The US embassy in Kiev has warned that security conditions in Crimea and along Ukraine’s border with Russia could change ‘with little or no notice’.
The embassy issued the warning Thursday morning after President Biden dropped plans to send two warships to the Black Sea and Russian President Vladimir Putin closed Kerch Strait for foreign warships until next fall.
‘Beware of American citizens’, the warning, posted on Twitter, begin. “The embassy of the United States of America in Ukraine is monitoring the situation with Russia in occupied Crimea and along Ukraine’s borders, where security conditions may change with little or no notice.”
The Biden government initially said it would send two destroyers – the USS Roosevelt and the USS Donald Cook – to the Black Sea in response to Moscow’s growing military presence near Ukraine.
It subsequently averted the threat after the Kremlin warned the U.S. to remove the area “for their own good.”
“We have no desire to be in an escalating war with Russia,” a senior official told reporters.
The official added that the government believes it could avoid the US sending a ‘downward spiral’.
Administrative officials, however, said the U.S. “will not accept its destabilizing behavior that harms the United States, its allies and its partners.”
Putin’s closure of the area came hours after Biden declared a national emergency on Thursday, slashing sanctions on more than three dozen people in Russia and expelling ten diplomats.
Biden predicted the sanctions in a call with Putin on Tuesday.