KIEV, January 30./TASS/. The US Embassy in Ukraine has once again advised its nationals to depart Ukraine citing an alleged threat of Russia's invasion.
"The security situation in Ukraine continues to be unpredictable due to the increased threats of Russian military action and can deteriorate with little notice. U.S citizens in Ukraine should consider departing now using commercial or other privately available transportation options," the embassy said.
As the possible routes for evacuation, it listed Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Moldova. Earlier, Australia, the UK, Germany, Canada and Japan also said they were evacuating part of their envoys and their families.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said that the evacuation of foreign envoys from Ukraine did not mean an imminent escalation of the situation in the country. He even met with heads of diplomatic missions of foreign states and organizations accredited in Ukraine, urging against evacuations. He said the damage from stoking tensions was similar to that from military operations.
"Zelensky, Foreign Minister [Dmitry Kuleba], Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council [Aleksey Danilov] and Defense Minister [Aleksey Reznikov] are saying that they do not see anything special, [the Russian forces] are on their own territory <…>, so there is no need to aggravate the situation, one needs to calm down. But the West does not want them to calm down, and is not willing to calm itself down, that’s the point," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said earlier.
"The West is looking forward to some real provocation," the Russian top diplomat emphasized. According to him, European countries are trying to provoke "Kiev to launch a military operation in Donbass," or in another way finally "bury" the Minsk accords.