Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s decision to withdraw some Americans from the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv was “premature” and plays into Russia’s hands, according to a prominent Ukrainian diplomat.
“There are 129 diplomatic missions in Ukraine. Of these, only 4 have declared the departure of the family members of personnel: US, UK, Australia and Germany,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko wrote on Twitter. “The rest, including EU … NATO, and UN have not expressed their intention to follow such premature steps.”
Blinken ordered the families of U.S. diplomats to leave Ukraine on Sunday in conjunction with a “do not travel” warning for both Russia and Ukraine. That order, in the wake of a substantial Russian military deployment to Belarus, has raised questions in Ukraine and abroad about whether Kyiv is at greater risk in this crisis than it has been over the last several years of war.
“I’m not going to speak to any intelligence,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said during a regular press briefing when a Ukrainian journalist asked about threats to the capital. “We are doing this as a prudent step because of continued Russian efforts to destabilize the country and to undermine the security of Ukrainian citizens and others visiting or residing in Ukraine.”
US SENDING WEAPONS TO UKRAINE AND PULLING AMERICANS OUT
Ukraine is not a member of NATO, but Russian President Vladimir Putin has mobilized troops around Ukrainian borders while claiming the crisis can be averted only by a contraction of NATO’s security arrangements with Eastern European members of the trans-Atlantic alliance. The new mobilization of Russian forces raises the specter of an expanded conflict in Ukraine, which has been wracked by war ever since Putin annexed Crimea and destabilized eastern Ukraine after Ukrainian officials moved to sign a free trade deal with the European Union — an economic pact he declared a “major threat” to Russia.
“This conflict unleashed by Russia against Ukraine will only end once the West sends a very simple message to Russia: Ukraine is not just a country that we support; it is a part of our world, it is one of us, and it will never return to you,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said this week.
Some Ukrainian officials doubt that Putin plans to launch a major new offensive. “It will be very difficult for them to achieve their aims by military means. I think, impossible,” Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov told the Wall Street Journal. “They have a multifaceted plan to destabilize the domestic situation on the territory of our country. That’s the number one task for them.”
Nikolenko, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, implied that the U.S. Embassy drawdown could backfire by aiding that Russian objective.
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“Grateful to our international partners for their solidarity with Ukraine,” he tweeted. “It is extremely important to avoid activity that could be used in the information space to increase tensions in society and destabilize the economic and financial security of Ukraine.”
