US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has rejected months-long Russian warnings to foreign diplomats to leave kyiv, saying Moscow will not decide whether Washington maintains its presence in the Ukrainian capital.
“Look, we have an embassy there, and we will determine whether it is safe for them to be there or not,” Rubio told reporters Sunday.
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“They’ve been warning diplomats to leave for months, and I don’t think it’s a surprise to anyone that kyiv is under attack. I think that’s well understood.”
Rubio said the State Department assessed the security of each U.S. diplomatic mission daily and would change its position if Washington believed conditions warranted it.
“We haven’t done it until now,” he said.
The remarks constitute the latest Western rejection of a sustained effort by Russia to warn – and increasingly pressure – foreign governments to withdraw their diplomatic missions from kyiv.
But for Moscow, the issue goes well beyond embassy security.
An exodus of Western diplomats from the Ukrainian capital would give the Kremlin a powerful symbolic victory: the image of Ukraine’s allies abandoning kyiv under Russian military pressure, four years after Moscow failed to capture the city.
Europe says it remains
Rubio’s comments follow a coordinated response from European governments rejecting Russia’s latest warnings.
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Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden have publicly declared that their embassies will remain in kyiv, joining France, Poland, Estonia and the European Union in reaffirming their diplomatic presence.
“We remain in Kyiv,” the embassies said in coordinated messages.
Kyiv Post previously reported that the statements came after the Russian Foreign Ministry warned foreign nationals and diplomatic staff that remaining in the Ukrainian capital posed “mortal danger” as Moscow threatened further large-scale strikes.
The embassies called on Russia to respect the Vienna Convention and international humanitarian law rather than trying to intimidate diplomatic missions.
EU Ambassador to Ukraine Katarína Mathernová went further, saying that none of the 25 EU member states with embassies in kyiv were preparing to leave.
“I am not aware of any embassies leaving – and certainly not embassies of EU countries,” Mathernová said.
The EU Delegation and the EU Advisory Mission also remain operational in Kyiv.
The European Commission said separately that Russia’s threats would neither reduce EU support for Ukraine nor alter the bloc’s diplomatic presence.
Poland also rejected any suggestion that it was preparing to withdraw its mission, calling Moscow’s warnings an attempt to intimidate European governments and weaken their support for Ukraine.
Moscow has been sending the message for months
The current confrontation did not begin with Russia’s October warning.
The Kyiv Post reported in May that Rubio had already responded to Russian warnings about the security of diplomatic facilities in kyiv after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov delivered a message from Vladimir Putin to the Trump administration.
At the time, Rubio said Russia had not directly ordered the United States to evacuate its embassy, but had issued broader warnings about the danger facing diplomatic facilities in the capital.
Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha accused Moscow of responding to US peace efforts with threats against kyiv, calling the warning a “brazen provocation.”
A few days later, another controversy arose when reports suggested that the American embassy had left kyiv.
The Kyiv Post reported that the embassy publicly denied the claim.
“The US Embassy is open. There is no change in our operations and other reports are false,” the mission said at the time.
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry also rejected reports of a US evacuation.
Why withdrawing the embassy would be important for Moscow
Embassies are not simple administrative offices. Their presence in a capital during wartime is an unmistakable political signal.
Foreign diplomats meet with Ukrainian officials, coordinate military and economic assistance, host visiting delegations and maintain direct communications between Kyiv and allied governments.
Their continued presence also reveals something more fundamental: foreign governments continue to recognize Kyiv as a functioning capital whose government remains firmly in control.
This symbolism has taken on particular weight since the first weeks of the full-scale Russian invasion.
Before Russian troops crossed the border in February 2022, the United States and a number of other countries temporarily pulled their diplomats away from kyiv, with Western intelligence services warning that Russian forces could quickly reach the capital.
Russia then tries to seize Kyiv.
It failed.
As Ukrainian forces pushed Russian troops out of the kyiv region, Western officials began to return.
On May 18, 2022, the United States officially reopened its embassy in Kyiv and once again raised the American flag over the mission. Antony Blinken, then the US secretary of state, explicitly linked the reopening to Ukraine’s successful defense of its capital.
“The Ukrainian people, with our security assistance, defended their homeland,” he said as the embassy resumed operations.
The return of diplomats has become one of the clearest visual indicators of Russia’s defeat around kyiv. A mass departure would now carry the opposite symbolism.
Make Kyiv unlivable
Russia’s latest diplomatic warnings coincide with an intensifying campaign against the Ukrainian capital. Moscow has struck transport infrastructure, residential areas and other targets while openly promising further large-scale attacks.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has described Russia’s evolving strategy as an attempt to make Ukrainian cities increasingly difficult to live in by systematically attacking the infrastructure necessary for their livelihood.
Four years after failing to capture kyiv, Moscow is once again trying to isolate the capital with missiles, drones and threats.
It failed again.
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