U.S. Senate confirms ambassador to Ukraine after 3-year vacancy amid Russian war – National
The U.S. Senate unanimously accepted veteran diplomat Bridget Brink on Wednesday to be ambassador to Ukraine, filling a essential submit that has been vacant for 3 years as Washington works to extend help for the federal government in Kyiv.
Brink was accepted by unanimous voice vote.
Each President Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats and Republicans had urged Brink’s fast affirmation. The Senate International Relations Committee accepted Brink unanimously earlier on Wednesday, after holding her affirmation listening to simply two weeks after Biden introduced the nomination on April 25.
The fast motion underscored the will from each events to ship an envoy to help Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as he faces Russia’s invasion. Brink’s Senate affirmation got here on the identical day that the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv reopened after a three-month closure resulting from Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion.
The Senate additionally is anticipated later this week to approve almost $40 billion in navy and humanitarian help for Kyiv, funding that has already handed the Home of Representatives.
A Michigan native who speaks Russian, Brink is at the moment U.S. ambassador to Slovakia. A diplomat for 25 years, she has labored in Uzbekistan and Georgia in addition to in a number of senior positions throughout the State Division and White Home Nationwide Safety Council.
Brink was additionally confirmed by unanimous voice vote in 2019, when former Republican President Donald Trump nominated her for the place in Bratislava.
There has not been a U.S. ambassador in Kyiv since Could 2019, when Trump abruptly recalled then U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
Yovanovitch later testified as Trump confronted impeachment on fees of withholding navy support to place stress on Zelenskiy to research Biden, then seen as Trump’s most definitely opponent within the 2020 election.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Modifying by Sandra Maler and Richard Pullin)
