Five Countries Announce Evacuation of Diplomats from Ukraine as Tensions Escalate

The United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Canada are evacuating their diplomats and their family members from Ukraine. Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba announced today that only four countries— the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Germany— from a total of 129 diplomatic missions in Ukraine, have reported decisions to evacuate their staff to Kyiv. This was reported by TASS.

Later, the Canadian Foreign Ministry also announced a similar decision. According to sources from the Japanese publication Kyodo, the Japanese government is also considering the necessity of evacuating its citizens, including embassy staff, from Ukraine. These countries have also urged their citizens to avoid travel to Ukraine.

Kuleba deemed the decisions by the mentioned countries to be premature. According to the Ukrainian authorities, there are no real grounds for such actions.

In recent months, there have been statements in the West, as well as in Kyiv, about Russia's possible invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin has called these claims an empty and unfounded provocation of tensions.