Victoria Nuland

Nuland was the lead U.S. point person for the Ukrainian crisis, establishing loan guarantees to Ukraine, including a $1 billion loan guarantee in 2014, and the provisions of non-lethal assistance to the Ukrainian military and border guard.[15][16] Along with Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, she is seen as a leading supporter of defensive weapons delivery to Ukraine. In 2016, Nuland urged Ukraine to start prosecuting corrupt officials: "It's time to start locking up people who have ripped off the Ukrainian population for too long and it is time to eradicate the cancer of corruption".[17] While serving as the Department of State's lead diplomat on the Ukraine crisis, Nuland pushed European allies to take a harder line on Russian expansionism.[18]

During a June 7, 2016, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing titled "Russian Violations of Borders, Treaties, and Human Rights", Nuland described U.S. diplomatic outreach to the former Soviet Union and efforts to build a constructive relationship with Russia. During her testimony, Nuland noted Russia's 2014 invasion of Ukraine which she said, "shattered any remaining illusions about this Kremlin's willingness to abide by international law or live by the rules of the institutions that Russia joined at the end of the Cold War."[19] Nuland described four essential elements of the U.S. foreign policy towards Russia:

1. Deter further aggression through the projection of strength and unity with allies;
2. Build resilience and reduce vulnerability among friends and Allies facing Russian pressure and coercion;
3. Cooperate on core national security priorities when U.S. interests and Russia's do align;
4. Sustain ties to the Russian people and business community to preserve the potential for a more constructive relationship in the future.[20]

Nuland left the State Department in January 2017, amid the departure of many career officials who left in the early days of the Trump administration.[21] As of April 2019 she serves as a nonresident fellow in the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution[22] and senior counselor at the Albright Stonebridge Group.[23]

On February 4, 2014, a recording of a phone call between Nuland and U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, on January 28, 2014, was published on YouTube.[24][25] The State Department and the White House suggested that an assistant to the deputy prime minister of Russia Dmitry Rogozin was the source of the leak, which he denied.[26][27][28]

In their phone conversation, Nuland and Pyatt discussed who should be in the government after Viktor Yanukovych's ouster, to include Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and in what ways they might achieve that transition. Specifically, the two spoke about which opposition leaders they would like to see in government, what pitches they would give each opposition leader in subsequent calls to achieve this, and strategies on how they would try to manage the 'personality problems' and conflicts between the different opposition leaders with ambitions to become president. Nuland notified Pyatt that after the review of the three opposition candidates for the post of Prime Minister of Ukraine, the US State Department had selected Arseniy Yatsenyuk. She said: "I think Yats is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience. What he needs is Klitsch and Tyahnybok on the outside. He needs to be talking to them four times a week". Pyatt asked: "Do you want us to set up a call with him as the next step?" Nuland told Pyatt that the next step should be to set up a telephone conversation between her and the three Ukrainian candidates, with Pyatt also possibly participating. Pyatt agreed: "I think you reaching out directly to him helps with the personality management among the three and it gives you also a chance to move fast on all this stuff and put us behind it".[25][26] Yatsenyuk became prime minister of Ukraine on February 27, 2014.[29]

After discussing Ukrainian opposition figures Nuland states that she prefers the United Nations as mediator, instead of the European Union, adding "Fuck the EU", and Pyatt responds, "Oh, exactly ...."[25][30][31]

According to the Washington Post,

[Nuland] was dismissively referring to slow-moving European efforts to address political paralysis and a looming fiscal crisis in Ukraine. But it was the blunt nature of her remarks, rather than U.S. diplomatic calculations, that seemed exceptional. Nuland also assessed the political skills of Ukrainian opposition figures with unusual candor and, along with the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, debated strategy for their cause, laying bare a deep degree of U.S. involvement in affairs that Washington officially says are Ukraine's to resolve.[32]

A spokeswoman for EU foreign-policy chief Catherine Ashton stated that the EU would not comment on a "leaked alleged" conversation.[31] The following day, Christiane Wirtz, Deputy Government Spokesperson and Deputy Head of the Press and Information Office of the German Federal Government, stated that German Chancellor Angela Merkel termed Nuland's remark "absolutely unacceptable."[33] The president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, condemned the remark as "unacceptable."[34][35]

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who had left the State Department by the time of the leak, argued in 2017 that the incident "didn't have lasting diplomatic repercussions". She said it was notable as an early example of Russia "weaponizing" intelligence against other states: "the Russians were not just stealing information for intelligence purposes, as all countries do; they were now using social media and strategic leaks to 'weaponize' that information."[36]

Neither Nuland nor Pyatt was disciplined for their security breach involving open cell-phone conversation.

On January 24, 2018, the Washington Post published an interview with Nuland where she opined on the work of President Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. She described an exodus of career foreign service officials and dysfunction within the State Department, and stated that the American judiciary and media were under assault. Nuland also decried a trend towards American isolationism stating: "When we withdraw and say it's every nation for itself, you open the door for countries dissatisfied with their territorial position and influence in the international system — or with the system itself." She encouraged whole-government responses to international issues stating, "Military leaders would be the first to say military solutions alone result in more and longer military entanglements. The role of American diplomats and political leaders is to work concurrently with the military to bring to bear all of the political tools we have."[37]

In January 2018, the Trump administration began new high-level engagements with Russian government officials by scheduling a meeting between Russia's top general Valery Gerasimov and the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Curtis Scaparrotti. Nuland stated, "These channels are especially vital at a time when relations at the leader level are so unpredictable." She said Scaparrotti was "uniquely positioned" to address concerns about Russia's "ongoing military role in Ukraine, its INF treaty violations, its active measures to undermine Transatlantic democracies and the other strategic tensions that are driving the US and its allies to take stronger deterrent measures."[38]