Kurt Volker resigns as US envoy to Ukraine amid impeachment inquiry
A look back at the resignation of the US special envoy to Ukraine, days after the House launched a formal inquiry into President Donald Trump.
What did it mean when Washington's point man on Ukraine stepped down in the middle of a gathering political storm? On 27 September 2019, Kurt Volker, United States special envoy to Ukraine, resigned.
His departure came one day after the release of a whistleblower report concerning a phone call between US President Donald Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky. The report put the call at the centre of American politics and drew Kyiv into a dispute that was, at its core, about Washington's own institutions.
Three days earlier, on 24 September 2019, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had announced that a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump had been launched. The sequence was swift: an inquiry announced on 24 September, a whistleblower report released on 26 September, and on 27 September the resignation of the envoy responsible for the US relationship with Ukraine.
For Kyiv, the day was a reminder of how closely its diplomacy was tied to events in the United States, with its president's conversation now at the heart of an impeachment process.
