98 Irish citizens registered with Ukraine embassy

33 Irish people have left Ukraine amid ongoing tensions at the Russian border, Simon Coveney has said.
A rally at Leinster House, Dublin (Brian Lawless/PA)
PA Wire
Dominic McGrath16 February 2022

Two Irish diplomats will remain in Ukraine for the foreseeable future, amid ongoing tensions at the Russian border.

Russia has said it is returning more troops and weapons to bases, but Nato has said it sees no sign of a drawdown.

The Foreign Affairs Minister told a meeting of the Fine Gael parliamentary party on Wednesday that 98 Irish citizens are currently registered with the Irish embassy in Kyiv.

Simon Coveney also told party colleagues that 33 Irish citizens have departed.

Mr Coveney said that two Irish diplomats in Ukraine will remain there to assist Irish nationals as long as it is safe.

Official Irish Government advice is to avoid non-essential travel to Ukraine, with Irish citizens in the country being told to leave by commercial means.

Russia has massed about 150,000 troops east, north and south of Ukraine, sparking Western concerns it was planning an attack.

Moscow denies it has any such plans and this week said it was pulling back some forces and weapons, though it gave few details.

Those claims have been met with scepticism from the US and its allies — even as they seemed to lower the temperature following weeks of escalating East-West tensions.

Mr Coveney told Fine Gael TDs and senators that there exists “significant consular challenges” being worked on, including surrogacy cases.

He also told colleagues that ahead of a meeting the UN Security Council, the focus of preventing Russian aggression in the region would continue and that he did not expect the story to “abate”.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Sign up you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy notice .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in