KIEV, Ukraine — Six months into a job he didn’t seek or particularly want, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson appears to be slowly embracing a more traditional approach to American diplomacy after early signs of resistance.

While his plans for a potentially radical overhaul of the State Department, including steep budget and staffing cuts, continue to draw harsh criticism from the foreign policy establishment, Tillerson has in recent days taken steps to bolster his and his agency’s role in an administration heavy with skeptics of the international order that previous presidents of both political parties spent decades building and nurturing.

Tillerson has taken the lead in pressing for a tough international response to North Korea’s test of an intercontinental ballistic missile. He is preparing for an enhanced mediation role to resolve the crisis between Qatar and other Gulf Arab states. And, when he arrives in Kiev on Sunday to show support for Ukraine in its struggle with Russia, Tillerson will be accompanied by a newly named special envoy for the conflict, an appointment he made despite his oft-stated disdain for such specialty positions.

None of these moves would be considered especially noteworthy for Tillerson’s immediate predecessors as secretary of state, all of whom subscribed to a conventional post-Cold War model of American leadership. And none will likely win plaudits from critics still fuming at Tillerson’s acquiescence to President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from global agreements like the Trans Pacific Partnership on trade and the Paris climate accord.

But, taken together they suggest that the former Exxon Mobil CEO is departing from the low-key, risk-averse profile of his early tenure and becoming more hands-on as he adopts a foreign policy blueprint that broadens Trump’s rigid “America First” governing principle to allow for greater flexibility in dealing with global hotspots.

Tillerson’s one-day trip to Kiev comes less than three weeks after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko visited Washington and met with Trump to seek assurances of continued U.S. commitment to his country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity as it struggles to fend off intervention by Moscow. More importantly, it comes less than 48 hours after Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Germany amid clouds of uncertainty and suspicion over Trump’s desire to boost U.S.-Russia ties.

As such, the brief visit by Tillerson, who sat in on the Trump-Putin meeting in Hamburg, is an important symbolic gesture to Ukraine from the top diplomat in an administration seen by many to be too soft on Russia. Ahead of the trip, U.S. officials said Tillerson would stress U.S. support for ending the three-year conflict with Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, which has cost some 10,000 lives, as well as for Ukraine regaining control of its border with Russia. He will also be pressing for economic and political reforms, the officials said.