Current Secretary of State Antony Blinken praised Nuland’s three and a half decades of public service and thanked him for his role in shaping US global policy under six presidents and 10 secretaries of state.
Victoria Nuland, the third-highest-ranking American diplomat, will leave her post at the end of the month. A career diplomat, Nuland served as assistant secretary of state for European affairs in the Obama administration, resigned after Donald Trump was elected president in 2020, and returned as undersecretary of state for political affairs in the Biden administration.
He was considered to succeed Wendy Sherman as deputy secretary of state—and even served as deputy secretary of state for seven months after Sherman’s resignation—but Joe Biden ultimately found someone else to fill the post. Nuland worked at the US Embassy in Moscow in the 1990s before becoming US ambassador to NATO and then State Department spokesman during President Barack Obama’s first term.
Ukraine’s support, Russia’s anger
As the department’s press secretary and then assistant secretary of state for European affairs, Nuland repeatedly drew ire from Russian leaders for his open support for Ukraine, especially after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry recalled that when Nuland left her post as press secretary during her tenure to head the European desk, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov congratulated her for “getting rid of that girl.” According to Kerry, he replied to Lavrov that he did not fire him, but “promoted him.”
Current Secretary of State Antony Blinken praised Nuland’s three and a half decades of public service and thanked him for his role in shaping US global policy under six presidents and 10 secretaries of state.
“His efforts will be indispensable in opposing Putin’s massive invasion of Ukraine, in building a global coalition to ensure its strategic failure, and in helping Ukraine reach the day when it can stand on its own two feet. —democratically, economically, and militarily. .” Blinken said in a statement.
Russian propagandists paid a lot of attention to Nuland and even coined the term “State Department cookies” – during the Maidan in Kiev in 2013, he, together with the US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, visited in the protestors’ tent city, where he handed out sandwiches and buns from a bag the ambassador was carrying.
In Russian media reports, the products became “cookies,” and the word itself took on a life of its own and was often used in Russian media to describe US support for the protests.
Words about Ukraine
Nuland has always supported Ukraine in its confrontation with Russia.
“Although Ukraine is building a peaceful, democratic and independent state on 93% of its territory, Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine are suffering from a reign of terror,” he said in 2015.
“Today, Crimea remains an illegally occupied territory, non-compliance with human rights is the norm here, not the exception, and many residents of Crimea are in a very dangerous situation,” he said.
Reaction of the Russian Federation
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called the reason for Nuland’s resignation “the failure of the anti-Russian course of the Biden administration.” “Russophobia, proposed by Victoria Nuland as the main concept of the foreign policy of the United States, drags the Democrats under like a rock,” writes Zakharova.
Source: korrespondent
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.