U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink is stepping down, the State Department confirmed Thursday, as the Trump administration ramps up its efforts to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.

Tammy Bruce, a State Department spokesperson, said Brink would be leaving her role, though she didn’t give a specific departure date. 

The news comes at a critical moment for U.S. foreign policy as officials work to ease tensions and end the grinding war in Eastern Europe.

Brink, a career diplomat with decades of experience, was nominated by then-President Joe Biden and unanimously confirmed by the Senate in May 2022, just months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

She became the first U.S. ambassador to serve in Kyiv since 2019, helping reestablish America’s diplomatic presence after embassy staff were evacuated in the early days of the war.

Before serving in Ukraine, Brink was the U.S. ambassador to Slovakia and worked in top roles at the National Security Council. She speaks Russian and is known for strongly defending U.S. interests in Eastern Europe.

While in Ukraine, Brink was a vocal supporter of American military aid and often appeared publicly with Ukrainian leaders. Her resignation comes as the Trump administration shifts focus toward ending the war through diplomacy and renewed talks with Russia.

Also on Thursday, U.S. and Russian officials held rare face-to-face talks in Istanbul aimed at repairing long-strained diplomatic relations. The State Department said the two sides exchanged formal notes to finalize an agreement that would stabilize banking services for each country’s embassies, a step seen as key to keeping diplomatic missions operational.

In recent years, both countries have imposed financial restrictions on each other’s embassies and slashed staffing due to the fallout from the war. A finalized banking deal could open the door to restoring some of those lost diplomatic connections.

The State Department said follow-up talks are expected, though no date has been set.

Brink’s departure lands at a moment of major transition in U.S. foreign policy. Her exit may also clear the way for a new ambassador more closely aligned with the Trump administration’s push for a ceasefire deal.

The State Department did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The Senate has voted to confirm the general who told President Donald Trump that ISIS could be eradicated ‘very quickly’ with loosened rules of engagement during his first term to the role of chairman of the Joint Chiefs. 

The vote came in the wee hours of Friday morning after Democrats rejected a GOP attempt to quickly confirm Caine on Thursday and get out of town.

The vote tally was 60 to 25, with 15 Democrats supporting the Trump nominee.

An Air Force F-16 pilot by background, Caine will be the first National Guard general to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Trump plucked him from retirement to reactivate and serve as his top military advisor after firing Gen. C.Q. Brown in February. 

Brown had been behind a 2022 memo laying out diversity goals for the Air Force.  

Caine will be the first Joint Chiefs chairman who was not a four-star and the first to come out of retirement to fill the role. He hasn’t been a combatant commander or service chief, meaning Trump had to grant him a waiver to serve in the role. 

Caine acknowledged his unconventional nomination during a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee: ‘In our family, we serve. When asked, we always say yes. Senators, I acknowledge that I’m an unconventional nominee. These are unconventional times.’ ​

He worked as the associate director of military affairs for the CIA from 2021 to 2024 and founded a regional airline in Texas. He was a White House fellow at the Agriculture Department and a counterterrorism specialist on the White House’s Homeland Security Council.

Caine was among a group of military leaders who met with the president in December 2018 at the Al Asad airbase in Iraq. Trump was there to deliver a Christmas message and hear from commanders on the ground, and there Caine told Trump they could defeat ISIS quickly with a surge of resources and a lifting of restrictions on engagement. 

”We’re only hitting them from a temporary base in Syria,” Trump said Caine told him. ”But if you gave us permission, we could hit them from the back, from the side, from all over – from the base that you’re right on, right now, sir. They won’t know what the hell hit them.” 

Trump had claimed Caine was wearing a red MAGA hat the first time he met him – a claim Caine repeatedly denied during the hearing.

‘Sir, for 34 years, I’ve upheld my oath of office and my commitment to my commission, and I have never worn any political merchandise,’ Caine told Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss. 

Trump, when he picked Caine, praised him as ‘an accomplished pilot, national security expert, successful entrepreneur, and a ‘warfighter’ with significant interagency and special operations experience.’

Caine vowed his duty would be to advise the president on defense considerations without any political influence. 

The role, he said, ‘starts with being a good example from the top and making sure that we are nonpartisan and apolitical and speaking the truth to power,’ Caine said.

Trump’s first chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Mark Milley, has now become a top foe – the president recently stripped him of his security clearance and had his portrait taken down at the Pentagon. 

President Donald Trump remains adamant that his administration will engage in ‘direct’ nuclear talks with Iran on Saturday in Oman, while Tehran appears to remain equally steadfast in its insistence the negotiations will be ‘indirect.’

Middle East envoy Stever Witkoff is scheduled to travel to Oman, where he could potentially be meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, though the Iranian official has so far maintained the talks will be held through a third party.

While it remains unclear who will get their way regarding the format of the discussions, Iran expert and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Behnam Ben Taleblu, said this public controversy between Washington and Tehran is all a game of leverage.

‘Both sides have an incentive to either overrepresent or underrepresent what is happening,’ he told Fox News Digital. ‘These are often the negotiations before the negotiations.’ 

‘For the White House, the desire to be seen as having direct talks with the Islamic Republic is high,’ he said, pointing to the lack of direct engagement between Washington and Tehran dating back to his first term and the regime’s deep disdain for the president, as witnessed in an apparent assassination attempt. 

While the Iranian government has long held contempt for the U.S., a sentiment that has persisted for decades, Trump is ‘very different,’ Ben Taleblu said.

The security expert highlighted the 2020 assassination of top Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the crippling effect of the U.S.-sanctioned maximum-pressure campaign and Trump’s open support for the Iranian people as the major issues that have rankled the Iranian regime.

‘Trump is a very bitter pill to swallow, and I think the supreme leader of Iran once said that the shoe of Qasem Soleimani has more honor than the head of Trump,’ Ben Taleblu said. ‘Being seen as directly negotiating with someone [like that] would be making the Islamic Republic look like a supplicant. 

‘The U.S. wants to be seen as having driven Iran to the negotiating table, and the Islamic Republic does not want to be seen as being driven to the negotiating table,’ he added. 

Tehran’s chief advantage is the fact that, despite severe U.S. sanctions and geopolitical attempts to halt its development of a nuclear weapon, it has made serious gains in its enrichment of uranium to near-weapons-grade quality, as well as with its missile program, a critical component in being able to actually fire a nuclear warhead.

It also has drastically closer ties with chief U.S. adversarial superpowers like Russia and China, whose position and involvement in countering Western attempts to disarm a nuclear Iran remains an unknown at this point. 

While Iran holds significant leverage when it comes to negotiating with the Trump administration on its nuclear program, Washington has a plethora of levers it can use to either incentivize or coerce Tehran into adhering to international calls for the end of its nuclear program.

‘The U.S. actually has a heck of a lot of leverage here,’ Ben Taleblu said, pointing to not only more economic sanctions, including ‘snapback’ mechanisms under the United Nations Security Council, but also military options.

Trump last month threatened to ‘bomb’ Iran if it did not engage in nuclear talks with the U.S.

But some have questioned how long the administration will allow negotiations to persist as JCPOA-era snapback sanctions expire in October 2025.

The White House would not confirm for Fox News Digital any time restrictions it has issued to Iran, but Trump on Wednesday told reporters, ‘We have a little time, but we don’t have much time.’

‘The regime has its back against the wall,’ Ben Taleblu said. ‘A military option, given what has been happening in the Middle East since Oct. 7, 2023, is an increasingly credible option against the Islamic Republic of Iran.’

‘And the regime is engaging, now, to delay and prevent a military option from ever materializing,’ he added. ‘They are hoping to use talks with the Americans as a human shield against the Israelis.’

‘So long as you’re talking to America, the Israelis aren’t shooting at you,’ Ben Taleblu continued. 

Trump this week said that it would be Israel who would take the lead on a military strike on Iran, not the U.S., should nuclear talks fail, which again could be a negotiating tactic as Israel has already demonstrated it will not hesitate to militarily engage with Iran.

‘Pursuing wholesale disarmament of the Islamic Republic of Iran is incredibly risky, and it doesn’t have a great track record of succeeding,’ Ben Taleblu said.

The Iranian expert said the only way to actually take on the Islamic Republic would be through a ‘broader’ and ‘more holistic’ strategy that focuses not only on nuclear nonproliferation but removing the ‘Axis of Resistance,’ scaling up sanctions and having a ‘ground game’ to counter the regime through cyber, political and telecommunication strategies ‘for when Iranians go out into the street and protest again.’

‘What the Islamic Republic would always want is to have you focus on the fire and not on the arsonist, and the arsonist is quite literally a regime that has tried to kill this president,’ Ben Taleblu said.

House Republicans passed a key hurdle to move forward President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful’ tax agenda on Thursday without the support of a single Democrat, prompting the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) to launch ads against over a dozen vulnerable Democrat incumbents.

‘The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) launched a paid digital advertising campaign targeting 25 vulnerable House Democrats for voting against the budget resolution, leading to higher taxes for Americans by slashing the child tax credit in half and making families pay thousands more,’ the NRCC said in a press release on Friday morning.

The paid digital ad campaign will target 25 House Democrats identified as vulnerable heading into next year’s midterms. The list of Democrats targeted includes: (CA-09) Josh Harder, (CA-13) Adam Gray, (CA-27) George Whitesides, (CA-45) Derek Tran, (CA-47) Dave Min, (FL-09) Darren Soto, (FL-23) Jared Moskowitz, (IN-01) Frank Mrvan, (ME-02) Jared Golden, (MI-08) Kristen McDonald Rivet, (NC-01) Don Davis, (NJ-09) Nellie Pou, (NM-02) Gabe Vasquez, (NV-01) Dina Titus, (NV-03) Susie Lee, (NV-04) Steven Horsford, (NY-03) Tom Suozzi, (NY-04) Laura Gillen, (NY-19) Josh Riley, (OH-09) Marcy Kaptur, (OH-13) Emilia Sykes, (TX-28) Henry Cuellar, (TX-34) Vicente Gonzalez, (VA-07) Eugene Vindman and (WA-03) Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.

‘Once again, House Democrats made their priorities crystal clear: They’re taking a wrecking ball to America’s economy and sticking the working class with higher taxes just to ram their radical agenda down the throats of all Americans,’ NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella told Fox News Digital. 

‘Voters will consistently be reminded of this betrayal all the way through next Fall.’

The NRCC ad campaign makes the case that by voting against the resolution, Democrats are supporting raising taxes on Americans at every income level and supporting the lowering of key tax credits. 

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) spokesperson Viet Shelton said, ‘This is what happens when the same people who want to eliminate the Department of Education write political ads.’

‘If they actually read the bill, they would realize their budget takes away health care, cuts off food assistance, and raises costs to pay for massive tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy while sticking working families with the bill. The Republican budget is exhibit A of their failure to make life affordable for Americans.’

While the party in power, which clearly is the Republicans, traditionally faces serious political headwinds in the midterm elections, the NRCC chair told Fox News last month he is optimistic.

Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., emphasized in an interview on Fox News’ ‘Fox and Friends’ that 13 of the 26 House Democrats they are targeting are in districts that ‘were carried by President Donald Trump in the last election.’

Hudson characterized the upcoming midterms as an ‘opportunity election for House Republicans.’

Additionally, Hudson, who is steering the House GOP’s campaign arm for a second straight cycle, added, ‘We are bullish. Republicans are on offense thanks to Donald Trump.’

The Cook Political Report unveiled its first rankings for the next midterm elections in February and listed 10 Democrat-held seats and eight Republican-controlled seats as toss-ups. 

Courtney Rice, communications director for the rival DCCC, emphasized that ‘voters will hold House Republicans accountable for failing to lower costs while fostering a culture of corruption that benefits their billionaire backers.’

‘The political environment is in Democrats’ favor heading into 2026 — and with stellar candidates who are focused on delivering for their districts, House Democrats are poised to take back the majority in 2026,’ Rice predicted.

Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser and Liz Elkind contributed to this report.