The US embassy in Kyiv has closed after receiving information of a “potential significant air attack”, the US Department of State Consular Affairs says.
“Out of an abundance of caution, the embassy will be closed, and embassy employees are being instructed to shelter in place,” the department said in a statement on Wednesday.
“The US Embassy recommends US citizens be prepared to immediately shelter in the event an air alert is announced.”
Hours after the US warning, an air raid alert was declared in the Ukrainian capital and several other regions amid what Kyiv’s air force described as a potential missile threat.
The head of Ukraine’s presidential administration initially urged citizens not to ignore the alert.
But later on Wednesday the country’s Main Directorate of Intelligence accused Russia of staging a “a massive information-psychological attack” by spreading a fake warning.
The US embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, shut its doors on Wednesday. (Reuters: Sergiy Karazy)
“A message is being spread via messengers and social networks … about the threat of a ‘particularly massive’ missile and bomb strike on Ukrainian cities today,” the Ukrainian intelligence agency said.
“This message is a fake, it contains grammatical errors typical of Russian information and psychological operations.”
The warning issued by the US Department of State Consular Affairs comes a day after Russia claimed Ukraine used US ATACMS missiles to strike Russian territory on the Ukraine war’s 1,000th day.
The Italian and Greek embassies in Kyiv also announced on Wednesday they had closed their doors, while the UK, German and French embassies remained open and French citizens were urged to be cautious.
The Kremlin said it had no comment in response to the US warning.
The US embassy in Kyiv had also urged American citizens in Ukraine to stockpile reserves of water, food and other essentials such as required medications for the event of a “possible temporary loss of electricity and water” caused by Russian strikes.
“Persistent Russian attacks targeting civilian infrastructure throughout Ukraine may result in power outages, loss of heating, and disruption of municipal services,” the embassy said.
On Monday, US President Joe Biden granted Ukraine permission from the outgoing administration to use US-supplied long-range missiles to strike Russian targets.
Russia had been warning the West for months that if Washington allowed Ukraine to fire US, British and French missiles deep into Russia, Moscow would consider those NATO members to be directly involved in the Ukraine war.
On Tuesday, Mr Putin lowered the threshold for a nuclear strike in response to a broader range of conventional attacks.
Following the claim that Ukraine had fired US-supplied missiles, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the attack showed Western countries wanted to “escalate” the conflict.
“We will be taking this as a qualitatively new phase of the Western war against Russia. And we will react accordingly,” Mr Lavrov told a press conference at the G20 summit in Brazil.
Biden approves anti-personnel mines for Ukraine
On Wednesday, Mr Biden approved the provision of anti-personnel land mines to Ukraine, a US official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The US expects Ukraine to use the mines in its own territory, though it has committed not to use them in areas populated with its own civilians, the official said.
Joe Biden approved the provision of anti-personnel land mines to Ukraine, a US official says. (Reuters: Kevin Lamarque)
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during a trip to Laos that the shift in policy comes after a change in tactics by Russia which means Ukraine now has “a need for things that can help slow down that effort on the part of the Russians”.
“The land mines that we would look to provide them would be land mines that are not persistent … We can control when they would self-activate, self-detonate and that makes it far more safer eventually than the things that they are creating on their own,” Mr Austin said.
The office of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian defence ministry, the Russian defence ministry and the Kremlin did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
The US has provided Ukraine with anti-tank mines throughout its war with Russia, but the addition of anti-personnel mines aims at blunting the advance of Russian ground troops, the official added.
The US mines differ from Russia’s as they are “non-persistent” and become inert after a preset period, the official said.
They require a battery to detonate and will not explode once the battery runs out.
