SEATTLE — Tonight KIRO 7 zeroes in on why Seattle is now a flashpoint in an international diplomatic crisis. President Donald Trump ordered the Russian consulate in Seattle closed. KIRO 7 talked with one family with two young children caught in the middle.
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Their fight to return to their homeland and today's decision will an impact have on us all.
It's easy to see why an international story has reached all the way here to Seattle. By one estimate, nearly a quarter of America's nuclear arsenal is just 20 miles northwest of Seattle at Naval Base Kitsap.
There were several people at Union Square. The sudden closing of the Russian Consulate came when many of them need it most.
"We wake up," said Alex Bendatov. "We open Facebook and we see news that the Russian Consulate in Seattle is closing down."
Bendatov, his wife and children stood outside the Russian Consulate in downtown Seattle. They rushed here hoping to pick up their young son's passport for their trip back to Russia this summer.
"It was just like a big surprise," he said.
The announcement came early this morning. The United States is expelling 60 Russian intelligence officers at the United Nations and the Russian embassy in Washington, D.C., and closing the Russian consulate in Seattle. Everyone working here will be reassigned. More than a dozen allies are joining together to punish Moscow's alleged role in poisoning an ex-spy in Britain.
The breadth of the decision is catching even the experts off guard.
"Closing Seattle is quite a big step," said former CNN Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Dougherty. "So yes, it did surprise me."
But Dougherty, who lives in Seattle now and works at the University of Washington, says she is not surprised that the Puget Sound region is caught in this controversy stretching across the world.
"No, no," she said. "In fact this would be one of the first places if you were in Russia that I'm sure is targeted in a potential nuclear war. There's no question because of this submarines carrying nuclear weapons that are based here. That's obvious."
Obvious because just 20 miles northwest of Seattle a significant portion of the nation's nuclear arsenal is stored at Naval Base Kitsap.
"Its move against the consulate is appropriate," said Democratic Rep. Derek Kilmer. He represents Kitsap County.
He was asked why the move was "appropriate?"
"So we have national security assets," he said. "Submarine base Bangor was called out by the administration as part of the rationale behind that move. Obviously the Boeing company. We know the Russians have engaged in espionage including corporate espionage."
Still, Jill Dougherty says none of it bodes well for U.S.-Russia relations.
"In fact, I would say there's complete absence of trust between these two countries," said Dougherty. "And that gets very, very dangerous because these are two nuclear-armed countries."
As for the Bendatov family, they did manage to get their son's passport. But they need many more documents before they can fly home to Russia.
"Like the common people, they're the ones who will suffer as a result of this," said Alex. "And just going to make life more difficult for everybody."
Now the nearest Russian consulate is in Houston, Texas, about 1,900 miles away.
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