Former US ambassador to Ukraine who resigned in protest launches run for Congress in Michigan

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LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Bridget Brink, who stepped down as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine this year in protest of what she said was President Donald Trump's unfair treatment of the the war-torn country, announced Wednesday that she's running for Congress in one of Michigan's most competitive districts.

The longtime diplomat, who previously held high-ranking State Department roles in other former Soviet and Eastern European countries, is casting herself as a public servant as she runs in next year's midterm elections, when her Democrats hope to win control of the House.

“My next mission: to fight for what’s right here at home,” she said.

Trump picked Brink to be the country's ambassador to Slovakia in 2019 and Biden tapped her to be ambassador to Ukraine shortly after Russia invaded the country in 2022. She resigned in April, saying in an op-ed published in the Detroit Free Press that Trump continues to pressure Ukraine and not Russia.

“Appeasing a dictator never has and never will achieve lasting peace,” she said in a video announcing her candidacy. “And it’s just not who we are.”

Having worked as a diplomat under five presidents, Brink said that if elected, she would take on “extremists” and powerful influences such as Elon Musk. She criticized Republicans for cutting government funding and programs.

Brink, who grew up in Grand Rapids, is running in the 7th District, which covers a swath of southern and central Michigan that includes the capital, Lansing, and is one of the state's most competitive.

Last year, Army veteran Tom Barrett flipped the district for Republicans, delivering a key win for the party as it kept its House majority. He defeated Democrat Curtis Hill by almost four percentage points in the open race.

The seat was previously held by centrist Democrat Elissa Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who successfully ran for U.S. Senate in 2024.