The State Department has ordered families of workers at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine to leave the country beginning as soon as Monday, U.S. officials told Fox News.
The State Department will also begin telling American civilians in Ukraine next week to leave the country on commercial flights โwhile those are still available,โ one U.S. official told Fox on Saturday. With Russian fighter jets currently stationed in Belarus, the country on Ukraineโs northern border, another official said the Pentagon is concerned Ukraineโs capital of Kyiv is โnow in the crosshairs.โ
The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv had already requested authorization to begin an evacuation of nonessential personnel as well as their families, CNN reported earlier on Saturday. When asked for comment, a State Department spokesperson told CNN the agency had โnothing to announce at this time.โ
The reports come amid speculation over whether Russian president Vladimir Putin intends to invade Ukraine. Russia has stationed over 100,000 troops at the Ukrainian border in recent weeks, while Putin has demanded that Ukraine be barred from joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv touted an American arms shipment that arrived in Ukraine on Friday.
โMy guess is he will move in, he has to do something,โ President Biden said of Putin at a press conference on Wednesday.
While Biden said โRussia will be held accountable if it invades,โ he then added โIt depends on what it does. Itโs one thing if itโs a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do, et cetera.โ
The remark led Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to state on Twitter that there are โno minor incursions.โ
โWe want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations. Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones,โ Zelensky wrote. โI say this as the President of a great power.โ






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