The acting US ambassador to Ukraine will depart Kyiv in the coming weeks, according to people familiar with the matter, leaving a crucial diplomatic post vacant while Russia prepares for a summer offensive and peace talks stall.
Julie Davis, who has served as temporary chargé d’affaires at the US embassy in Kyiv since May last year, had grown frustrated with her role amid differences with President Donald Trump over his dwindling support for Ukraine, said three people familiar with her decision.
Her looming departure will follow that of her predecessor, Bridget Brink, who resigned for similar reasons in April last year.
Davis, who notified the state department that she would leave in recent weeks, planned to retire from diplomatic service, ending a three-decade career, those people said.
Davis, who remains accredited as ambassador to Cyprus while simultaneously serving in Kyiv, felt blindsided in October after learning through media reports that Trump had nominated John Breslow, an Arizona businessman and Republican donor, to be the next ambassador to Cyprus, those people said. Davis had not been notified of the nomination in advance.
State department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said it was “false” to suggest Davis was resigning over differences with Trump.
“Ambassador Davis has been a steadfast proponent of the Trump administration’s efforts to bring about a durable peace between Russia and Ukraine,” he said in a statement.
“She will continue to proudly advance President Trump’s policies until she officially departs Kyiv in June 2026 and retires from the Department,” Piggott said.
The US embassy in Kyiv has had trouble retaining ambassadors during both of Trump’s terms. In 2019, Trump recalled Marie Yovanovitch, then ambassador in Ukraine, deeming her “disloyal” and “bad news”. She was a crucial witness in congressional hearings as part of Trump’s first impeachment later that year.
When Brink, a proponent of military assistance for Ukraine, quit last year, she said she had opposed the pressure that the Trump White House was piling on Kyiv while letting Moscow off the hook.
The last straw for Davis’s predecessor was Trump’s verbal attack on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office in February 2025. After that clash, Trump paused military assistance and intelligence sharing with Kyiv for several weeks.
Brink is running for the US House of Representatives as a Democrat in a competitive district in her home state of Michigan. On the campaign trail, she has accused Trump of corruption and appeasing Russian President Vladimir Putin.
During Trump’s second term, the White House has largely sidelined the state department. The president has instead dispatched a small handful of allies, notably special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, to pursue his most ambitious foreign policy goals, including brokering an end to the war in Ukraine.
But the peace talks have stalled because of Russia’s intransigence and the US’s war against Iran. Ukrainian intelligence officials this month told the FT that Moscow planned to continue its war and launch a new offensive this summer.
In December, the administration recalled dozens of ambassadors worldwide from their posts as US officials sought to ensure that embassies reflected Trump’s “America First” agenda.
Just 8 per cent of the president’s ambassadorial nominees are career diplomats, according to a tracker maintained by the American Foreign Service Association, down from 57 per cent during his first term.
Dozens of US embassies worldwide lack a Senate-confirmed ambassador, including in much of the Middle East and in Ukraine.
“She is an exemplary foreign service officer and civil servant,” said Daniel Fried, former US ambassador to Poland, who has known Davis for a number of years. “She’s a true expert and the administration — whether they realise it or not — needs such people.”
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, praised Davis’s “steady, effective leadership” and “unique ability to run a crisis post effectively”.
A career diplomat, Davis has spent three decades with the state department, including in eastern Europe. Prior to her assignments in Kyiv and Cyprus, in 2020, she became the first US ambassador to Belarus since 2008.
“Important posts like Kyiv cannot and should not be managed through Washington or with stopgap measures,” Shaheen said. “It is imperative for both the US and Ukraine that we have a Senate-confirmed ambassador.”
Current and former US diplomats pointed the FT to a steady stream of Ukraine specialists who retired, left diplomacy or were fired since Trump took office.
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Source:
www.ft.com
