The US Ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, has experience shaped by Soviet domination
Bridget Brinkwas unanimously confirmed by the US Senate this week as US ambassador to Ukraine, a veteran diplomat who is fluent in Russian and a native of Michigan with extensive experience in European countries subject to the United States. Soviet subjugation and the legacy of the Cold War.
In 2019, at the swearing-in of the current ambassador to Slovakia, Ms. Brink emphasized her family’s European connections and her personal ties to Europe, noting that she was a student. in London in 1989 on the day the Berlin Wall fell.
A graduate of the London School of Economics, where she obtained a master’s degree in international relations and political theory, Ambassador Brink joined the State Department in 1996 and has served, among other places, in Cyprus, Serbia, as well as in Uzbekistan and Georgia, two former Soviet republics.
She is the mother of two boys, and her husband, Nicholas Higgins, also works for the US foreign service.
In her new role, Ms Brink will fill a position that has been vacant for three years. Her confirmation comes just hours after the United States reopened its embassy in Kyiv after a three-month closure, underscoring how the war-torn Ukrainian capital is slowly returning to normal after Russian forces does not capture it, although very fragile. safe feeling.
Mrs. Brink’s knowledge will increase further relations between Washington and Kyivbut the return of senior American diplomats home, even to western and central cities a few hours from the front line, inevitably comes with a degree of danger.
Ms. Brink is the first ambassador confirmed by the Senate to hold the post since mid-2019, when President Donald J. Trump removed Marie L. Yovanovitch, a career diplomat and anti-corruption advocate, who was criticized by Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph. W. Giuliani, and his associates Mr. Giuliani tried to dig up the soil in the country where Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter.
In February, Ms. Brink visited the border between Ukraine and Slovakia to witness the arrival of Ukrainian refugees. “My heart goes out to all the victims of this senseless war,” she speaksaccording to a news release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Her family has long ties to Europe.
At the swearing-in as ambassador to Slovakia in 2019, she recalls, her grandfather Donald Brink, according to family lore, played a role in clearing the way for Dwight D. Eisenhower’s promotion to fourth general. star before he became the architect of the Invasion of Normandy, which helped pave the way for the end of World War II.
Ms. Brink said that during the war, her grandfather, a US Army doctor, treated Mr. Eisenhower, one of the doctors who examined him to determine his eligibility for promotion. fourth star or not.
“According to family lore, my grandfather took General Eisenhower’s blood pressure, and it was a little high,” she recalls. “General,” he said, “Lie down for a few minutes and think happy thoughts.” He did, and my grandfather can report that General Eisenhower has passed away,” explained Ms. Brink. “The rest, so they say, is history.”
She also observed that she had links to Europe through her husband’s family. “Nearly 80 years ago, my husband’s Mrs. Ada McIntyre survived the Manchester Blitz while her husband, Bernard McIntyre, bravely helped evacuate stranded soldiers in Dunkirk as a member of the Dunkirk. Royal Navy,” she explained.
