West prepares plans to evacuate its embassies from Kyiv in case of targeted Russian attacks – media
Western countries are preparing contingency plans to relocate their embassies from Kyiv to Lviv or eastern Poland if Russia begins deliberately targeting foreign diplomatic missions in the capital.
This was reported by The Guardian, according to Censor.NET.
Diplomats’ public and private positions
Publicly, Western diplomats say they intend to remain in Kyiv, understanding that leaving would hand Moscow a propaganda victory and create the impression that Ukraine had been abandoned. Privately, however, two senior diplomats told the outlet that they were developing contingency plans in case Russia begins deliberately striking foreign missions.
Commenting on the intensification of Russian strikes on the capital, one senior Western diplomat in Kyiv, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the situation as rapidly deteriorating.
"Russia plans to freeze Kyiv, send it back to the Stone Age," he said.
Kyiv is no longer a "calm" city
Until recently, Kyiv maintained a deceptively normal rhythm of life, while cities closer to the front, including Kharkiv and Dnipro, bore the brunt of daily missile and drone attacks. Now, according to the outlet, residents joke with bitter irony that the balance is beginning to shift and that these cities sometimes feel safer than the capital.
The city faces a particularly dangerous combination of an acute shortage of Patriot interceptors to counter ballistic missiles and a new generation of faster, jet-powered Russian drones that are harder to shoot down. Kyiv is trying to accelerate the development of a new generation of interceptor drones capable of destroying such targets. According to three sources in the defence industry, several such systems are already in use, but scaling up to a level that would provide effective protection for the capital could take weeks or months.
Russia’s plan to target the energy system
Ukrainian officials are warning their European counterparts about the scale of the threat. According to The New York Times, Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal recently briefed European partners on an intercepted Russian plan to use up to 1,000 missiles, drones and bombs against Ukraine’s energy system.
The targets include electrical substations, hydroelectric and thermal power plants, and boiler houses, in what appears to be an attempt to plunge Ukrainian cities into darkness and cold and create a humanitarian crisis.
Russia has already attacked Kyiv near foreign embassies
- On September 4, a Russian drone attacked the Security Service of Ukraine building on Volodymyrska Street in Kyiv, located near the Slovak embassy’s consular section. The consular section operated on a limited basis at the time for security reasons. Following the attack, Slovak Foreign Minister Juraj Blanár said he would summon the Russian ambassador in Bratislava and condemned the strike near his country’s diplomatic mission.
- On September 28, a Russian drone hit the Presidium building of the National Academy of Sciences in central Kyiv, near the German embassy. The German Foreign Ministry condemned the attack, which took place "even near our embassy", and stressed that Germany would continue to support Ukraine.
