Foreign Minister Yair Lapid held a briefing for journalists Sunday evening on the political system's response to the escalation of tensions on the Russian-Ukrainian border.
"There are between 10,000 and 15,000 Jews in Ukraine, most of them in Kyiv. About half of them are registered on the embassy link and each one receives a personal message to make sure they have been in contact with them. The rest are attempting to get in touch. The country also has one of the largest Jewish communities in the world. We are in close contact with them and the embassy is working with them," said Lapid.
He said, "According to political and intelligence sources who speak with us, we have a very short window of time to get the Israelis out of Ukraine and I tell them: return to Israel before the situation gets complicated. We still hope the situation will be resolved diplomatically, but we have responsibilities towards Israelis and Jewish communities there. Israel is the capital of the Jewish people and we should be there for them."
Lapid clarified that in the coming week there will be many flights from Ukraine and the airlines are also ready for the possibility of adding additional flights. "We are preparing for the possibility of the sky being closed, even though at the moment that is not happening. We have opened up the possibility of evacuating people over land with countries bordering Ukraine in order to get Jews and Israelis out."
He noted that Israeli diplomats would remain in the country. "Israel is the only country that not only did not remove its diplomats from Ukraine, but reinforced the staff. We removed the diplomats' families from the country. I met today with the Deputy Ukrainian Foreign Minister and reached an understanding with them that if necessary we will open another office in Lviv and staff it with our diplomats."
"The Israeli response is not much different from the response of other countries and I think it is measured. The Ukrainians have a clear interest in saying that nothing is happening. I am not sure it is accurate and we will know for sure in the coming days. I may be more cautious than other foreign ministers, and this is due to the fact that Russia and Ukraine have some of the largest Jewish communities in the world and we need to take care of them. The Israeli position, like the position of the West, is clear: a confrontation between Russia and Ukraine should be avoided.
He noted, "We are in touch with the Americans on an hourly basis and it is very tight. The Americans are talking in public about what they think will be an invasion. There are exchanges of information and disagreements. There are sometimes disagreements at the deployment level and certainly some of our deployment is based on American information. Israel is not a player involved in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and therefore acts cautiously. I heard the request of the Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister to take a stand and discuss it in the appropriate forums. There have been attempts at reaching put to talk to the parties in recent months, but not something different from the conduct of other countries. My opinion has not changed, this confrontation can be prevented and it should be prevented."
Lapid expressed concern about the effect of the incident on the nuclear talks between the West and Iran. "The escalation there is reducing attention on the nuclear talks in Vienna and even so we think it has low attention in relation to the critical situation because these are talks that will determine the future of the Iranian nuclear program. It is a threat to the peace of the whole world, so we have an interest in paying attention to the talks, and the fact that attention is falling is not good for us."