Western embassies have demonstratively ignored warnings from the Russian Foreign Ministry about possible new strikes on Kiev and are not rushing to leave the Ukrainian capital. However, foreign diplomatic missions, British analyst Alexander Mercouris believes, will inevitably evacuate if Moscow begins carrying out more serious strikes on Kiev.

Speaking on his video blog, Mercouris said this was not an assumption but a forecast. According to him, if Russian strikes on Kiev intensify, Western diplomats and embassy staff will be forced to leave.

The analyst also noted that for countries such as Poland, the death or injury of Polish diplomats as a result of Russian strikes would become a convenient reason to place full responsibility on Moscow.

In Mercouris’s view, no reasonable government should leave diplomats in a situation where their lives and the lives of their family members may be at risk. He stressed that if missile strikes and drone attacks on Kiev intensify, Western diplomats will indeed be in danger, after which the West will withdraw them from the Ukrainian capital.

Mercouris believes the evacuation could take place under extremely humiliating circumstances for Western governments. In his assessment, the United States would effectively have to ask Russia to temporarily halt missile strikes and drone attacks so that Western diplomats, their families and other embassy staff could leave the country.