US, UK order departure of Ukraine embassy staff family members

WASHINGTON (REUTERS, AFP, NYTIMES) - The United States on Sunday (Jan 23) said it was ordering the departure of eligible family members of staff from its embassy in Ukraine and said all citizens should consider leaving due to the threat of military action from Russia.

US and Russian diplomats made no major breakthrough at talks on Friday (Jan 21) and Moscow has been massing troops on the border with its neighbour.  

On Sunday, Britain accused the Kremlin of seeking to install a pro-Russian leader in Kyiv.

The State Department said it was authorising the “voluntary departure of US direct hire employees and ordered the departure of eligible family members from Embassy Kyiv due to the continued threat of Russian military action”.

“US citizens in Ukraine should consider departing now using commercial or other privately available transportation options,” it added. 

The State Department also said US citizens should not travel to Russia due “to ongoing tension along the border with Ukraine”. 

The State Department reissued its travel advisory that says Americans should not travel to Russia, adding: “US citizens are strongly advised against traveling by land from Russia to Ukraine through this region.”

Britain has also started withdrawing its diplomatic staff from the embassy in Ukraine, the BBC’s diplomatic correspondent said on Monday.

The European Union, meanwhile, is not following suit. Top European diplomat Josep Borrell said there was no need to “dramatise” the situation while talks with Russia continue.

“We are not going to do the same thing because we don’t know any specific reasons,” Mr Borrell said as he arrived for a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday, which will include videolink participation by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

On Sunday, Mr Blinken dismissed the idea of slapping punitive sanctions on Moscow before any potential invasion, saying they should be used as a means of “dissuading” an attack.  

“Once sanctions are triggered, you lose the deterrent effect,” Mr Blinken told CBS.

“So what we’re doing is putting together a whole series of actions that would figure into President (Vladimir) Putin’s calculus.” That includes beefing up defences in Ukraine with more military assistance, Mr Blinken said.

President Joe Biden is considering deploying several thousand US troops, as well as warships and aircraft, to Nato allies in the Baltics and Eastern Europe, according to administration officials. 

The move would signal a major pivot for the Biden administration, which up until recently was taking a restrained stance on  Ukraine, out of fear of provoking Russia into invading. 

But as Russian President Vladimir Putin has ramped up his threatening actions toward Ukraine, and talks between American and Russian officials have failed to discourage him, the administration is now moving away from its do-not-provoke strategy. 

In a meeting Saturday at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, senior Pentagon officials presented Biden with several options that would shift American military assets much closer to Putin’s doorstep, the administration officials said.

The options include sending 1,000 to 5,000 troops to Eastern European countries, with the potential to increase that number tenfold if things deteriorate. 

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk publicly about internal deliberations.

Biden is expected to make a decision as early as this week, they said.