Ukrainian man mistaken as Russian stabbed in NYC Brooklyn bar

A Ukrainian man stabbed a compatriot for speaking in Russian at a New York City bar after he was confronted with a tongue-twister and “fail[ed] to prove he was Ukrainian.”

Andrii Meleshkov, a 36-year-old truck driver who immigrated to Ukraine to the U.S. in 2015, was at a Brooklyn karaoke bar on Mar. 25 for a birthday party when Oleg Sulyma, a 31-year-old construction worker, sat down at his table and started swearing at him and his friends.

“You look Russian,” said Sulyma, who is also Ukrainian, reports the New York Post, citing prosecutors.

Meleshkov was born and raised in Eastern Ukraine and has a Russian mother. His parents are currently sheltering in a basement in Zaporizhzhia as Russian forces advance.

“We switched to Ukrainian in order to calm him down but it was getting him more and more agitated and he started asking us to translate words to prove that we’re Ukrainian,” Meleshkov told The Post.

Sulyma challenged Meleshkov with a Ukrainian tongue-twister that native Russian speakers have difficulty pronouncing.

Despite complying, Sulyma got more and more agitated until he smashed two beer bottles from the table together and advanced on Meleshkov menacingly, saying: “I’m getting ready to kill you.”

Meleshokov’s friends took Sulyma down until police arrived, but not before he stabbed his fellow Ukrainian in the cheek, ears, temple and neck. Sulyma’s wounds would eventually require 17 stitches.

Sulyma was arrested and charged with felony hate crimes, as well as menacing, harassment and criminal possession of a weapon. Sulyma’s lawyer asserts he was the victim, as it was one vs. three and he sustained a collapsed lung.

Anti-Russian sentiment has risen since the outbreak of the Ukraine war but not many hate crimes have been reported, especially in the U.S.

About a third of Ukrainians speak Russian as their first language, but many who do have begun dropping it after Moscow’s invasion began.