L’US embassy in Kiev asked the State Department to authorize the departure of all non-essential personnel and their families. The CNN reported, citing sources familiar with the matter, while a source close to the Ukrainian government stated that the United States informed Ukraine that “evacuations will begin probably as early as next week” of the families of the embassy diplomats.
The source also claimed that President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken about the issue calling any such decision an “overreaction”. According to the US broadcaster, a State Department spokesperson said he had “nothing to announce at this time”, adding, “We conduct rigorous contingency planning, as we always do, in the event that security conditions deteriorate.”
KIEV ASKS IN BERLIN FOR HELMETS AND BULLET-PROOF JACKETS – Meanwhile, Kiev urges Germany to review its no to the supply of weapons to Ukraine and in the meantime calls for the sending of helmets and bulletproof vests. Right now we need “urgently 100,000 helmets and bulletproof vests for the volunteers who are showing up to defend their homeland together with the armed forces,” said the Ukrainian ambassador to Berlin, Andrij Melnyk, in an interview with the economic daily Handelsblatt.
“The gravity of the situation requires an immediate rethinking and change of policy of the (German) government on the supply of arms to Ukraine”, continued the diplomat, explaining that Kiev will do everything to convince “the German government and the opposition why provide defensive weapons to Ukraine “.
Finally, the ambassador called for a step by Chancellor Olaf Scholz for the resumption of negotiations in the Normandy format (France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine). “It would be very important to the resumption of the Normandy format if Chancellor Scholz personally committed himself to force,” said Melnyk.
So far, Germany has opposed supplying weapons to Kiev in the context of the ongoing crisis, with 100,000 Russian soldiers amassed on the border with Ukraine. “Arms deliveries would not be useful at this time, there is consensus on this in the federal government,” Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht told Die Welt newspaper today, stressing that Berlin is committed to a diplomatic solution. For now, Lambrecht has announced that a field hospital will be sent to Ukraine in February.