The UK’s ambassador to Ukraine, Melinda Simmons, who is Jewish and has family that came from Ukraine, believes she can be a positive influence in her capacity as she returns to the recently reopened British embassy in Kyiv.
Simmons told The Observer that while a return to the country came with risks, it “absolutely feels like the right place to be.”
“I’m not minimizing [the risk]. I’m not discounting it. You have to take it into account, but I’m still here. There are 27 ambassadors here so that’s quite a lot of diplomats to target,” she said. “I am here with a heightened level of security protection and bearing in mind that potential risk, but for now I feel comfortable working under those circumstances.”
Simmons, whose family on her father’s side is from Poland and on her mother’s side is from Ukraine and Lithuania, told the UK Jewish News in 2019 that “as a Jewish woman, returning to the region, I feel I can play a positive role.”
“My great-grandparents were born and raised in Kharkiv, Ukraine. My great-grandfather moved first to Kyiv and then to the U.S. My great-grandmother, for reasons we don’t know, went from Kharkiv to Cardiff.”