Voice of Russia
February 9, 2014
Nuland instructed US ambassador on Ukrainian Gov’t makeup – Rick Rozoff
John Robles
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Last December Victoria Nuland returned to the US after handing out cookies and doughnuts to what can only be described as insurgents in Kiev’s Maidan Square and then returned to give a briefing in Washington to the US-Ukraine Foundation, during which she stated that the US has already “invested” $5 billion dollars in order to bring US “democracy” to Ukraine. The speech was remarkable in that Ms. Nuland, despite all of the “democratic” and “humanitarian” rhetoric admitted that the US was attempting to overthrow the government. Her recently leaked conversation with the US Ambassador is also historically unprecedented in that it is the first time that proof of plans to overthrow and install a government have been released before the fact. NATO specialist and Voice of Russia regular Rick Rozoff spoke about the implications of the leaked conversation and what it really means in an interview.
Hello. This is John Robles, I’m speaking to Mr. Rick Rozoff, the owner and manager of the Stop NATO website and international mailing list. He is also a regular contributor to the Voice of Russia and a geopolitical specialist.
Robles: Again, you were ahead of the curve and ahead of the times here. I’m talking about “Rocky Balboa and the new government lineup for Ukraine” and I’d like to get your comments on that and if possible Victoria Nuland’s “staged conversation” or what was it? What is going on over there?
Rozoff: It is yet to be determined the exact nature of the conversation, what appears to be indisputable, however, is that US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland had a conversation – the real question is when? – but had a recent conversation with US ambassador to Ukraine in Kiev, one Geoffrey Pyatt, and that during this discussion they very matter of factly, almost mundanely discussed who would comprise, who would constitute a new Ukrainian government, presumably post Yanukovich or at least transitionally.
There is some speculation that the conversation may have been held not during Ms. Nuland’s current stay in Ukraine – she arrived there on the 6th of February – but perhaps earlier on January,25th. But whenever the conversation occurred, what is remarkable about it is the absolute cynicism, the notion that the Secretary of State can determine who is the most likely person to be, say, prime minister or deputy prime minister of a sovereign nation, Ukraine.
Robles: So the conversation was with the ambassador to Ukraine. What were they discussing?
Rozoff: There is no room for opinion, it was blunt and irrefutable what they were discussing, which was what the future Ukrainian government would look like.
And what Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US envoy Geoffrey Pyatt were talking about, which is determining among themselves which of the three major opposition leaders would occupy key posts within the government, a future government to the US’ liking and perhaps of the US’ design, and which would remain outside the government as an opposition figure. But it was not a matter of expressing opinions on this; the conversation which I have heard, and as many of your listeners have, is clearly one where the stage director is giving cues to the actors.
And it is understood that Arseny Yatsenyuk, who is the head of the Fatherland Party, would become presumably a prime minister either under a Yanukovich government (a unity government if you will) or post-Yanukovich but that Vitaly Klitschko and the head of Svoboda Party would remain outside the government. That is what Nuland was, I don’t even think so much recommending, but dictating.
Robles: They were planning the makeup of the Ukrainian government amongst themselves?
Rozoff: I would even say the word ordering the composition of the next government would not have been an overstatement.
By the way, the US ambassador clearly was taking his orders from Nuland. Nuland as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs and he being an ambassador, of course, works for the State Department and works for her.
We have to remember of course Victoria Nuland was State Department Spokesman under John Kerry’s predecessor Hillary Clinton and was herself under the George W. Bush administration the US permanent representative – which is, say, an ambassador – to NATO.
So she’s somebody who is a pretty high-level operative and is focused on Eurasia, but most particularly former Soviet space, and it is to be assumed that Mr. Pyatt, about whom I know nothing else, that is he is the ambassador to Ukraine, may very well be someone comparable to Michael McFaul, who is now leaving the ambassadorial post in Moscow. Somebody who you were the first to recognize at his proper value when he arrived, as somebody with no diplomatic experience or training, but someone who is very adept at sponsoring so called color revolutions and I assume Mr. Pyatt in Kiev is somebody of the same stripe.
Robles: I think Ukraine is the “color revolution playground” for the US State Department, I don’t know. Do you think this may have been a staged leak to try to show that there is no real support for Klitschko, because maybe that was hurting his chances in Ukraine. Maybe he was even possibly facing treason charges or something if he was seen as being their puppet in Ukraine?
Rozoff: That is a technique that has been employed before: where you give the impression of putting distance between yourself and a client so as to boost the independent credentials of that client. I can’t rule out the possibility that is true.
Robles: Was Russia mentioned in this conversation at all?
Rozoff: Yes. Nuland indicated to her underling (I suppose we’d have to say) Pyatt, the US ambassador in Ukraine, when she made the infamous statement about the expletive, of telling the European Union what to do, I assume your listeners are going to know what I’m talking about, the indication was that she could count on support from the United Nations, that is from Ban Ki-moon and a Dutch diplomat working for the UN – I’m going to pronounce it in the English manner – Robert Serry, that they would come in and in the words of Nuland “glue this together” or words to that effect, and that the EU presumably (she wasn’t quite explicit about this) wasn’t moving fast enough for political, for regime change in Kiev and that she felt it was imperative that the pace, I suppose, of the color revolution be stepped up because otherwise Russia might be able to intervene and counteract, or act against some of the momentum that was building up in the streets.
So, she clearly indicated this was in opposition to Russian actions and clearly, implicitly, in opposition to Russian interests.
Robles: I see. So she used the expletive because the EU was not moving quickly enough for her.
Rozoff: Right, but these are comparatively minor tactical differences, I suppose. One has to keep in mind that she, Nuland, came back to Kiev the second time, this was the same moment she was handing out pastries and cookies to protestors in Maidan, in Independent square and elsewhere in Ukraine, so openly and one-sidedly sympathizing with anti-government protestors – protestors is a euphemistic term, I think, members of an uprising, a violent uprising – and was succoring them, was giving them aid, support, moral and material.
And she came back on February 6th to meet with this triumvirate of opposition leaders that we’ve talked about. Nuland met with them two days ago, yesterday, and then Catherine Ashton from the EU came in exactly the same time to meet with exactly the same three leaders.
So there is every reason to believe what Ashton and Nuland are doing now is what they have been doing all along, which is acting in unison, acting in tandem.
Robles: I said before, you were ahead of the curve again. We mentioned… last time we talked about Ukraine pretty much kind of out of the blue Rocky Balboa or Sylvester Stallone’s role, right? Can you tell our listeners about this picture that has been spread around the Internet and what is all that about?
Rozoff: I have to give you the credit. I think you first conjured up the image of Sylvester Stallone’s cinema alter ego, Rocky Balboa, in referenced to Vitaly (Vladimir) Klitschko. But what in fact surfaced today and we are able to circulate it a bit, is a photograph from 2011 of Sylvester Stallone with the Klitschko brothers, altogether there were five people in the photograph, at least two of them are Klitschko brothers, one of them Vitaly, to announce the launching of “Rocky the Musical”, I swear to God, “Rocky the Musical.”
Robles: Rocky the Musical?!?!
Rozoff: Rocky the Musical, which was to have been launched, I suppose it was, the following year, 2012, and in the background the print is in German, so I assume this event was staged in Germany, but it was clearly the fictional Rocky-Rambo as we talked about in your program if you recollect, Sylvester Stallone composite creature, who is an anti-Russian guerrilla war fighter par excellence and Rocky 4 who wins boxing matches against Russian boxers and so forth, so this is the kind of crudely crafted image that is being passed off as politics.
The third figure in this category is supposed to be somebody like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I’ve been trying to find a photograph of the three together; I believe one exists by the way, if some of your listeners want to try to hunt it up, of Klitschko, Stallone and Schwarzenegger together. This would be the image of politics as they are trying to pass it off to a certain sector of the Ukrainian populace, I don’t think too successfully.
Robles: Is Sylvester Stallone popular in Ukraine? I don’t think so.
Rozoff: I can’t imagine that he is. But I think that Klitschko may very well be trying to model himself not after the real-world Sly Stallone but after the cinema fantasies of a combination, again, of Rocky and Rambo and this may be an image crafted by perhaps some overpaid but not particularly creative or innovative public relations firms that have been hired to support the Orange Revolution Phase II.
Robles: So, we have the US State Department now openly, now it is clear, I mean we have been talking about it but now we have evidence and it is perfectly out there, it is clear, that they are actually assigning leaders to countries. Would it be fair to characterize it like that?
Rozoff: That is exactly what it is. And it is not just similar to, as you made the allusion to, the original so-called Orange Revolution.
Robles: So, Rick, unprecedented, I think, statements, but maybe they are planted statements, I don’t know. What do you think about that?
Rozoff: Again we’re talking about Nuland-Pyatt dialogue? One never knows, but I’ll say this: that the fact that Victoria Nuland apologized to the European Union suggests that she is part of the game if it is a ploy, and if it is genuine she has just acknowledged that’s her voice and that is precisely what she said, obscenity and all.
As it had been pointed out by other observers, the apologies ought not to be extended to the European Union; the apologies, if we were in a better world, would be extended to the government and the people of Ukraine who she is attempting to ride roughshod over and to implant a US-designed proxy or quisling government in the stead of that elected legally four years ago in Ukraine, so that is where the apology ought to be.
But one thing, too, it is a case where perhaps it is fortunate she used the infamous four-letter word she did, because as a result of it the audio tape has now achieved a degree of exposure, circulation, I’m sure it would not have otherwise, although the content of it is starkly, almost unprecedented if we take it at face value; for the first time a major US official is explaining precisely how they institute a government change, a regime change, a coup in fact and is boasting of it, discussing it in detail before the fact.
This is something wasn’t available in Iran in 1953 or Guatemala in 1954 or Iraq in 1963 or the Belgian Congo in the 60s. This is something, an historical artifact, that really needs to be paid attention to.
Robles: Do you think it is possible that it is just another distractor from the Sochi Olympics?
Rozoff: The timing of it certainly is suspect, that much I grant. And we have to maybe take the next chapter in the story which is that: a State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki (Jen I presume is short for Jennifer) refers to the fact that ostensibly, supposedly, this audio tape was revealed to the world, posted on Youtube or what have you, by a Russian official, feeds right into the mounting Russophobic campaign that is being built up right now.
And as a matter of fact in the words of State Department spokesman Psaki, this is “a new low”, that is a quote from her “a new low”. That is, even assuming this is a case that a Russian official has released the audio tape, how he obtained it begs questioning of course, but even if that were true, to suggest something as innocuous as that is an offense to the State Department when State Department members, heads rather, like Nuland herself no less, her attitude to the European Union seems to be a a new low.
But her former boss Hillary Clinton was constantly berating Russia, saying that Russia and China have got “pay a price” for their positions on Syria, using words like despicable and so forth to talk about those partners. Low is what the State Department practices on an ongoing basis.
But the fact was again that it is being used, like you say, on the occasion of the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, in Russia, suggest that this is part of yet another attempt to discredit Russia, rather than looking at the context of the discussion itself, which ought to be enough to disgrace the US, at least what claims to be its diplomatic wing, for some time to come.
Robles: Did anybody offer any evidence that it came from Russia or it is just they are again demonizing Russia as usual?
Rozoff: Yeah, but at a very sensitive moment when Russia is rightly the center of world attention with the opening of the Winter Olympics. And this is not at all different than, for example, the fact that the US backed the Saakashivili regime which attacked South Ossetia and triggered a five-day war with Russia in August 2008 exactly as the summer Olympics in Beijing were opened.
Robles: Ok, Rick, thank you very much. I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with me. Take care. Bye.
That was the end of an interview with Rick Rozoff, the owner and manager of the Stop NATO website and international mailing list. You can find the rest of this interview on our website at voiceofrussia.com. Thank you very much for listening and as always I wish you the best wherever you may be.
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