Moscow, The Indonesia Post – Russia on Tuesday said its embassy in Kiev was operating as usual following a New York Times report that Moscow had begun evacuating the families of staff at their diplomatic mission in Ukraine, the Interfax News Agency reported.
The NYT quoted senior Ukrainian officials as saying that 18 people, the majority of them family members of Russian diplomats, had left Ukraine on January 5. According to him, about 30 other people left the embassy in Kiev and the consulate in Lviv in western Ukraine over the next five days.
The US newspaper also reported that diplomats at two other Russian consulates had been told to prepare to leave Ukraine.
The Russian Foreign Ministry did not comment on their consulate in Ukraine, but told Interfax that their embassy in Kiev was operating as usual.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said it had not received any information from Moscow regarding the evacuation of employees from their diplomatic outposts in Ukraine.
It added that Kiev had no intention of bringing back Ukrainian diplomats from Russia.
Russia’s deployment of troops near its border with Ukraine has fueled Western fears that Moscow is planning to launch an attack.
Russian authorities have dismissed such plans. However, they used the conflict to campaign for security guarantees from the West that would include a halt to NATO’s potential eastward expansion and an official veto over Ukraine from ever joining the military alliance. (mhn/bbs)
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