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Brink was approved by a unanimous voice vote.
President Joe Biden’s Democratic and Republican colleagues had pushed for a quick confirmation of Brink. The Senate Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously endorsed Brink earlier in the day on Wednesday, after holding its confirmation hearing just two weeks after Biden announced the nomination on April 25.
The quick action underscored both parties’ desire to send an ambassador to support Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as he faces an invasion from Russia. Brink’s Senate confirmation came the same day the US Embassy in kyiv reopened after a three-month closure due to the February 24 Russian invasion.
The Senate is also expected later this week to approve nearly $40 billion in military and humanitarian support for Kyiv, funding that has already been passed by the House of Representatives.
A Michigan native and Russian speaker, Ms. Brink is currently the US Ambassador to Slovakia. A diplomat for 25 years, she has worked in Uzbekistan and Georgia as well as in several high-level positions within the State Department and the National Security Council of the White House.
Brink was also confirmed by a unanimous voice vote in 2019, when former Republican President Donald Trump nominated him for the Bratislava post.
There hasn’t been a US ambassador to kyiv since May 2019, when Trump abruptly recalled Marie Yovanovitch, then US ambassador to Ukraine.
Yovanovitch later testified as Trump faced impeachment for withholding military aid to pressure Zelenskiy to investigate Biden, then seen as Trump’s most likely challenger in the 2020 election.
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