Italy to reopen embassy in Kyiv 'just after Easter'

ROME - Italy’s Embassy in Ukraine will move to Kyiv “just after Easter,” Rome’s Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said Saturday.

Easter will be observed April 17.

“We were the last to leave Kyiv and we will be among the first to return,” Di Maio said in Rome after a videoconference with Italian ambassadors to Ukraine and Russia.

The minister said the decision was “another gesture to show support to the Ukrainian people, a concrete way of saying that diplomacy has to prevail.”

The move happen after all necessary security checks and “in coordination with other European partners,” added Di Maio.

Following the example of other countries, Italy relocated its embassy to the western city of Lviv on March 1, one week after Russian troops invaded Ukraine, when it looked like they were closing in on the capital.