Russian claims that the US Embassy in Ukraine has evacuated its staff and ceased working is not true. Both the embassy and its consulates continue working. Claims that the Odesa consulate has closed are completely ridiculous, as that particular office closed four years ago in 1918.
Russian media have been busy disseminating stories claiming that the United States has called on its citizens to leave the territory of Ukraine, that the US Embassy in Kyiv and the consulate in Odesa have ceased working and evacuated their staff “in a hurry”. Some Kremlin propagandists have added a new conspiracy theory spin to this fake, claiming that these alleged evacuations are driven by US military plans to conduct a “bacteriological strike” against Kyiv.
The primary source of this disinformation is the Sputnik Belarus channel, which claims to be reporting these fakes thanks to “eyewitnesses,” who claims that “the embassy building is closed, the employees are not visible.”
On July 14 the US Embassy in Ukraine issued a security alert urging its citizens not to enter Ukraine and those in Ukraine, to leave the country immediately. According to the Embassy’s website, the recommendation is due to “The security situation throughout Ukraine continues to be violent and unpredictable due to ongoing military attacks by Russia, with active fighting in country and uncertain safety conditions. The Embassy also advised fellow citizens to avoid large gatherings and organized events, as they may serve as Russian military targets anywhere in Ukraine, including its western regions.
Nevertheless, Russian media claims about embassy and consulate closures are simply not true, the US Embassy in Kyiv is continuing its work.
There is no mention on the Embassy website or its social media accounts that the office is suspending its work in Ukraine. On the contrary, the US Embassy Facebook and Twitter accounts as well as US Ambassador Bridget Brink’s accounts continue informing about the Embassy’s activities, are full of information about US assistance to Ukraine, meetings and working visits both on the territory of Ukraine and on the Polish-Ukrainian border.
On July 15 Kyiv mayor Vitaliy Klitschko announced in his Telegram channel that he’s met with Ambassador Brink on that very day. The first reports that the Embassy allegedly left Kyiv began appearing early on the morning of July 16. It is highly unlikely that an embassy could evacuate its employees overnight.
Ambassador Brink has also been actively tweeting about her recent meetings, with the Orthodox Church in Ukraine Metropolitan Epiphaniy, with the Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, Ukraine’s Commander in Chief General Valeriy Zaluzhny, Parliamentary speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk, Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov. All these meetings took place in Kyiv, clearly showing that the US Embassy in Kyiv is continuing its work in Ukraine.
On May 18, the US Embassy in Ukraine officially resumed its work in Kyiv, raising the American flag over the complex, and has not stopped operations since then.
Russian media claims that in addition to the US Embassy in Kyiv, the consulate in Odesa also left Ukraine, completely exposes the propagandists’ fake. The fact is that since Ukraine declared independence in 1991, there has never been a US consulate in Odesa.
The US Embassy website does not contain any information about a consulate in Odesa. However, there are publications on the site indicating that US consular workers provided planned consular services – but in the hotel lobby. A consular officer travels to Odesa to on specially allotted days.
One can check the list of consulates in Ukraine can be found on EmbassyPages.com. As expected, this list does not include a US consulate in Odesa. StopFake spoke with Odesa historian and local expert Oleksandr Babich, who assured us that since 1991, there has been no US consulate in this port city. The last US consulate in Odesa existed during the time of the Russian tsarist empire and closed in 1018.
Russian propagandists claims that the US military is allegedly preparing a “bacteriological strike” against Kyiv is a completely outrageous conspiracy theory. Previously, StopFake has repeatedly debunked such disinformation – “Fake: the Americans wanted to use ticks as a biological weapon in Ukraine”, “Fake: biological weapons laboratories on the territory of Ukraine.”
