Australia said yesterday it was evacuating its embassy in Kiev as the situation on the Russia-Ukraine border quickly deteriorated, with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison calling on China to not remain “chillingly silent” on the crisis.
The US and Europe stepped up their warnings of an imminent attack by Russia on Ukraine, while the Kremlin, jostling for more influence in post-Cold War Europe, said that the EU and NATO were being disrespectful in their joint rejection of Russia’s demands to reduce tensions.
Australian embassy staff members in Kiev were directed to a temporary office in Lviv, a city in western Ukraine, around 70km from the border with Poland, Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs Marise Payne said in a statement.
Photo: Bloomberg
“We continue to advise Australians to leave Ukraine immediately by commercial means,” Payne said.
Morrison said that the situation “is reaching a very dangerous stage” and added that “the autocratic unilateral actions of Russia to be threatening and bullying Ukraine is something that is completely and utterly unacceptable.”
Morrison, whose government has frigid ties with China, called on Beijing to speak up for Ukraine, after China criticized a meeting of the US, Australian, Japanese and Indian foreign affairs ministers in Melbourne last week.
“The Chinese government is happy to criticize Australia ... yet remains chillingly silent on Russian troops amassing on the Ukrainian border,” Morrison told a news conference. “The coalition of autocracies that we are seeing, seeking to bully other countries, is not something that Australia ever takes a light position on.”
Relations between Australia and China, its top trade partner, soured after Canberra banned Huawei Technologies from its 5G broadband network in 2018, toughened laws against foreign political interference and urged an independent investigation into the origins of COVID-19.
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