(John Ransom, Headline USA) The office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, angry that President Joe Biden ordered Americans to abandon Ukraine pending a Russian invasion, said that Americans in Kiev are much safer than they are in Democrat strongholds like Los Angeles or other cities that have seen major spikes in crime.
“Quite frankly, these Americans are safer in Kyiv than they are in Los Angeles…or any other crime-ridden city in the US,” a source close to president Zelensky told BuzzFeed News.
Biden has put 8,500 U.S. troops on alert for deployment to Eastern Europe in response to a Russian build-up of forces on the Ukraine border, while the State Department warned US citizens not to travel to Ukraine and issued orders to evacuate the families of the US Embassy personnel from the country.
?Many Ukrainians—including the president’s office—are unhappy with US order for diplomats’ families to leave.
“Quite frankly these Americans are safer in Kyiv than they are in LA…or any other crime-ridden city in the US.” — a source close to Zelensky. https://t.co/SeCILKKsYE
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) January 24, 2022
Many are looking for a more substantive response by Biden besides confining troops to their barracks pending a deployment that likely won’t come.
Ukrainians unofficially are blasting Biden for doing little more than talk about protecting the country, after encouraging them to embrace democracy under the protection of the Western powers.
“On the one hand, [Washington tells Ukraine] how we should democratize. We stand with you. It’s your right to determine to join the West. We will stand with you against Russian aggression,” the source close to Zelensky told Buzzfeed.
“Then Russia turns up the temperature and they’re the first to leave,” the source added disgustedly.
After the U.S ordered staff out of the country, Europeans refused to follow suit and have not ordered nationals out of Ukraine, noted the Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko, according to a Daily Mail report that tied U.S. evacuation plans to the Biden abandonment of Afghanistan.
“Nikolenko noted that the EU is not telling its staff to leave,” said the Daily Mail. “Biden is still smarting from failing to act swiftly enough in evacuating US citizens from Afghanistan.”
Zalensky has told his countrymen that they have been through such crisis before and that they are not in imminent danger of being killed.
“Take a deep breath, calm down” Zelensky told the nation, according to the Kyiv Post.
But he was a little more urgent with Biden, whom he chided for saying that a small invasion by Russia into Ukraine wouldn’t be a cause for war.
“We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations, noted Zelensky. “Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones.”
