Alexandra Chalupa, a self-described human rights activist, approached the mission in 2016 showing interest in Manafort’s case. The ambassador, Valery Chaly, said in written answers to the Hill that his office was unaware of her connections to the DNC at the time and knew Chalupa “because of her engagement with Ukrainian and other diasporas in Washington D.C.”

“All ideas floated by Alexandra were related to approaching a Member of Congress with a purpose to initiate hearings on Paul Manafort or letting an investigative journalist ask President Poroshenko a question about Mr. Manafort during his public talk in Washington, D.C.,” the ambassador said. He insisted that the embassy refused to get involved in the US election.

The statement differs from what the mission claimed in 2017, when Politico ran an investigative piece about Kiev’s attempts to sabotage the Trump campaign. Back then, the embassy said Chalupa was organizing an event supporting female Ukrainian leaders.

Chalupa called the article in the Hill a “hit piece,” ordered by Trump and his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

While the media attention was focused on Russian meddling and collusion for over two years, traces of Ukrainian interference received less attention even though they are rather thick.

A Kiev court ruled that two Ukrainian officials violated the law and attempted to interfere in the US election when they published documents detailing payments Manafort received from the former Ukrainian president.

One of these officials, lawmaker Sergey Leshchenko, provided information to Fusion GPS – the company hired by the Clinton campaign that commissioned the Steele dossier.

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