U.S. embassy building in KievWASHINGTON, Feb 12 The United States does not close its embassy in Kiev, but reduce the number of employees, including by transferring part of the diplomats to Lviv, and reduce activities to the minimum necessary set of functions, among which is interaction with the government of Ukraine, a senior State Department official told reporters. Fearing a «Russian attack», the US Foreign Office announced in Saturday about the departure of most of the embassy staff.The US is transferring some diplomats to Lviv for security reasons»We are not closing the embassy, we are not suspending the operations of the embassy inside the country. We continue to reduce now the number of personnel that we have in the country to perform only the most basic functions,» the official said. requires us to prepare for the worst, and such a scenario obviously involves large-scale Russian attacks on the Ukrainian capital.As you know, Russia has very capable troops with significant combat potential, and if it decides to use a significant part of it against the Ukrainian capital, there are quite a few the possibility that the situation will take a wrong turn, even if restraint is observed and respect for diplomatic facilities,» the State Department spokesman said. He said that most of the evacuated diplomats are returning to the United States, where they will continue to deal with Ukraine. Those who are transferred to Lviv, chosen for its proximity to the western borders, do not constitute a full-fledged diplomatic mission, the official admitted.The remaining US diplomats in Kiev will continue to work with the Ukrainian authorities. «Conceptually, this is more of a group of people from the embassy temporarily working in another city — just like when there is a visit by a high-level delegation of the US government or congress to a trade show or other events,» he explained. The plans attributed to Russia to escalate the situation around Ukraine are categorically denied in Moscow and constantly declare that they are not threatening anyone, and all such statements are used as an excuse to place more NATO military equipment near Russian borders. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said earlier, Russia does not create any pretexts for a conflict situation around Ukraine. According to him, Russia does not rule out that the hysteria around Ukraine, hyped by the West, is aimed at covering Kiev's line of sabotaging the Minsk agreements on Donbass. According to the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov, the US and NATO information hysteria over Ukraine is generously framed by lies and fakes.
