It is true that the Ukrainians could not have launched Soviet nuclear weapons. They didn't have the command, control and nuclear launch codes which were held in Moscow.

However, the Ukrainians had all the knowledge, the skills and the capability to build their own nuclear weapons.

Some of the top Soviet nuclear scientists and engineers were Ukrainians.

Please read this:

"Ukraine played a significant role in the Soviet nuclear program development. Before the Second World War, many of the best Soviet nuclear physicists worked in Ukraine. However, during this period the capacity of Ukrainian nuclear research capabilities was underestimated by the Soviet government—Soviet leaders did not recognize the significance of proposals by Kharkov physicists regarding the producing of nuclear weapons. The rejection of Victor Maslov’s suggestions was a historic mistake for the Soviet Union. Had the Soviets began their weapons program in earnest prior to the Second World War, one could speculate that the Soviet Union might have been able to create nuclear weapons almost simultaneously with the United States. After WWII, Ukraine continued to play a significant role in the Soviet civilian nuclear industry. While the Ukrainian institute of Physics in Kharkiv did not actively participate in the production of Soviet nuclear weapons, many Ukrainian physicists were part of the efforts underway in Russia"

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/ukraine-and-soviet-nuclear...

Hundreds of #Pakistani students stuck in #Ukraine #Pakistan embassy in #Kiev tweeted it's helping stranded Pakistanis to evacuate, advising them to reach Ternopil so they can be transported to #Poland. Pakistan's national airline PIA to airlift citizens https://abcn.ws/3hiXanI


KARACHI, Pakistan -- The families of hundreds of Pakistani students stuck in Ukraine following the Russian invasion are urging their government to help bring them home.

At a media briefing late Friday, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that the Pakistani embassy had been temporarily moved from Kyiv to Ternopil on the border with Poland, to facilitate evacuations.

Media reports say some 1500 Pakistanis, including 500 students, have been stuck in Ukraine since the Russian invasion on Thursday.

Syed Waqar Abbas, a software engineering student in Kharkiv National University, is among the students in Ukraine waiting for consular help. His family in the southern port city of Karachi said Saturday that they remain worried about his safety.

“My son is in Kharkiv which is being bombarded. He lives close to the border and that area is very dangerous," said Shabana Bano Abbas, his mother. She told the Associated Press that her son had no resources to help him get out.

“He has just informed us that a station close to his area has been bombarded, how will my son get out of that place?" she said, demanding the government to help stranded children return.

His sister Rubab blamed the Pakistani authorities of being unresponsive. “He has been trying to contact the Pakistan Embassy for two days but the embassy has not been giving any response to him.”

The Pakistani embassy in Ukraine said in a tweet that it was helping stranded Pakistanis to evacuate, advising them to reach Ternopil so they can be transported to Poland. Pakistan's national airline PIA said it was ready to airlift citizens home from Poland.

CBS reporter Charlie D'Agata reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine:
Ukraine “isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilized, relatively European — I have to choose those words carefully, too — city, where you wouldn’t expect that or hope that it’s going to happen"

D'Agata later apologized: “I spoke in a way I regret, and for that I’m sorry"

https://youtu.be/58D9hbYgD24

War Propaganda About Ukraine Becoming More Militaristic, Authoritarian, and Reckless
Every useful or pleasing claim about the war, no matter how unverified or subsequently debunked, rapidly spreads, while dissenters are vilified as traitors or Kremlin agents.

Glenn Greenwald


https://greenwald.substack.com/p/war-propaganda-about-ukraine-becom...

Less than a week into this war, that can no longer be said. One of the media's most beloved members of Congress, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), on Friday explicitly and emphatically urged that the U.S. military be deployed to Ukraine to establish a “no-fly zone” — i.e., American soldiers would order Russia not to enter Ukrainian airspace and would directly attack any Russian jets or other military units which disobeyed. That would, by definition and design, immediately ensure that the two countries with by far the planet's largest nuclear stockpiles would be fighting one another, all over Ukraine.

Kinzinger's fantasy that Russia would instantly obey U.S. orders due to rational calculations is directly at odds with all the prevailing narratives about Putin having now become an irrational madman who has taken leave of his senses — not just metaphorically but medically — and is prepared to risk everything for conquest and legacy. This was not the first time such a deranged proposal has been raised; days before Kinzinger unveiled his plan, a reporter asked Pentagon spokesman John Kirby why Biden has thus far refused this confrontational posture. The Brookings Institution's Ben Wittes on Sunday demanded: “Regime change: Russia.” The President of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, celebrated that “now the conversation has shifted to include the possibility of desired regime change in Russia.”

Having the U.S. risk global nuclear annihilation over Ukraine is an indescribably insane view, as one realizes upon a few seconds of sober reflection. We had a reminder of that Sunday morning when “Putin ordered his nuclear forces on high alert Sunday, reminding the world he has the power to use weapons of mass destruction, after complaining about the West’s response to his invasion of Ukraine” — but it is completely unsurprising that it is already being suggested.

Europe relies on Swift to pay Russian producers for 40% of its natural-gas supply. Fear that Russia's natural gas exports could be frozen sent Europe's natural gas prices shooting up as high as $40 per million BTUs vs. about $5 per million in the natural-gas-rich U.S.

https://www.investors.com/news/russia-ukraine-invasion-poses-big-ec...


If sustained, such prices would plunge European economies into recession, as consumers struggled to pay bills and manufacturers were forced to shutter their factories.

Germany has already halted certification of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline from Russia as the Ukraine invasion loomed. It also said it'll take steps to wean itself off Russian gas over time. But pressure is building on Germany to accede to harsher sanctions.

There would still be potential workarounds, if Russia is cut off from Swift. BCA Research said it expects Germany to find an alternate way of transmitting payment instructions to keep energy flowing.

Russia might use China's much smaller CIPS messaging system for conducting regional commerce, driving the countries closer together. Still, it's not clear how effective any of these alternatives will be, so risk will rise of price increases or supply disruptions for a number of key commodities.

Russia's Other Riches
Russia's economy is "basically a big gas station," but otherwise of little global importance, Jason Furman, top economic advisor to President Obama, said recently.

For S&P 500 companies, Russia only amounts to 0.1% of total sales, according to a Bank of America report.

Yet Russia controls big enough slices of key commodity markets beyond oil and gas to roil global supply chains that are still trying to recover from Covid disruptions.

Russia accounted for 6% of global aluminum and 5% of nickel supply in 2021, according to the Cru Group's commodity market research.

On Thursday, aluminum prices rose more than 3% to hit an all-time high $3,450 per ton, while nickel reached a decade-plus high around $25,000 per ton.

Inventories of base metals are already extremely low, JPMorgan said in a note to clients. That leaves "very little additional cushion for further supply disruptions — either from Russia directly or via higher-for-longer gas and power prices," the firm's analysts added.

Russia also controls 35% of palladium and 10% of platinum supply. Those precious metals are used in catalytic converters to reduce auto emissions.

The U.S. neon supply, key in the advanced lithography chipmaking process, comes almost entirely from Russia and Ukraine, says the Techcet research and consulting firm.

With nearly 25% of the global wheat supply between Russia and Ukraine, the invasion also could exacerbate food inflation.

For the U.S. and its allies to target these crucial commodities with sanctions would be shooting themselves in the foot.

Ukraine Invasion Timing
The West will sanction less-essential Russian exports, like diamonds. Still, Russia's major income streams will remain intact, as Putin surely counted on. The surge in oil prices and global inflation pressures mean Putin has invaded Ukraine at the most opportune time.

"Putin was ready for this crisis," said Lori Esposito Murray, president of The Conference Board's public policy arm, in a podcast this week. "He's been planning this for a while."

Murray highlighted the $630 billion in currency reserves that Russia has built up to buttress its economic foundations for war.

That's not to say Russians won't pay a steep price from the Ukraine invasion and sanctions. Biden noted Thursday that the ruble had fallen to an all-time low, while Russian borrowing rates soared. Amid currency depreciation, a recession in Russia looks like a given.

To punish for invading #Ukraine, the #West is rolling out tough #sanctions on #Russia but going out of its way to preserve the country’s biggest source of revenue: #energy #exports. #gas #oil #Germany #Europe #EU

https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-sanctions-over-ukraine-largely-...

The West is rolling out increasingly tough sanctions on Russia but it is going out of its way to preserve the country’s biggest source of revenue: energy exports.

In the latest example, the European Union said late Saturday that it had agreed with the U.S., the U.K. and Canada to eject some of Russia’s banks from the global financial system’s payments infrastructure, Swift. The move, if applied to all banks, would be powerful, essentially blocking money transfers in and out of the country. By cutting only some, Western countries are allowing payments, including for energy, to continue through non-sanctioned banks.

Russia is one of the world’s top oil and natural-gas producers, and energy exports represent half of the country’s foreign sales. The country, now embroiled in a bitter war in Ukraine, provides around 40% of Europe’s natural gas. The commodity heats the continent, fuels many of its power plants and is a critical input for a range of industrial processes. Russia’s crude production is a major factor in the global oil marketplace.

As the U.S. and its Western allies wage economic war against the Kremlin to coerce it into abandoning its invasion of Ukraine, policymakers have tailored their pressure campaign to protect their energy supply, prevent a surge in oil prices and minimize the damage on their own economies.

“You can’t get away from the fact that Europe still has a dependency on Russia,” said Justine Walker, head of sanctions and risk at the Associate of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists, even as observers argue the exemptions for energy sales dilute the sanctions’ impact.

The U.S. imposed sanctions on Russia’s largest banks— Sberbank and VTB—but provided broad exemptions on payments for purchases of crude oil, natural gas, fuel and other petroleum products. The EU, meanwhile, chose not to sanction them for now. Already-sanctioned banks will be kicked off Swift, but others will be allowed to stay.

A senior Biden administration official said Saturday that officials were carefully selecting which Russian banks to eject from the Swift network to minimize disruption of energy markets.

“We know where most of the energy flows occur, through which banks they occur,” the official said. “And if we take that approach, we can simply choose the institutions where most of the energy flows do not occur.”

The exemptions enable European nations and others to continue buying Russian gas and oil. That tempers prices, including for oil, which have jumped by roughly 40% over the last three months over concerns of disruption to oil markets from a conflict in Ukraine. Higher oil prices boost the amount of money Russia makes for every barrel sold, and spurs inflation across the world.

“The way that...President Biden has approached sanctions is we want to take every step to maximize the impact and the consequences on President Putin, while minimizing the impact on the American people and the global community,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Sunday on ABC News. “And so energy sanctions are certainly on the table. We have not taken those off. But we also want to do that and make sure we’re minimizing the impact on the global marketplace, and do it in a united way.”

U.S. officials say the exemptions were critical for winning political support for a coordinated and complementary pressure campaign from a broad range of economies including the U.S. and U.K., and the 27 member states of the EU.

#Indian Rupee-#Russian rouble deal with #Russia likely to be fortified after #SWIFT freeze. #India-#Russia #Trade https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/rupee-roub...

The central government is planning to strengthen the rupee-rouble trade arrangement with Russia after the European Union, the US, and other Western partners decided to cut off several Russian banks from the global Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) payment system.

On Saturday, European countries and the US decided to block many Russian banks' from accessing SWIFT, following Russia's assault on Ukraine. The move was intended to force a military pull-back, isolate and dessicate President Vladimir Putin’s ambitions of financing the ...

Several journalists have been called out on social media for dishing out casual racism as they reported on Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the humanitarian crisis triggered by the war. The common theme of the remarks that many found to be irresponsible and borderline racist was that conflicts like these were commonplace in the relatively poorer regions of the world, not in "civilised" Europe. Most were aghast that those fleeing the war-ravaged country were what they called "people like them".

https://www.news9live.com/world/racism-creeps-in-ukraine-russia-con...

#NBC Journalist's #Racism in Reporting on #Ukraine. Kelly Cobiella of NBC: “To put it bluntly, these (#Ukrainians) are not refugees from Syria, these are refugees from Ukraine... They're Christian, they're white, they're very similar."
https://youtu.be/CBWuDajHdCo via @YouTube

Q&As with Professor John Mearsheimer:

https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Interview/U.S.-engagement-wi...

Q: Now Russia and China are cultivating a friendly relationship premised on the U.S. as their common enemy. Do you think Russia and China will be compatible in their stances toward Asia?

A: The U.S. has foolishly driven the Russians into the arms of the Chinese. I think Russia is the natural ally of the U.S. against China.

In 1969, the Soviet Union and China almost fought a war in Siberia. The Soviet Union and China -- and now we're talking about Russia and China -- have a history of bad relations, in large part because they share a border and each occupies big chunks of real estate in Asia. Russia should be an ally of the U.S. against China, and the U.S. needs all the allies it can get to contain China.

But what we have done by expanding NATO eastward is we have precipitated a huge crisis with Russia that prevents us from fully pivoting to Asia. We can't fully pivot to Asia because we're so concerned about events in Eastern Europe. That's the first consequence. The second is that we have driven the Russians into the arms of the Chinese. This makes no sense at all.

Q: The current tensions along the Ukraine border raise the question of whether the U.S. is capable of dealing with European and Asian issues simultaneously.

A: Let me chose my words carefully. The U.S. has the capability to deal with a conflict in Europe and a conflict in Asia at the same time.

However, it does not have the capability to perform well in both campaigns at the same time. By getting involved in a conflict in Eastern Europe, we, the U.S., are detracting from our ability to contain China and to fight a war against China, should one break out.

Q: Looking at Asia, some countries like North Korea continue to engage in nuclear arms brinkmanship. Will the world become a much more unstable, multipolar world? What is the way forward?

A: North Korean nuclear weapons are a significant problem, for Japan, for South Korea, and even for the U.S. As long as the U.S. maintains close alliances with Japan and South Korea, North Korea will not use its nuclear weapons. The American nuclear umbrella protects both Japan and South Korea from a strike with nuclear weapons from the North.

China is content to allow North Korea to keep its nuclear weapons. China has concluded that North Korean nuclear weapons are a force for stability on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia more generally.

However, the Chinese worry about Kim Jong Un engaging in nuclear brinkmanship, and the Chinese have told him in no uncertain terms that that is unacceptable. As a result he has curbed his behavior.

If Kim Jong Un goes back down that road, the Chinese will tell him, 'no more' because they don't want a nuclear crisis.

Q: The Biden administration hosted a summit of democracies last year. Do you think this approach is effective in curbing the rise of authoritarian countries?

A: No. This is a geopolitical competition, and we should think of it as a geopolitical competition and not an ideological competition.

The fact that Japan and the U.S. are democracies is very nice, but the truth is that they should be allied against China because China is a threat to both countries, regardless of ideology.

If you take the ideological argument too far, then you get to a point where you say Russia cannot be in the balancing coalition against China, because Russia is not a liberal democracy. I believe that would be foolish. What you ought to do is form an alliance with any powerful country you can find that will help you contain China. China is a formidable adversary.

Foreign students of color fleeing #Ukraine say they face segregation, #racism at border. https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/28/europe/students-allege-racism-ukrain...

They allow 30 Indians only after 500 Ukrainians get in. To get to this border you need to walk 4 to 5 kilometers from the first checkpoint to the second one. Ukrainians are given taxis and buses to travel, all other nationalities have to walk. They were very racist to Indians and other nationalities,'" the 22-year-old from Mumbai told CNN.
She added that she witnessed violence from the guards to the students waiting at the Ukrainian side of the Shehyni-Medyka border.
Ukrainian men aged between 18 and 60 are no longer allowed to leave the country, but that decree does not extend to men who are foreign nationals.
Ijantkar says she saw Indian men were left in queues for long hours along with other non-Ukrainian nationalities.
"They were very cruel. The second checkpoint was the worst. When they opened the gate for you to cross to the Ukrainian border, you stay between the Ukraine and Poland, the Ukrainian army don't allow Indian men and boys to cross when you get there. They only allowed the Indian girls to get in. We had to literally cry and beg at their feet. After the Indian girls got in, the boys were beaten up. There was no reason for them to beat us with this cruelty," Ijantkar said.
"I saw an Egyptian man standing at the front with his hands on the rails, and because of that one guard pushed him with so much force and the man hit the fence, which is covered in spikes, and he lost consciousness," she said.
"We took him outside to give him CPR. They just didn't care and they were beating the students, they didn't give two hoots about us, only the Ukrainians," she added.
CNN contacted the Ukrainian army in light of the allegations of violence, but did not immediately hear back.

-------------

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, foreign students attempting to leave the country say they are experiencing racist treatment by Ukrainian security forces and border officials.

One African medical student told CNN that she and other foreigners were ordered off the public transit bus at a checkpoint between Ukraine and Poland border.
They were told to stand aside as the bus drove off with only Ukrainian nationals on board, she says.
Rachel Onyegbule, a Nigerian first-year medical student in Lviv was left stranded at the border town of Shehyni, some 400 miles from Ukraine's capital, Kyiv.

She told CNN: "More than 10 buses came and we were watching everyone leave. We thought after they took all the Ukrainians they would take us, but they told us we had to walk, that there were no more buses and told us to walk."
"My body was numb from the cold and we haven't slept in about 4 days now. Ukrainians have been prioritized over Africans -- men and women -- at every point. There's no need for us to ask why. We know why. I just want to get home," Onyegbule told CNN in a telephone call Sunday as she waited in line at the border to cross into Poland.

Onyegbule says she eventually got her exit document stamped on Monday morning around 4.30 a.m. local time.

Opinion | Ukraine news coverage exposes racist biases in Western media - The Washington Post


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/28/ukraine-coverage...


By H.A. Hellyer
February 28, 2022 at 12:42 p.m. EST

H.A. Hellyer, a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace scholar, is a senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and Cambridge University.


“This double standard is so evident in how we as Westerners engage in intl relations…we dehumanize non-White populations, diminishing their importance, and that leads to one thing: the degrading of their right to live in dignity.”

------------------


“This isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades,” Charlie D’Agata, a CBS correspondent in Kyiv, told his colleagues back in the studio. “You know, this is a relatively civilized, relatively European — I have to choose those words carefully, too — city where you wouldn’t expect that or hope that it’s going to happen.”

Putin’s criminal invasion of Ukraine has generated an inspiring wave of solidarity around the world, but for many — especially non-White observers — it has been impossible to tune out the racist biases in Western media and politics.

D’Agata’s comments generated a swift backlash — and he was quick to apologize — but he was hardly the only one. A commentator on a French news program said, “We’re not talking about Syrians fleeing bombs of the Syrian regime backed by Putin; we’re talking about Europeans leaving in cars that look like ours to save their lives.” On the BBC, a former deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine declared, “It’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blond hair ... being killed every day.” Even an Al Jazeera anchor said, “These are not obviously refugees trying to get away from areas in the Middle East,” while an ITV News reporter said, “Now the unthinkable has happened to them, and this is not a developing, Third World nation; this is Europe.”

British pundit Daniel Hannan joined the chorus in the Telegraph. “They seem so like us. That is what makes it so shocking. War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations. It can happen to anyone,” he wrote.

The implication for anyone reading or watching — particularly anyone with ties to a nation that has also seen foreign intervention, conflict, sanctions and mass migration — is clear: It’s much worse when White Europeans suffer than when it’s Arabs or other non-White people. Yemenis, Iraqis, Nigerians, Libyans, Afghans, Palestinians, Syrians, Hondurans — well, they are used to it.

The insults went beyond media coverage. A French politician said Ukrainian refugees represent “high-quality immigration.” The Bulgarian prime minister said Ukrainian refugees are “intelligent, they are educated. ... This is not the refugee wave we have been used to, people we were not sure about their identity, people with unclear pasts, who could have been even terrorists.”

It’s as if, in our anger and horror at the scenes of Russia’s aggression, we are incapable of recognizing a simple fact: We’ve seen this before.

A Vanity Fair special correspondent denied precisely that in a tweet: “This is arguably the first war we’ve seen (actually seen in real-time) take place in the age of social media, and all of these heart-wrenching images make Russia look utterly terrible.”

The tweet was erased — like the experiences of many who have documented the horrors of war in recent decades on social media and beyond.

Putin’s military also intervened ferociously in Syria, backing a murderous regime. That war unleashed a level of mass death, suffering, destruction and displacement not yet seen in Ukraine — but the West’s response was far less empathetic. The same can be said of the U.S. invasions and military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq; the catastrophic Saudi-led war in Yemen; the Israeli occupation of the Palestinians.

How the #US Raced to Arm #Ukraine Against #Russia. The United States has walked to the edge of direct conflict with Russia in an operation that is reminiscent of the #Berlin airlift of 1948-49, but far more complex. #NATO - The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/06/us/politics/us-ukraine-weapons.html


On a snowy tarmac at Amari Air Base in northern Estonia on Sunday morning, pallets of rifles, ammunition and other weapons were being loaded onto one of the largest cargo planes in the world, an Antonov AN-124, belonging to the Ukrainian air force. It is an artifact of the Cold War, built and purchased when Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union.

Now it is being turned back against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, part of a vast airlift that American and European officials describe as a desperate race against time, to get tons of arms into the hands of Ukrainian forces while their supply routes are still open. Scenes like this, reminiscent of the Berlin airlift — the famed race by the Western allies to keep West Berlin supplied with essentials in 1948 and 1949 as the Soviet Union sought to choke it off — are playing out across Europe.

In less than a week, the United States and NATO have pushed more than 17,000 antitank weapons, including Javelin missiles, over the borders of Poland and Romania, unloading them from giant military cargo planes so they can make the trip by land to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, and other major cities. So far, Russian forces have been so preoccupied in other parts of the country that they have not targeted the arms supply lines, but few think that can last.

But those are only the most visible contributions. Hidden away on bases around Eastern Europe, forces from United States Cyber Command known as “cybermission teams” are in place to interfere with Russia’s digital attacks and communications — but measuring their success rate is difficult, officials say.


In Washington and Germany, intelligence officials race to merge satellite photographs with electronic intercepts of Russian military units, strip them of hints of how they were gathered, and beam them to Ukrainian military units within an hour or two. As he tries to stay out of the hands of Russian forces in Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine travels with encrypted communications equipment, provided by the Americans, that can put him into a secure call with President Biden. Mr. Zelensky used it Saturday night for a 35-minute call with his American counterpart on what more the U.S. can do in its effort to keep Ukraine alive without entering into direct combat on the ground, in the air or in cyberspace with Russian forces.

Mr. Zelensky welcomed the help so far, but repeated the criticism that he has made in public — that the aid was wildly insufficient to the task ahead. He asked for a no-fly zone over Ukraine, a shutdown of all Russian energy exports and a fresh supply of fighter jets.

It is a delicate balance. On Saturday, while Mr. Biden was in Wilmington, Del., his National Security Council staff spent much of the day trying to find a way for Poland to transfer to Ukraine a fleet of well-used, Soviet-made MIG-29 fighter jets that Ukrainian pilots know how to fly. But the deal is contingent on giving Poland, in return, far more capable, American-made F-16s, an operation made more complicated by the fact that many of those fighters are promised to Taiwan — where the United States has greater strategic interests.

Polish leaders have said there is no deal, and are clearly concerned about how they would provide the fighters to Ukraine and whether doing so would make them a new target of the Russians. The United States says it is open to the idea of the plane swap.

Who is Victoria Nuland? A really bad idea as a key player in Biden's foreign policy team | Salon.com


https://www.salon.com/2021/01/19/who-is-victoria-nuland-a-really-ba...


Who is Victoria Nuland? Most Americans have never heard of her, because the U.S. corporate media's foreign policy coverage is a wasteland. Most Americans have no idea that President-elect Biden's pick for deputy secretary of state for political affairs is stuck in the quicksand of 1950s U.S.-Russia Cold War politics and dreams of continued NATO expansion, an arms race on steroids and further encirclement of Russia.

Nor do they know that from 2003 to 2005, during the hostile U.S. military occupation of Iraq, Nuland was a foreign policy advisor to Dick Cheney, the Darth Vader of the Bush administration.

You can bet, however, that the people of Ukraine have heard of neocon Nuland. Many have even heard the leaked four-minute audio of her saying "Fuck the EU" during a February 2014 phone call with the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt.


During the infamous call on which Nuland and Pyatt appeared to be plotting to replace or undermine elected Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych, Nuland expressed her not-so-diplomatic disgust with the European Union for favoring former heavyweight boxer and austerity champ Vitali Klitschko to take over as prime minister, instead of the U.S. first choice, Artseniy Yatsenyuk, who indeed took power after Yanukovych was ousted about three weeks later.

The "Fuck the EU" call went viral, as an embarrassed State Department, never denying the call's authenticity, blamed the Russians for tapping the phone, much as the NSA has tapped the phones of European allies.

Despite outrage from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, no one fired Nuland, but her potty mouth upstaged the more serious story: the U.S. plot to overthrow Ukraine's elected government — and America's responsibility for a civil war that has killed at least 13,000 people and left Ukraine the poorestcountry in Europe.



In the process, Nuland, her husband Robert Kagan — co-founder of The Project for a New American Century — and their neocon cronies succeeded in sending U.S.-Russian relations into a dangerous downward spiral from which they have yet to recover.

Nuland accomplished this from a relatively junior position as assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. How much more trouble could she stir up as the No. 3 official at Biden's State Department? We'll find out soon enough, if the Senate confirms her nomination.


Joe Biden should have learned from Barack Obama's mistakes that appointments like this matter. In his first term, Obama allowed his hawkish Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Republican Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and military and CIA leaders held over from the Bush administration to ensure that endless war trumped his message of hope and change.



Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, ended up presiding over indefinite detentions without charges or trials at Guantánamo Bay, an escalation of drone strikes that killed innocent civilians, a deepening of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, a self-reinforcing cycle of terrorism and counterterrorism, and disastrous new wars in Libya and Syria.


With Clinton out and new personnel in top spots in his second term, Obama began to take charge of his own foreign policy. He started working directly with Russia's President Vladimir Putin to resolve crises in Syria and other hotspots. Putin helped avert an escalation of the war in Syria in September 2013 by negotiating the removal and destruction of Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles, and helped Obama negotiate an interim agreement with Iran that led to the JCPOA nuclear deal.