'F--- off': Ukrainian diplomat rails against Elon Musk's proposed peace deal

Tesla CEO Elon Musk earned the ire of a Ukrainian diplomat following his publication of a Twitter poll to measure support for a hypothetical peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.

Andriy Melnyk, the former Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, vehemently opposed Musk's plan, under which Ukraine would become a neutral country between NATO and Russia, abandon claims to Crimea, and accept the results of a U.N.-monitored vote in the contested regions.

Ukraine-Russia Peace:

- Redo elections of annexed regions under UN supervision. Russia leaves if that is will of the people.

- Crimea formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev’s mistake).

- Water supply to Crimea assured.

- Ukraine remains neutral.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2022

"F– off is my very diplomatic reply to you," Melnyk wrote on Twitter. He did not self-censor his profanity.

Musk's plan included a number of difficult concessions to which Kyiv would have to agree. First among them is a second annexation vote under U.N. auspices in the Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, which Russia formally annexed following a series of widely panned referendums.

Also potentially provocative to the Ukrainians was Musk's reference to "Khrushchev's mistake," referring to the Soviet leader's transfer of Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954. The Russian Empire formally annexed the Crimean region in 1783, though the Tatar Khanate became nominally "independent" from the Ottoman Empire in 1774, under the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca.

Melnyk's uncouth retort follows a pattern of abrasive comments that saw Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recall him from his post in Berlin. He reportedly referred to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as an "offended liver sausage," according to The Hill.