Israel May Move Embassy from Kyiv to Lviv

Russia may or may not be moving some of its troops away from the Ukrainian border, and Israel may or may not be moving its embassy from the capital, Kyiv to Lviv, in case of an invasion, according to The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

Kyiv is in Ukraine’s east, close to the borders with Belarus and Russia, near the areas where Russia has amassed troops, as opposed to Lviv in the west, near Poland, likely a safer place to be if any shooting starts.

A team from the Israeli Foreign Ministry were in Lviv on Tuesday to survey a possible site for an embassy there.

The U.S., Canada and other countries have already transferred their embassy operations to Lviv.

Meanwhile, additional diplomatic staff arrived from Yerushalayim to help the Kyiv mission provide consular services to Israelis and Jews who wish to leave the country.

Amid the uncertainties, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid have urged Israelis to return to Israel immediately, and Israeli airlines have added extra flights.

Meanwhile, the cloud-based web services company Wix, one of the largest Israeli employers in Ukraine, evacuated most of its 1,000 employees and their families to Turkey, for at least two weeks, Globes reported on Tuesday.

A small number of employees considered critical for the company’s infrastructures have been moved to Poland.

Wix operates three development centers in Ukraine in the capital Kyiv, Lviv near the Polish border and Dnipro in eastern Ukraine, considered the region at highest risk.

At home in Israel, the shekel was strengthening Tuesday against the dollar and against the euro after Russia announced the pullback. In afternoon inter-bank trading, the shekel exchange rate was down 1.01% against the dollar at NIS 3.229/$ and down 0.63% against the euro at NIS 3.663/€.

On the TASE, the Tel Aviv 35 Index was 2.13% higher at 1992.53 points and the Tel Aviv 125 Index was 1.86% higher at 2077.36 points.