US Embassy in Kyiv to Reopen After Threat of Attack

The United States Embassy in Kyiv will reopen Thursday, Nov. 21, after closing due to the threat of an air attack, the State Department said.

Spokesman Matthew Miller declined to say what kind of threat had forced the embassy to shut down on Wednesday as a safety precaution.

"We take the safety and security of our personnel... extremely seriously," Miller said.

The US mission had closed a day after Moscow vowed to respond to Ukraine's firing of long-range US-supplied missiles at Russian territory for the first time in the nearly three-year war.

"The US Embassy in Kyiv has received specific information of a potential significant air attack on November 20," the embassy had said on its website.

The warning comes amid heightened tensions following Ukraine’s use of US-supplied ATACMS long-range missiles against a military facility in Russia’s Bryansk region, carried out days after Washington approved Kyiv’s use of the weapons.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking at a G20 meeting in Brazil, described the missile attack as a sign of Western escalation.

“This is, of course, a signal that they want to escalate,” Lavrov said, vowing that Russia would respond to what he called “a qualitatively new phase of the Western war against Russia.”

Adding to the volatility, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Tuesday, Nov. 19, lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, a move condemned by the US, UK, and EU as “irresponsible.”

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The decree outlines significant changes to Russia’s nuclear policy, where Russia may now use nuclear weapons following “receiving reliable information about the mass launch of means of aerospace attack” or if the country is attacked with conventional weapons, such as cruise missiles or drones.