Russia-Ukraine live updates: Exodus swells to more than 4.5 million as battles lines shift
U.S. officials are “working through” when to send diplomats back to Kyiv, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken in February directed all U.S. Embassy personnel in Ukraine’s capital to relocate to Lviv, near the border with Poland. A week later, the State Department said embassy staff would be spending nights in Poland.
Appearing on Sunday talk shows, Sullivan said Ukraine’s forces had repelled Russia’s advances on Kyiv partly because of U.S. military aid.
“European leaders are walking around the city of Kyiv. They’re sending back diplomats, reopening embassies. When are the Americans going to go back?” CBS News’s Margaret Brennan asked Sullivan on “Face the Nation.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited Kyiv last week. In recent days, Italy and the European Union have announced plans to reopen shuttered embassies in Ukraine’s capital.
“Well, we’re working through when we will be in a position to set our diplomatic presence back up in Kyiv,” Sullivan said on CBS. “That’s a judgment that gets worked through our security professionals. They are actively doing that. In the meantime, though, Margaret, the United States is surging resources, weapons, military equipment — but also diplomatic resources — to support the Ukrainians.”
Sullivan said President Biden led a campaign at the United Nations to get Russia ejected from the Human Rights Council. “It is the United States that is taking the lead in organizing and delivering not just our own military supplies, but those of allies, partners,” Sullivan added. “So we’ll keep doing that even as we work on getting American diplomats back into the country.”