Britain is to reopen its Kyiv embassy, Boris Johnson has announced, more than two months after moving it out of the Ukrainian capital before the Russian invasion.
Since the embassy’s closure in February, the UK has retained a diplomatic presence in Ukraine, but has not been providing in-person consular assistance.
The Foreign Office (FCDO) said at that time that the embassy was relocating temporarily and staff were operating from an embassy office in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.
However, the embassy is expected to reopen next week after Russian forces were pushed back or withdrawn from the region around Kyiv in the face of Ukrainian resistance. A team of diplomats returning will include Melinda Simmons, the UK ambassador.
The announcement, which the prime minister made at a press conference in India, also comes after he met the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, during an unannounced visit to Kyiv earlier this month.
“The extraordinary fortitude and success of President Zelenskiy in resisting Russian forces in Kyiv means I can announce that very shortly, next week, we will reopen our embassy in Ukraine’s capital city,” Johnson said at the beginning of the press conference in New Delhi.
“I want to pay tribute to those British diplomats who remained in the region throughout this period.”
More than a dozen European countries, as well as the European Union, have already reopened their missions in Kyiv. They include Italy, Spain and France, which reopened on 16 April. The French ambassador, Etienne de Poncins, said: “It was obviously a very moving moment for me and my colleagues. We left Kyiv seven weeks ago.” He said they did not know whether they would ever return.
The Czechs returned on 13 April, announcing on Twitter: “This is one of the many steps we are taking to show our support for Ukraine.”
Zelenskiy has praised states whose missions have returned to the capital, saying they are sending “a clear signal to the aggressor”.
The US has been weighing up the possibility of reopening its embassy in Kyiv.
The guardian
