Ukrainian man charged with stabbing fellow Ukrainian for looking Russian in NYC

June 4 (UPI) -- A Ukrainian immigrant has been charged for allegedly stabbing a fellow Ukrainian he wrongly thought was Russian at a karaoke bar in New York City.

Oleg Sulyma, 31, has been indicted on 24 charges including attempted murder as a hate crime for stabbing Andrii Meleshkov, who needed 17 stitches, during the dispute in April, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said in a statement Wednesday.

The incident happened at the Falada lounge in the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood of Brooklyn, which has a high number of residents with ties to Russia, Ukraine and other former Soviet nations.

Sulyma allegedly approached Meleshkov, 36, and two of his friends on April 25 after hearing them speak Russian and demanded proof that they were Ukrainian, prosecutors said.

"You look Russian," Sulyma allegedly said. "I will show you what a real Ukrainian is."

Sulyma then allegedly grabbed two beer bottles and smashed them against a table while threatening the Meleshkov.

"I'm going to cut you," Sulyma said, according to prosecutors, before stabbing Meleshkov in his neck and the right side of his face.

NYPD officers who responded heard Sulyma continue to refer to Melshkov as Russian with the use of expletives.

Sulyma was released from custody on supervised released and will return to court in August.

He pleaded not guilty to his charges on Wednesday, WNBC reported.

Meleshkov, who moved to Brooklyn in 2015 from eastern Europe, told the New York Post in early May that he and his friends had switched to speaking Ukrainian after being confronted by Sulyma "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 New York Post.

"The paramedics told me it's my second birthday because the wound that was on the left side on the neck, it came really close to the carotid artery."

Sulyma's attorney Arthur Gershfeld has said that he suffered a collapsed lung and that he "bore the brunt" of the "disputed argument."

Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, has noted that there has been a "rise in Russophobia has been observed in a number of countries" since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.