The United States has criticised “false reporting” by the European Union after it claimed that American diplomats were fleeing Kyiv.
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s most senior diplomat, claimed the US was the only country to evacuate its embassy in response to Russian threats against the Ukrainian capital over the weekend, while praising Europeans’ courage for remaining in place.
But in an unusual intervention highlighting the tensions between Washington and Brussels, the US embassy in Ukraine stated: “There are no changes to our operations, and reports otherwise are false.”
Moscow had warned diplomats and foreigners living in Kyiv to leave the city before its planned strikes on “decision-making centres” in Kyiv.
Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, also urged the US to evacuate its envoys in a personal phone call to Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state. In the days after their discussion, unsubstantiated images of what appeared to be diplomatic staff leaving the US embassy in Kyiv emerged.
On Thursday, Ms Kallas told reporters before a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Cyprus: “What we heard from Ukraine yesterday was that all the embassies stayed, except one, so that also takes courage from those embassies, but yes, all the Europeans stayed, America left.”
The US embassy then swiftly posted its rebuttal on social media.
Heorhii Tykhyi, the spokesman for Ukraine’s foreign ministry, added: “The information about the departure of the US embassy is not true.”
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