British diplomat Judith Gough has left her position as the UK Ambassador to Ukraine, a move which was expected and planned.
Gough held the post for four years and will shortly be replaced by Melinda Simmons, a diplomat with a strong background in security and conflict resolution.
“Four years as the Ambassador of Great Britain have passed quickly. During this time, my team and I, as well as our international partners, to the maximum tried to help Ukraine and Ukrainians who oppose the Russian aggression,” Gough said in a Ukrainian language statement published by the Embassy on Aug. 1.
British ambassador to Ukraine since September 2015, Gough has been widely viewed as one the country’s most active foreign diplomats and one of its strongest allies. She and her team implemented hundreds of projects, many with partners, throughout the country.
“In particular, Britain assisted in the creation of NABU (National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine) and the High Anti-Corruption Court; British instructors trained over 13,000 Ukrainian military persons under Operation ORBITAL program; we taught English to 600 new patrol officers, 2,800 civil servants and gave advanced training to 5,000 Ukrainian teachers and lecturers,” Gough said in a video addressing Ukrainians in their own language.
The U K government currently spends about 35 million pounds, or about $42 million, each year in Ukraine. It provides funding and expertise in areas ranging from military support, good governance, law enforcement and judicial reform to humanitarian aid, the promotion of education, culture and social inclusion.
Openly gay and living in Ukraine with her partner, Gough participated in several Equality Marches in Kyiv, including the latest one in 2019. Her embassy also worked closely with the Ukrainian government to increase awareness and improve responses to sexual and gender-based violence.
Together with the United Nations Population Fund in Ukraine, the Embassy provided help to over 90,000 victims of domestic violence.
In an interview with the Kyiv Post in April this year, Gough said she has seen Ukraine make huge progress since she arrived to the country in 2015.
“Despite facing down a significant external threat in Russia, and despite having to fight a conflict on its own soil… and having lost a significant amount of its territory, (Ukraine) has managed to reboot its economy and implement a number of key reforms… and actually maintain a stable state of leadership and government,” she said.
However, Gough also displayed some frustration and a longing for real improvement in Ukraine’s judicial reform and the fight against corruption. She said this would help grow Britain’s trade and investment with Ukraine.
“In order for that potential to be realized, we need to see genuine reform of the judiciary,” she said. Foreign companies still “do not necessarily feel that they get free and equal treatment before the law, and it is vital that corruption is meaningfully tackled.”
Gough, 46, received one of her first official postings to the British Embassy in South Korea and later served as ambassador to Georgia between 2010 and 2013. She was the Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia at the UK Foreign Office, or FCO, in Westminster in 2014-2015.
Simmons, the incoming chief representative of the British government to Kyiv, has experience in humanitarian work and national security. She has been a deputy director of the FCO’s British Conflict Department and an alternate member of the board of directors at the European Investment Bank.
Simmons, who has been taking a Ukrainian language course in London, tweeted for the first time in Ukrainian in April: “I am very happy to be appointed the Ambassador of Great Britain to Ukraine! I am persistently studying the Ukrainian language, and I look forward to meeting with Ukraine and Ukrainians.”
