Biden to nominate Bridget Brink as US ambassador to Ukraine (1 Viewer)

[Rogue Valley]

Biden to nominate Bridget Brink as US ambassador to Ukraine

President Biden on Monday announced plans to nominate Bridget Brink, the current U.S. ambassador to Slovakia, as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. The announcement follows months of questions …

thehill.com

4.25.22
President Biden on Monday announced plans to nominate Bridget Brink, the current U.S. ambassador to Slovakia, as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. The announcement follows months of questions about whom Biden would nominate to the role, particularly in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the end of February. Brink is a career foreign service officer who has spent much of her career focused on Europe and Eurasia. Biden announced his nominee for the ambassador post after Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin traveled to Ukraine to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as Ukrainian forces resist a renewed Russian onslaught in the eastern part of the country.

The secretary of State also said that U.S. diplomats would be returning to Ukraine beginning next week. The U.S. closed its embassy in Kyiv in mid-February and moved remaining diplomats to the city of Lviv, in western Ukraine near the border with Poland. Diplomats were later evacuated from Ukraine entirely. Blinken said that the U.S. would look at opening the embassy in Kyiv over the next “couple of weeks.” "We’re doing it deliberately, we’re doing it carefully, we’re doing it with the security of our personnel foremost in mind, but we’re doing it,” he said. The U.S. has been without a confirmed ambassador to Ukraine for more than two years. The last official confirmed to the role was Marie Yovanovitch, who was forced out by former President Trump. That move contributed to Trump’s first impeachment.

Good news. The US diplomats for Ukraine have been softly complaining that they can't do their jobs properly from Warsawa.

Godspeed and stay safe.