After a long wait, the new United States Ambassador to Estonia will soon be in place.
George P. Kent was nominated by President Joe Biden on September 2, 2022, to serve as the next ambassador to the Republic of Estonia. His nomination was sent to the U.S. Senate on September 8. On November 29, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a nomination hearing, including for nominee Kent. His nomination passed out of committee on December 7 and was confirmed by voice vote in the Senate on December 13. His swearing-in as ambassador was on January 17, 2023.
Ambassador Kent is expected to arrive in Tallinn at the end of January and will then present his credentials there to begin his tenure. The U.S. Embassy in Tallinn has been without an ambassador since 2018. Kent will be the tenth U.S. ambassador to Estonia since 1992.
Who is George P. Kent?
The first thing that is apparent, is that George Kent is a very experienced long-term career diplomat who has served in important posts around the world, and in important roles at the State Department. He most recently served as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the European and Eurasian Bureau at the U.S. Department of State, overseeing policy towards Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Previously, as his bio states on the State Department website, he was Deputy Chief of Mission in Kyiv, Ukraine (2015-18). In 2014-15, Kent was the Senior Anti-Corruption Coordinator in the State Department’s European Bureau from 2014-15, leading development and advocacy of anti-corruption messages across Europe and Eurasia. From 2012-14, he oversaw $200 million in annual programming for the rule of law, law enforcement, and judicial system capacity building in Europe and Asia as Director in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement. Since joining the foreign service in 1992, he has been posted in: Warsaw, Poland; Kyiv (twice); Tashkent, Uzbekistan; and Bangkok, Thailand (twice).
Kent holds an A.B. from Harvard in Russian History and Literature (1989), an M.A. from Johns Hopkins’ SAIS (1992), and M.S. from National Defense University’s Eisenhower School (2012). He speaks Ukrainian, Russian, Thai, and some Polish, German, and Italian. Estonian is next on the list.
An online Washington Post article from December 23, 2022 (“A gingerbread tribute to Ukraine depicts a wartorn Mariupol,” as published in print on December 26) points out that Ambassador Kent’s wife Velida Kitaina is a Crimean Tatar American and that they have three children in their 20s.
Kent testified in November 2019 during President Donald Trump’s impeachment hearing, as the investigation centered around Ukraine and Kent was at the time the department’s top official dealing with Ukraine.
The distance between Estonia and Ukraine is not far – literally, figuratively, and symbolically. It’s key to have a U.S. official in place who understands all the nuances of that thoroughly and to help advance America’s position.
In his November 29, 2022, Senate testimony as ambassadorial nominee to Estonia, Kent stated that “Estonia exemplifies what it means to be a committed member of NATO, consistently investing in its armed forces with over two percent of GDP while deploying globally on security and peace missions, even as it shores up its own borders to deter Russia, which it considers an existential threat.”
He added that, “This will strengthen European and transatlantic deterrence and defense, improve the credibility of the collective security architecture, and dissuade increasingly assertive and dangerous activities by Russia and other adversaries. Estonia has been a leader in the region’s response to Russia’s unjust war in Ukraine. Estonia is the largest contributor per capita of assistance to Ukraine, contributing more than $255 million in military aid this year, as well as hosting almost 60,000 Ukrainian refugees, five percent of Estonia’s resident population.
Estonia is also a world leader in digital services and cyber security. Estonia hosts the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence in Tallinn, which the United States joined in 2011. The United States and Estonia share a vision of a secure and open cyberspace, in which all countries behave responsibly.”
On January 9, 2023, then Ambassador-Designate Kent met at the State Department with representatives of Estonian and Baltic organizations in the U.S. for a briefing to discuss common interests and opportunities for interaction.
The representatives present were Marju Rink-Abel, President of the Estonian American National Council (EANC); Karl Altau, Managing Director of the Joint Baltic American National Committee (JBANC); and Erik Puskar, Vice President for Business Relations Development with the Maryland Estonia Exchange Council (MEEC). JBANC intern Youngwoo Kim also participated.
Joining Ambassador-Designate Kent was Megan Tetrick, Baltic Unit Chief in the office of Nordic, Baltic, and Arctic Security Affairs.
The meeting included overviews of EANC, JBANC and MEEC and of the Estonian American community to Kent as well as a discussion about his background and priorities. He heard about the advocacy, outreach, and citizen diplomacy that the organizations conduct, including the cooperation between Maryland and Estonia and projects to develop business links between the partners.
We look forward with great enthusiasm to having George Kent in Tallinn as U.S. ambassador and our future cooperation between him and his team!
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