--- title: Why U.S. Diplomats in Ukraine Are a Key Signal to Russia description: The U.S. diplomats about to reenter Ukraine—and the Marines protecting them—are the Americans most likely to find themselves at risk. canonical: https://time.com/6170406/diplomats-marines-ukraine-russia/ author: Philip Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-04-25T18:25:22.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-14T09:34:52.036Z article:section: Politics og:title: Why U.S. Diplomats and Their Protectors in Ukraine Are a Key Signal to Russia og:description: Putting U.S. diplomats back into the country is a choice that historians will no doubt review with great interest. og:url: https://time.com/6170406/diplomats-marines-ukraine-russia/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde845abec61c475c/698a3136096a949fb66ac788/diplomats-ukraine-blinken.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2400 og:image:height: 1350 og:image:alt: POLAND-UKRAINE-RUSSIA-CONFLICT og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why U.S. Diplomats and Their Protectors in Ukraine Are a Key Signal to Russia twitter:description: Putting U.S. diplomats back into the country is a choice that historians will no doubt review with great interest. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde845abec61c475c/698a3136096a949fb66ac788/diplomats-ukraine-blinken.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why U.S. Diplomats and Their Protectors in Ukraine Are a Key Signal to Russia > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=d7f9bc09-ea11-4a1c-93f3-f5d7061ef465&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Ukraine: A Glossary of Terms [Watch (HLS stream): Ukraine: A Glossary of Terms](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/OM8MLV7Y.m3u8) (5:41)  _Published 2022-03-15. When it comes to learning about the conflict in Ukraine, there are a lot of terms that get thrown around. Here are a few you should know._  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Apr 25, 2022 6:25 PM UTC When it comes to learning about the conflict in Ukraine, there are a lot of terms that get thrown around. Here are a few you should know.  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Apr 25, 2022 6:25 PM UTC _This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up_ [_here_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite) _to get stories like this sent to your inbox._ Two competing versions of Ukraine are consuming Washington right now, about whether Russia is on its back foot or as dangerous as ever. Both might well be true. The U.S. diplomats about to reenter the country—and the Marines protecting them—are the Americans most likely to find themselves at immediate risk. Plenty in Washington were parsing Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s words in Poland carefully when he said Monday morning that U.S. diplomats would be returning to Ukraine after a two-month absence. Other countries have already [restored](https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/04/19/diplomatic-life-returns-kyiv-embassies/) diplomats to Kyiv, a tacit nod to the fact the Ukrainian capital seems to have dodged being taken by Russia. Attacks there are [still](https://www.wsj.com/articles/kyiv-rocked-by-explosions-as-russia-steps-up-attacks-11650021113) happening, but it seems Russia is more focused on other cities. Still, putting U.S. diplomats back into the country is a choice that historians will no doubt review with great interest. The most immediate predicate is a still-neutral United States keeping its diplomats in Europe at the start of World War II, often placing [markers](https://afsa.org/war-comes-warsaw-september-1939) like U.S. flags on the roofs of buildings in the hopes German forces wouldn’t attack them in the war’s early days. (It seldom worked.) The U.S. today has no massive compound in Kyiv under its control, as it had built in Baghdad; the fortified Green Zone came to be known as [The Emerald City](https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/books/review/Goldfarb.t.html) and [private security companies](https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2021/07/30/dod-really-has-no-idea-who-its-hired-to-do-private-security-report-finds/) often took [care](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/06/30/military-contractor-study/) of diplomats and VIP civilian administrators. And unlike Iraq, where the U.S. committed to on-the-ground defense of its civilian diplomats, Americans from voters to Cabinet secretaries are in [agreement](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/24/us/politics/russia-ukraine-diplomacy.html) they don’t want to deploy troops to Ukraine. Which leaves the diplomats in a bit of a pickle. At least at first, they’re going to [commute](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/04/24/us-ukraine-diplomacy/) to Lviv from Poland. Eventually, Blinken said, the United States would reopen its embassy in Kyiv, which has been closed since the war began on Feb. 24. But senior officials traveling with the U.S. delegation said they did not have information about whether U.S. Marines would provide security at the facility, as is [tradition](https://www.state.gov/marine-security-guards/#:~:text=Post%20World%20War%20II%3A%20In,program%20was%20formed%20in%201949.) dating to the 1700s and formalized after World War II. Some have already been [deployed](https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/03/29/marines-deploy-eastern-europe-first-time-response-ukraine.html) to Europe. Marines at the embassy gates would be expected, but it also could put Americans in military uniforms on Ukrainian soil, an act that could be seen as a shift to U.S. direct involvement in fighting. It’s one thing to sell weapons, send humanitarian aid, and even share intelligence; it’s another to put weapons in Americans’ hands in the field. With the planned return of the diplomats, it seems like the early skittishness of U.S. officials about provoking Russia is fading. A covert plan for the Secretaries of Defense and State to pop into Kyiv had its cover [blown](https://www.wsj.com/video/zelensky-reveals-blinken-and-austin-to-visit-ukraine/84831FA0-55BF-4872-8EBD-C54F7A4535C3.html) by no less than Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and yet the duo and a small retinue of aides still [made](https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/04/25/world/ukraine-russia-war-news) the 11-hour train ride from Poland on Sunday with U.S. spy technology checking their every move. Once back across the Polish border, the Americans sounded like their allies were winning—and their foes losing. “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree it cannot do the kind things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said after he returned from Kyiv, an [aggressive](https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-to-return-embassy-to-ukraine-boost-military-aid-blinken-and-austin-tell-zelensky-in-visit-to-kyiv-11650859391) line against a still-nuclear-capable rival. And the Ukraine Defense Consultative Group—the West’s effort to boost Ukraine—is due to meet Tuesday at Ramstein Air Base in Germany with Austin preparing for more American aid, including [another](https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-biden-kyiv-lloyd-austin-europe-3a8441a7b10c5786fe5fd7f841332697) $165 million to restock Soviet-era weaponry. But, there’s also plenty of reason for Washington’s think tankers to fret about the dangers embedded in any conflict with Moscow. The U.S. foreign policy machine sought to cast Russia’s [test](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/russia-test-fires-new-intercontinental-ballistic-missile/2022/04/20/ec14e20a-c0e0-11ec-b5df-1fba61a66c75%5Fstory.html) of an intercontinental ballistic missile last week as a “[nonevent](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/23/russia-sarmat-missile-test-arms-control/),” hoping to de-escalate. The Russian forces [destroyed](https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-04-25-22/h%5F00365129a2e5f2159cd650cd233490e3) five train stations hours after Austin and Blinken ended their three-hour meeting in Kyiv. And the Biden Administration hours later [announced](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/russia-ukraine-war-live-updates-us-diplomats-support-kyiv-meeting-rcna25788#rcrd996) it would nominate a career diplomat to serve as ambassador to Ukraine, backing up Blinken’s assertion that U.S. diplomatic outposts would soon return to some version of functionality after largely ceasing operations two months ago when it became clear the war would be a challenge for Americans’ security. The U.S. still hasn’t [sanctioned](https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-withholds-sanctions-on-a-very-close-putin-associate-his-alleged-girlfriend-11650816894) the mother of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s children for fear of how he might respond. In short: Washington is still wary of Moscow, but it is starting some high-risk tests—like reopening diplomatic outposts in Ukraine—to see how far Putin can be pushed. Every single provocation and response—from both sides—could send the war cascading to total catastrophe for Ukrainians. The war has already killed roughly 8,000 Ukrainians, [according](https://ukraine.un.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/Conflict-related%20civilian%20casualties%20as%20of%2031%20December%202021%20%28rev%2027%20January%202022%29%20corr%20EN%5F0.pdf) to the UN, and Russia is showing no signs of slowing down its menace. U.S. diplomats have a long history of working at terrible and unpredictable risk to themselves. There have been dozens of attacks on diplomatic outposts in all corners of the globe, and the incoming RPGs don’t discriminate between civilian diplomats, Marines, hired contractors, or local bystanders. The deadliest, the double 1998 [attack](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/two-far-away-bombings-20-years-ago-set-modern-era-n898196) on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, left 224 dead, including 12 Americans. Before that, attacks on diplomatic posts in Beirut in 1983 and 1984 left America shaken as it saw images of suicide bombers destroying an American footprint in the Middle East evocative of the 1979 fall of the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Decades later, that gut-punch of a feeling came back when four Americans—including the ambassador—died in the siege of a diplomatic station in Benghazi, Libya in 2012. But it’s tough for Washington to say it supports Zelensky and his team while keeping diplomats away. The implication is Kyiv’s risks are too great to justify State Department staff. So the diplomats, at least in some measure, are heading back to Ukraine, probably with heavily armed Marine pals. It’s one thing for diplomats to negotiate with policy. It’s another for them to do so with their lives. _Make sense of what matters in Washington._ [_Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite)_._ ## Transcript President Zelensky once again calling on NATO for a no-fly zone... totality of our economic sanctions... that you hear about the humanitarian corridor... When it comes to the conflict in Ukraine, there are a lot of terms that are being thrown around. Here are a few that you should know. Oligarchs are Russian businessmen, who amass wealth very quickly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Most of them, through friendships and corruption, basically. They control different parts of the Russian infrastructure. So the Biden administration has developed a task force to go after property, such as yachts, and summer homes and things of this nature. And the hope is that this small group, relatively small group of men can apply some pressure to Vladimir Putin to make him stand down this war. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was started after World War Two. Its whole purpose was to stand against the Soviet Union. Nations like France, Britain, United States, they stood up this alliance, which it has a defining principle that, you know, attack against one is attack against all. One of the things that that Putin brings up when he has his list of complaints against the West, is the fact that, you know, Ukraine was being considered as becoming a member of the the NATO alliance. They're not, of course, and they haven't been brought in, but just the threat of that was enough for Putin to, you know, launch this assault into Ukraine. His big fear is that, you know, the alliance would pre-position military forces and capabilities along his border that would threaten the existence of Russia. Sanctions are measures like, hey, let's let's cut Russia off from the global banking system. That's one set of sanctions. Let's all agree not to buy Russian oil. It's a set of agreements between countries on one side of a conflict to kind of politically and economically ostracize a country that is a bad actor. Russia wants to decapitate the Government of Ukraine, they want to overthrow that government and install their own. And the way that they're applying that pressure is by going after major population centers. They've already launched over 600 missiles into major cities creating a humanitarian crisis. And seeing this, Ukraine has tried to cut a deal with Russia to be able to open up a number of corridors in which civilians are allowed to leave combat zones. Russia has already been seen to have violated this and to have targeted these areas. When we think of a nuclear weapon, we think of obliterating an entire city. Tactical nuclear weapons are designed to be more contained to a limited geography, to a smaller area of space. No army, no nation has ever used a tactical nuke in combat before. You know, the United States has said its nuclear umbrella extends to the NATO allies. Of course, Ukraine is not a NATO ally. But just a use of a nuclear weapon would demand that the United States would have to respond in some meaningful way. The United States has had air superiority over every war since World War Two. So the idea with a no-fly zone is that the United States does not allow another military to operate over a specific area. And if any aircraft breached that airspace, the United States or its allies would shoot down the enemy aircraft. This is off limits for the Biden administration because it puts American pilots in direct combat with Russian pilots, the risk of escalation and going into worldwide conflict grows exponentially greater. The United States has done no fly zones before, most recently in Libya, and also in Iraq. But the Air Force has they faced there were largely run down and much smaller numbers. So SWIFT is a messaging system that allows banks to communicate with each other about transactions that are being made. And by cutting Russia off from SWIFT, it means that people and organizations and banks inside Russia can no longer communicate with the outside banking world and complete transactions that are very important to to doing business in the country and doing business internationally. The Bayraktar drones are smaller drone systems that have their Turkish-made. And they've been used to devastating effect on Russian military. The Russian military has been stalled and they've encountered stiff resistance in almost every place that they've gone, you know, they're running out of fuel and food and the logistics problems that they've had, have basically made them sitting ducks they're stalled out. And these Turkish made drones have been, you know, perfect to hit those targets on the ground. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6170406/diplomats-marines-ukraine-russia/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6170406/diplomats-marines-ukraine-russia/"},"headline":"Why U.S. Diplomats and Their Protectors in Ukraine Are a Key Signal to Russia","datePublished":"2022-04-25T18:25:22.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-14T09:34:52.036Z","description":"The U.S. diplomats about to reenter Ukraine—and the Marines protecting them—are the Americans most likely to find themselves at risk.","url":"https://time.com/6170406/diplomats-marines-ukraine-russia/","keywords":["The D.C. 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