Senate approval is required for her nomination. If confirmed, Brink (current U.S. ambassador in Slovakia) would assume the role of top American diplomat in Ukraine while the country continues to defend itsself from Russian invasion. Brink is a career foreign service officer and has served as deputy secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. She was also a member of the White House National Security Council.
After Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had traveled to Kyiv in order to meet with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the White House officially announced Brink as Mr. Biden’s U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine.
These two officials are the highest-ranking U.S. officials who have visited Ukraine’s capital since Russia invaded in February. Blinken informed Zelenskyy about Mr. Biden’s appointment of Brink to be ambassador during the visit.
The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine is currently in Kyiv. However, the State Department moved its embassy operations from Kyiv in mid-February to Lviv as a response to Russia’s increase in troops at Ukraine’s borders. After meeting with Zelenskyy, Blinken informed reporters that U.S. diplomats have been largely working in Poland since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. The State Department will then begin looking into how to reopen its embassy in the capital.
Blinken stated, “We are doing it deliberately, carefully, with the security and well-being of our personnel foremost in our minds, but we are doing it.”
Since spring 2019, the U.S. hasn’t had a Senate-confirmed Ambassador in Ukraine. This was after Marie Yovanovitch got pushed out of her post by former President Donald Trump. Yovanovitch would later testify before the House in its impeachment proceedings against Trump. She claimed she was forced out of her post by a smear campaign orchestrated by “foreign corrupt interest” in Ukraine, who worked with allies to damage her reputation.
