Edited by: TJVNews.com
Now that Russia has launched an invasion of neighboring Ukraine, it appears that many in the New York City area and beyond want Russian officials out of their neighborhood
On Saturday, Long Island Congressman and Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin along with newly elected Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman contacted President Biden to have the Russia removed from the Killenworth compound in Glen Cove, according to a report in the New York Post. The Russian government has owned the compound for 70 years.
The Post reported that Blakeman, who is of Ukrainian descent said: “President Biden, expel these Russians from Nassau County. We don’t need them here, and let’s get this property back on the tax rolls, so the people of Nassau County and Glen Cove don’t have to finance thugs and dictators and people who invade innocent countries.”
Blakeman added that Nassau County was losing $50,000 a year in tax revenue, according to the Post report.
The new Republican Nassau County executive made this announcement as he stood outside the gate of the 36-acre Glen Cove estate. When Russia was known as the Soviet Union, it had purchased the property in the late 1940s and it was used as a residence for its UN ambassador. In later years, it was used as a venue for diplomatic retreats. The Post reported that it had been used a staging area for espionage.
Blakeman, a Republican, made the announcement standing outside the gate of the sprawling estate which the Soviet Union bought in the late 1940s as a residence for its UN ambassador and which later served as a retreat for its diplomats. But it has long been thought to also be a center for espionage.
Blakeman said: “One of the things that is most disconcerting is the fact that we have no idea what they’re doing behind these walls; what kind of nefarious activities they could be engaged in.”
Rep. Lee Zeldin, who is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee asserted that the sanctions already imposed on Russia were not sufficient in serving as a deterrent in their invasion of Ukraine, as was reported by the Post. He called for Russia’s removal from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication — or SWIFT — as well.
Zeldin said: “I believe that Russia is now a state sponsor of terror with their actions,” he said. “I believe that Russia should be cut off with secondary sanctions on their banking system,” as was reported by the Post.
Alongside Blakeman and Zeldin stood approximately 40 Ukrainian Americans, many of whom were children holding the country’s blue and yellow flag, according to the Post report.
For their part, Long Island residents have always been uncomfortable with the presence of the Russians in the Glen Cove compound.
The Killenworth mansion is comprised of 26,459 square feet and during a 1960 visit to the United Nations in Manhattan, the late Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev stayed there, according to the Post report. The report indicated that local residents of the area expressed their anger with a protest in which they carried signs calling Khrushchev a “Pig Fat Murderer” and “Chubby Russian Hangman.”
The Post reported that in 2016, the United States ousted Russia from yet another compound in Long Island. It was a 36-room mansion that the Soviet Union purchased in 1952 and it was known as Norwich House, located in Upper Brookville. The Post reported that it was also used as “a purported weekend retreat for its diplomats, but it was actually intended as an espionage base, according to sources.”
