U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent is going to temporarily lead the U.S. embassy in Kyiv in July, according to the embassy.
“George Kent, who currently serves as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, will arrive in Kyiv later this week to act as the temporary Charge d’Affaires at the U.S. embassy in Kyiv until later this month,” the embassy said in a written statement on July 7. “Charge d’Affaires Kristina Kvien will then return to Ukraine after two weeks of holiday leave and resume her duties.”
Kent is far from new to Ukraine. He held the position of deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv in 2015-2018.
He is also known to Ukrainians as one of the top officials who testified during the impeachment hearing looking into then-U.S. President Donald Trump and his associates’ campaign to pressure Ukrainian leadership into investigating Trump’s opponent Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
During his testimony, Kent corroborated that U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was removed from office as a result of a covert smear campaign led by Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani; two vengeful Ukrainian prosecutors, former prosecutors general Viktor Shokin and Yuriy Lutsenko; sitting anti-corruption prosecutor Nazar Kholodnytsky and deputy prosecutor general Kostiantyn Kulyk.
Earlier, Ukrainian media ZN.ua reported, citing their sources, that Kent might run the embassy until the official appointment of a new U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. But the embassy emphasized that Kvien will keep her position upon returning from holiday leave.
Ukraine has been without an official U.S. ambassador since Yovanovitch got fired by Trump in May 2019. Since then, American interests have been served by two charge d’affaires — William B. Taylor, the ambassador in Ukraine from 2006– 2009, and Kvien, who took over as head of the mission after Taylor left in January 2020.
In 2020, Trump nominated Keith W. Dayton as ambassador to Ukraine, but his candidacy hasn’t been confirmed by Senate.
