Welcome to Hard Talk from the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. My guest in this interview

recorded on the 24th of February is a Republican member of the US House of Representatives

with very personal reasons to care deeply about America's rapidly changing strategy in Ukraine.

Victoria Sparts was born and raised in northern Ukraine.

She emigrated to the United States after falling in love with an American midwesterner

some 25 years ago.

She forged a business career in her adopted state of Indiana and then got into politics,

espousing a brand of conservatism

focused on small government and low taxes. She's now in her third term as a Republican

Congresswoman with a reputation for fierce loyalty to Donald Trump and his MAGA movement.

That loyalty now faces a big test. In his first month in office, the president

has turned US strategy in Ukraine on its head. In his pursuit of a rapid end to the war,

begun by Putin's all-out invasion of Ukraine three years ago, Trump has branded Ukraine's

President Zelensky a dictator. He's begun direct talks

with the Kremlin without any Ukrainian or European representation and handed Putin a number of

unprompted diplomatic gifts. How does a Ukrainian-American Republican feel about that. And despite her sympathy for Donald Trump's desire to

slash the size and cost of the federal government, is Elon Musk's Department of Government

efficiency the right and best way to do it. Is Congresswoman Sparts all in with the Trump

agenda wherever it's taking America.

Well, she joins me now on the line from Indiana.

Welcome to Hard Talk.

Thank you for having, Ms. Stephen.

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