Foreign Minister apologises for El AL blood money slur
UKRAINIAN Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba apologised on Tuesday for accusing Israel’s national airline of bypassing international sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine by accepting funds via a Russian payment system.
In a tweet on Monday, Kuleba charged that El Al was continuing to accept payments from Mir, sharing a screenshot of a booking page showing the Russian electronic transfer’s logo along with Visa and Mastercard.
“While the world sanctions Russia for its barbaric atrocities in Ukraine, some prefer to make money soaked in Ukrainian blood,” he alleged. “Immoral and a blow to Ukrainian-Israeli relations.”
El Al disputed the accusation, saying it had stopped accepting Mir on February 28, four days after Russia launched its military offensive in Ukraine.
The airline lamented that Kuleba had not checked before posting his “misleading tweet” and noted that its planes have brought humanitarian aid to Ukraine and also ferried refugees to Israel.
“Indeed, the ‘Mir’ payment button remained on the website, but the use of it was blocked,” Kuleba acknowledged on Tuesday morning, though the system’s logo did not appear on the El Al website during attempts to book flights from the United States, Israel and Russia on Monday.
“I am grateful to El Al for its important humanitarian operations and convey my apologies,” he added in a Twitter post.
Kuleba deleted the original tweet shortly after apologising.
El Al has faced criticism for being one of few Western airlines still operating flights to Russia.
It said on Monday that it was doing so at the request of Israel’s government and “will continue to get Israelis and Jews out of Russia so long as it is possible”.
TIMES OF ISRAEL
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