{"id":22843,"date":"2014-02-07T06:45:57","date_gmt":"2014-02-07T14:45:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=22843"},"modified":"2014-02-08T17:09:53","modified_gmt":"2014-02-09T01:09:53","slug":"is-the-us-trying-to-install-a-ukrainian-government-or-leaving-it-up-to-ukrainians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2014\/02\/07\/is-the-us-trying-to-install-a-ukrainian-government-or-leaving-it-up-to-ukrainians\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the US Trying to Install a Ukrainian Government, or Leaving It Up to Ukrainians?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. State Department&#8217;s top diplomat for Europe Victoria Nuland made headlines yesterday when an audio recording of her phone conversation with the U.S. Ambassador with Ukraine\u00a0Geoffrey Pyatt was released. Rumors are swirling that the Russians were surveilling the U.S. diplomats and released the audio recording to embarrass the United States.<\/p>\n<p>What was so embarrassing about it? Nuland, frustrated that the European Union wasn&#8217;t acting more forcefully on the Ukraine issue, said &#8220;Fuck the EU.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the conversation:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/64ZiM0S0BYM\" height=\"315\" width=\"560\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>While the expletive is what caught all the media attention, much less was paid to the substance of the discussion, which involved Nuland and Pyatt talking about the Ukrainian opposition and some kind of transition, as if it&#8217;s any of their business.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s an excerpt from the <a href=\"http:\/\/m.state.gov\/md221422.htm#UKRAINE\">State Department Press Briefing<\/a> with reporters asking about the extensive U.S. meddling in Ukraine&#8217;s affairs that was made evident by the audio recording:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><b>QUESTION:<\/b>\u00a0&#8212; now, once we get into it. Quite apart from the colorful language that is used in reference to the European Union, the conversation appears to \u2013 well, doesn\u2019t appear to suggest, it does \u2013 the conversation shows that the United States certainly has \u2013 or at least officials within the U.S. Government have certain opinions about certain Ukrainian opposition leaders and others. And I\u2019m wondering how that squares with your repeated insistence that every \u2013 all of this is up to the Ukrainians to decide themselves.<\/p>\n<p><b>[State Dept. Spokeswoman] MS. PSAKI:<\/b>\u00a0It\u2019s not inconsistent in the least bit. It is no secret that Ambassador Pyatt and Assistant Secretary Nuland have been working with the Government of Ukraine, with the opposition, with business and civil society leaders to support their efforts, and it shouldn\u2019t be a surprise that at any point, there have been discussions about recent events and offers and what is happening on the ground. And as you know, Assistant Secretary Nuland is on the ground right now continuing our efforts in that regard.<\/p>\n<p>It remains the case that it is up to the Ukrainian people themselves to decide their future. It is up to them to determine their path forward, and that\u2019s a consistent message that we\u2019re conveying publicly and privately.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<b>QUESTION:<\/b>\u00a0Because they\u2019re \u2013 look, the Russians have repeatedly accused the United States Government of interfering in Ukraine\u2019s politics.<\/p>\n<p><b>MS. PSAKI:<\/b>\u00a0Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p><b>QUESTION:<\/b>\u00a0The U.S. Government has, to some degree, made reciprocal claims about Russia. Does not the fact that U.S. diplomats purportedly are discussing who should and should not be in a Ukrainian government hint at some possibility of U.S. interference here?<\/p>\n<p><b>MS. PSAKI:<\/b>\u00a0Absolutely not. There \u2013 it should be no surprise that U.S. officials talk about issues around the world. Of course we do. That\u2019s what you do, that\u2019s what diplomats do, and discuss especially issues where we\u2019ve been closely engaged. The Secretary met with the opposition this weekend. He stopped by a meeting with the foreign minister. It\u2019s up to the people of Ukraine, including officials from both sides, to determine the path forward. But it shouldn\u2019t be a surprise that there are discussions about events on the ground.<\/p>\n<p><b>QUESTION:<\/b>\u00a0This was more than discussions, though. This was two top U.S. officials that are on the ground discussing a plan that they have to broker a future government, and bringing officials from the UN to kind of seal the deal. This is more than the U.S. trying to make suggestions. This is the U.S. midwifing the process.<\/p>\n<p><b><!--more-->MS. PSAKI:<\/b>\u00a0Well, Elise, you\u2019re talking about a private diplomatic conversation. Those happen all the time. Of course as part of private diplomatic conversations, there are discussions about what involvement the UN can have, what involvement or engagement should happen on the ground. That shouldn\u2019t be a surprise. Of course, these things are being discussed. It doesn\u2019t change the fact that it\u2019s up to the people on the ground, it is up to the people of Ukraine to determine what the path forward is.<\/p>\n<p><b>QUESTION:<\/b>\u00a0But you\u2019re clearly trying to influence what they decide. I mean, one of the quotes is \u2013 and this is attributed to Ambassador Pyatt: \u201cI think you reaching out to him\u201d \u2013 Klitschko \u2013\u201chelps with the personality management among the three, and it gives you also a chance to move fast and all this stuff and put us behind it before they all sit down.\u201d And he explains why he doesn\u2019t like it. That\u2019s not \u2013 that\u2019s not oh, let them figure this out. That\u2019s gee, let\u2019s try to do this so that he won\u2019t decide he doesn\u2019t like this plan.<\/p>\n<p><b>MS. PSAKI:<\/b>\u00a0Well, Arshad, it\u2019s not a secret that we\u2019re engaged with what\u2019s happening on the ground&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Ms. Psaki is caught in a contradiction and she can&#8217;t seem to wiggle out of it despite considerable effort. The questioner is right: the U.S. is doing more than &#8220;making suggestions&#8221; or helping the Ukrainians along a path they&#8217;ve chosen for themselves. The conversation, Jacob Heilbrunn <a href=\"http:\/\/nationalinterest.org\/blog\/jacob-heilbrunn\/victoria-nulands-plot-against-ukraine-9836\">writes<\/a>, &#8220;reveals the extent to which the Obama administration is determined not simply to bring the crisis to an end, but also to install a government that it regards as appropriate.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. State Department&#8217;s top diplomat for Europe Victoria Nuland made headlines yesterday when an audio recording of her phone conversation with the U.S. Ambassador with Ukraine\u00a0Geoffrey Pyatt was released. Rumors are swirling that the Russians were surveilling the U.S. diplomats and released the audio recording to embarrass the United States. What was so embarrassing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-22843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22843"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22847,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22843\/revisions\/22847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22843"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=22843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}