Kyiv embassy decision is overdue

The Albanese government deserves no kudos for its long-overdue decision to finally reopen our embassy in Kyiv. It is a serious national embarrassment that Australia, alone among Western allies, has been the standout laggard and taken so long to restore our embassy to the Ukrainian capital after most withdrew when Vladimir Putin launched his invasion in February 2022.

It reveals, as opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham said on Thursday, “failure” and “ineptitude” by the Albanese government that has made Australia an “outlier” in the Ukrainian crisis. With our diplomats safely ensconced in Warsaw and far from the action in Kyiv, we have missed out on crucial in-person briefings and intelligence that, as Senator Birmingham added, could have “better informed our understanding of Russia’s war against Ukraine and the optimal support that Australia should have provided Ukraine”. When Putin launched his invasion, the Morrison government – in concert with our Western allies – ordered Australian embassy staff in Kyiv to relocate to Poland. That is where the Albanese government has kept them since it came to office in May 2022, despite repeated entreaties from President Volodymyr Zelensky and other Ukrainian leaders for Australia to follow the example of other Western allies and return to Kyiv.

In April 2022, the British and French embassies reopened in Kyiv. In May 2022, ambassadors from the US, Germany and Canada, a country with which Australia works closely and shares diplomatic accommodation in Kyiv, were back in business. In October that year, the embassy of our close security ally, Japan, was also back. But Australia was not – and is still not, Foreign Minister Penny Wong having announced in Kyiv on Wednesday that our ambassador, Paul Lehmann, will leave Warsaw and reopen our embassy “next month”. When he does, Australia will rejoin a diplomatic community in Kyiv made up of some 70 embassies or other diplomatic legations, most of which, with their many diplomats, have been there for much of the time while we have incomprehensibly maintained our Ukraine embassy in Poland.

Senator Wong’s boast in Kyiv that “we always said we would do so (reopen the embassy) when it was safe to do so” makes no sense when most of our allies have been back at their posts in Kyiv since 2022. It is all very well for DFAT secretary Jan Adams to aver, as she did in Senate estimates in February, that embassy staff were “able to manage Australia’s interests quite effectively” working remotely from Warsaw. But that is far from the same as being hands-on in the country to which our diplomats are accredited. Neither does it comport with the longstanding foreign policy tradition of maintaining representation even in countries where the security environment is not completely safe but where we have a compelling interest to be there – such as Moscow, Tehran and Baghdad.

Politely but pointedly, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha told Senator Wong that “we deeply appreciate the embassy reopening … as the ambassador can (now) get information first-hand, and more direct communication”. To her credit, Senator Wong emphasised Australia’s “unwavering support for the people of Ukraine”. Unfortunately, the Albanese government’s bumbling recalcitrance over our diplomatic representation in Kyiv, and perceptions of us as a laggard among the Western allies in demonstrating our support for Ukraine, are unlikely to do much to suggest she means it.