U.S. diplomats returned to Ukraine this week for the first time since Russia began its invasion of the country, the State Department confirmed Tuesday.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price said members of the U.S. embassy team had begun making day trips to Lviv, a significant diplomatic move after the agency withdrew most of its staff in February and closed the embassy in Kyiv. The officials were relocated to neighboring Poland, but the Biden administration has long said it hoped to resume operations within Ukraine in a show of diplomatic support.
“Today’s travel was a first step ahead of more regular travel in the immediate future, and, as we’ve said, we’re accelerating preparations to resume Embassy Kyiv operations just as soon as possible,” Price said in a media briefing. He added that the U.S. would continue “to facilitate our support to the government and people of Ukraine as they bravely defend their country.”
The announcement came just days after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv. The pair stressed that the White House would continued to move “heaven and earth” to help defend against the Kremlin’s ongoing invasion.
“We’re all here because of Ukraine’s courage, because of the innocent civilians who have been killed and because of the suffering that your people still endure,” Austin said Tuesday during a meeting with defense officials from dozens of NATO and non-NATO countries in Germany. “Your country has been ravaged, your hospitals have been bombed, your citizens have been executed, your children have been traumatized. But Ukraine has done a magnificent job at defending its sovereignty against Russia’s unprovoked invasion.”
Zelenskyy has called on President Joe Biden to deepen security guaranties and provide more weapons and other armaments to help Ukraine defend itself.
Blinken said after his meeting with the Ukrainian leader that he believed Russia was “failing” in its effort to capture the country, saying he believed Zelenskyy and his people could succeed if they had the “right equipment” and the “right support.”
“The bottom line is this: We don’t know how the rest of this war will unfold, but we do know that a sovereign, independent Ukraine will be around a lot longer than Vladimir Putin is on the scene,” Blinken said after his visit.