very difficult … we are fighting this fight every day, there are a barrage of missiles and drones on peaceful cities every day,” Markarova said to a supportive crowd of about 50, including a handful of injured Ukrainian soldiers. “But we will stay the course. We need you, our friends, to stay the course with us.”
The war in Ukraine broke out in February 2022, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine that left tens of thousands of civilians dead and millions of people displaced.
It hasn’t let up. In recent days, Russian missiles tore through apartment buildings in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, local officials said Thursday, killing at least two people and burying families under rubble as the Kremlin’s forces continued to pound the fiercely contested area with long-range weapons.
Since the war began, the Ukrainian-American community in northeast Minneapolis and beyond has stepped up to support, by collecting money to purchase medical equipment to be sent off to the battlefield and by welcoming refugees in need of assistance. Minnesota is home to 16,000 people of Ukrainian descent, according Minnesota Compass data.
The ambassador was joined by Howard G. Buffett, head of the philanthropic organization, and Heather Conley of the think tank for the event that focused on the importance of continuing to support Ukraine as a stopgap to continued Russian aggression.
Ukraine never had any intention to attack Russia, Markarova said, pointing out how small the country is compared to Russia. Just like Ukrainian Americans who immigrated to Minnesota and built the community center, Ukrainians dreamed of living in peace, Markarova said. Their country’s choice to be Democratic and European was threat enough to Russian President Vladimir Putin, she said.
Buffett warned that if Ukraine is not successful in fighting Russia’s invasion, he predicts Russia will go on to attack a European NATO country and the United States will have no choice but to become fully embroiled in another world war with its greatest enemy.
“Americans have much more at stake in this than they realize,” Buffett said. “We will be sending our sons and daughters and our brothers and sisters to fight a war that has to be fought if it comes to other borders.”
The event also highlighted the work of Minnesota organizations and speakers like Dr. Yakov “Jacob” Gradinar who co-founded the Protez Foundation, which fits injured Ukrainian soldiers with prosthetics, as well as local refugee resettlement projects.
Other stops on Markarova’s tour of Minnesota included an agribusiness discussion at The Minneapolis Foundation, a visit to the Minnesota State Capitol with Senate President Bobby Joe Champion, a meeting with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a trip to the Minnesota Farmers Union with Gov. Tim Walz and a visit to the Protez Foundation in Oakdale.
The ambassador encouraged Minnesotans and Congress to support the supplementary budget ahead of what could be a life-threateningly cold winter if Russia attacks Ukraine’s energy grid once again, Marakova said.
The battlefield in Ukraine has seen few major changes in recent months. A Ukrainian counteroffensive that started in June dented deep Russian defenses in some areas but has failed to change the complexion of the 22-month war. Moscow has held firm in most of the areas it occupies while using the long-range weapons to inflict damage on Ukraine, including civilian areas.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Star Tribune
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city
NOVI, Mich. — Donald Trump further denigrated Detroit while appealing for votes Saturday in a suburb of the largest city in swing state Michigan.
”I think Detroit and some of our areas makes us a developing nation,” the former president told supporters in Novi. He said people want him to say Detroit is ”great,” but he thinks it ”needs help.”
The Republican nominee for the White House had told an economic group in Detroit earlier this month that the ”whole country will end up being like Detroit” if Democrat Kamala Harris wins the presidency. That comment drew harsh criticism from Democrats who praised the city for its recent drop in crime and growing population.
Trump’s stop in Novi, after an event Friday night in Traverse City, is a sign of Michigan’s importance in the tight race. Harris is scheduled for a rally in Kalamazoo later Saturday with former first lady Michelle Obama on the first day that early in-person voting becomes available across Michigan. More than 1.4 million ballots have already been submitted, representing 20% of registered voters. Trump won the state in 2016, but Democrat Joe Biden carried it four years later.
Michigan is home to major car companies and the nation’s largest concentration of members of the United Auto Workers. It also has a significant Arab American population, and many have been frustrated by the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza after the attack by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
During his rally, Trump spotlighted local Muslim and Arab American leaders who joined him on stage. These voters ”could turn the election one way or the other,” Trump said, adding that he was banking on ”overwhelming support” from those voters in Michigan.
“When President Trump was president, it was peace,” said one of those leaders, Mayor Bill Bazzi of Dearborn Heights. ”We didn’t have any issues. There was no wars.”
While Trump is trying to capitalize on the community’s frustration with the Democratic administration, he has a history of policies hostile to this group, including a travel ban targeting Muslim countries while in office and a pledge to expand it to include refugees from Gaza if he wins on Nov. 5.
Star Tribune
‘Take our lives seriously,’ Michelle Obama pleads as she rallies for Kamala Harris in Michigan
”We are looking at a health care crisis in America that is affecting people of every background and gender,” Harris told reporters before visiting the doctor’s office.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden went to a union hall in Pittsburgh to promote Harris’ support for organized labor, telling the audience to ”follow your gut” and ”do what’s right.”
Harris appeared with Beyoncé on Friday in Houston, and she campaigned with former President Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen on Thursday in Atlanta.
It’s a level of celebrity clout that surpasses anything that Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, has been able to marshal this year. But there’s no guarantee that will help Harris in the close race for the White House. In 2016, Hillary Clinton lost to Trump despite firing up her crowds with musical performances and Democratic allies.
Trump brushed off Harris’ attempt to harness star power for her campaign.
”Kamala is at a dance party with Beyoncé,” the former president said Friday in Traverse City, Michigan. Trump, the Republican nominee for president, is scheduled to hold a rally in Novi, a suburb of Detroit, on Saturday before a later event in State College, Pennsylvania.
Tired of hearing about north Minneapolis kids having to go trick-or-treating in the suburbs, business owner KB Brown started throwing a costume bash at the Capri Theater with the goal of bringing together families and the organizations that care for them.
Now in its fourth year, that Halloween party has become a stone soup of community organizations cooking out, roller skating and giving away tote bags of candy to tiny superheroes and princesses.
Elected officials, including state Rep. Esther Agbaje, DFL-Minneapolis, and Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Lunde, dropped in on the festivities Saturday to get out the vote in the final stretch of door-knocking season. KMOJ’s Q Bear DJed the party.
KB Brown and his grandson Zakari, 3. Brown founded Project Refocus, a nonprofit dealing with youth mentorship, security along the West Broadway business corridor and opioid response in the surrounding neighborhoods. (Susan Du/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Farji Shaheer of Innovative SOULutions provided a bounce house and inflatable basketball hoops. A violence intervention professional who offers community training on treating traumatic bleeding, Shaheer recently purchased land in Bemidji to redevelop into a retreat center for gun violence survivors.
He in turn invited Santella Williams and Dominque Howard to bring Pull and Pay, a former Metro Mobility bus retrofitted as a mobile arcade full of vintage games such as “NBA Jam” and “Big Buck Hunter.” The bus was a pandemic epiphany for Williams and fiancé Howard when they suddenly found themselves with four kids and nowhere to take them after COVID-19 shut everything down. Pull and Pay now shows up to community events throughout the North Side.
Pull and Pay owner Dominique Howard showed kids, squeezed elbow to elbow, how to play “Big Buck Hunter” inside his homebuilt mobile arcade. (Susan Du/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
“This is the first time I’ve been able to come through, but we figured we’d stop by check it out. It’s so perfect, and such a beautiful day,” said Shannon Tekle, a Northside Economic Opportunity Network board member attending with her two-year daughter, both of them dressed as monarch butterflies.
“North Side, we’re a big family,” said Brown, proudly toting his grandson Zakari (a 3-year-old Chucky with candy-smeared cheeks) on one arm. “Everybody here is from the community.”
