The Remodelers of Europe

Who is Supporting Ukraine in the U.S. and EU?

The aim of the EU and U.S. when it comes to Ukraine is defined not only by the long-term interests of the west, but also by those particular individuals who steer the course of politics. Vlast takes a closer look at these figures, namely those of European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy Stefan Fule and Assistant Secretary of State [for European and Eurasian Affairs] Victoria Nuland.

At the start of December 2013, Barack Obama ran a series of consultations on the situation in Ukraine with his advisers. Some told the president that Washington should lead a more active style of politics — pressure Viktor Yanukovich and straight talk with Moscow. “The president then stated very plainly that the situation in Ukraine in his eyes isn’t a high priority because it’s not worth risking Russia over it. Syria and the Middle East are more important,” said an interviewed source close to the State Department. “And in a sense, he’s right. Ukraine worries only five people in Washington in earnest, while for everyone else, deep down it really doesn’t matter. Those lobbying or advising for matters related to China or Iran are more numerous, because they have priority.”*

Already, after a few weeks, the situation has changed dramatically, as clashes between “Berkuts” and those protesting have been broadcast on TV channels all over the world, while media sources have been writing about Ukraine every day. “We’ve begun to call it the CNN factor. Now, Ukraine is a point of interest for many people,” said a source in the White House. “However, it doesn’t detract from the fact that the only people for whom it actually matters are quite small in number.”*

There is very little doubt about the answer to the question of who in Washington, who is also highly placed, is supporting Ukraine the most. “Of course it’s Tori Nuland. What’s in Ukraine — she feels it very much,” said one of the interviewed sources.*

Victoria Nuland, who will turn 53 this year, has very much appeared in the vanguard of Ukrainian politics in the United States, and it’s no coincidence. During Hillary Clinton’s stint, Nuland spent two years as the press secretary to the State Department, and when John Kerry came into office in September 2013, she became the second-in-command assistant to the secretary of state for anything dealing with Europe and Eurasia. She’s the key civil servant who is responsible for operations in the region. And she’s got old ties to the region.

Victoria Nuland is the granddaughter of Jewish immigrant Meyer Nudelman, who left czarist Russia for New York. Nuland’s parents, who presumably changed their surnames to something that was easier for Americans to deal with, could have lived in the Jewish pale in the territory of present-day Ukraine. Once she finished her studies at Brown University with a bachelor’s degree, she began her diplomatic career at a consulate in China. However, from the year 1988, she started to delve heavily into matters dealing with the USSR, following with its territories after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Her career as a scholar of Soviet matters started in Ulan-Batar, apart from the years 1991 to 1993, which she spent in the embassy in Moscow. Her emergence as a Russian expert came about under the tutelage of Nelson Talbott. Toward the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, Nuland worked in a central part of the State Department, in the international relations sector, while also working for the consulate general of the U.S. in NATO.

In July 2003, Nuland started working for then Vice President Dick Cheney — the leader of the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party, the Iraq War ideologue and one of the primary ideologues of the George W. Bush administration’s internal politics. While Nuland had worked for Democrats in her career as a diplomat, she did just as much under the Republicans. Her friends note that after her period of working with Cheney, she still speaks to him with some warmth.

Her ideological proximity to Cheney’s group is demonstrated by Nuland’s family life. She’s married to historian and political scientist Robert Kagan from the Brookings Institution, who is often considered to be one of the leading neoconservative thinkers in Washington. To put it into perspective, he was the adviser to John McCain during his presidential bid in 2008. His book “The World America Made” contests the idea that the role of the U.S. as a global authority is declining, and was quoted by Barack Obama several times during his State of the Union address in 2012.

It was during her time as a part of Cheney’s team in particular that Victoria Nuland worked in great depth on Ukrainian matters — right during the Orange Revolution. “It was a particularly meaningful event for her, the transition from post-Soviet models to democratic ones, which is why when you speak of any involvement on the part of the United States, it’s because Nuland was one of the main figures behind any action from our end,” said one American expert and colleague of Nuland.* Events in Ukraine following the Orange Revolution were a great disappointment, particularly because of Yanukovich’s rise to power, which is why current events can be seen as a second chance to finish up what Nuland wasn’t able to do in 2004. At the very least, fragments of a leaked conversation with the U.S. ambassador in Kiev, Geoffrey Pyatt, demonstrates that she’s very much invested in the situation. She is helped by the fact that the State Department is considered to have undisputed authority on Ukrainian matters — much like the European Commissioner for Enlargement Stefan Fule is in the EU.

The “Eastern Partnership” project being discussed by European civil servants isn’t very flattering: “If the entire situation is good for anyone, it’s for Fule and his team.”* The sentiment is entirely clear, because the 51-year-old native of Czechoslovakia became one of the leading figures in building up the EU’s influence in six post-Soviet countries (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldavia and Ukraine).

In the EU, Stefan Fule is considered to be one of the leading specialists on Russia, and his position reflects this. And it’s not just because Fule is a native of the Eastern bloc. In 1986, he finished running the gauntlet of Soviet diplomatic services, having studied at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations for five years, which is why he speaks Russian with ease. One of his classmates at MGIMO is the current prime minister of Moldova, Yuri Lyanke, who maintains excellent ties with Fule. A large number of MGIMO alumni from former Soviet countries or Baltic republics work in Fule’s section in Brussels, and in departments dealing with Russia, and are considered to be extremely competent in the field. “It was only recently that Germany and France began to ask the right questions on how the European Commission on Russia could be engaged,” said an interviewee from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Germany.*

It is precisely these experts, who were on Fule’s teams, who wrote an association agreement for Ukraine. One of the people interviewed by Vlast in Brussels said that for Fule, signing the agreement of association with Ukraine became the most important issue of his career because without it, the whole “Eastern Partnership” would have been unsuccessful. If the document isn’t accepted, then the entire program will be seen by the new leaders of the European Commission — which will be formed in the middle of the year — as being a waste of money. Fule himself dreams of continuing his career in a new group and with a new objective, and it’s said that he is a contender for a position as one of the higher representatives of the EU’s internal politics — a post currently held by the less-than-charismatic Catherine Ashton.

A few European diplomats involved in consultations dealing with Ukraine are saying that at the moment, Fule’s section is full of rejoicing. “On one hand, there are a number of rumors circulating about Russia’s involvement in recent events, for instance, that Yanukovich is Putin’s marionette and that he’s letting the Kremlin call all the shots, or that FSB snipers were active. Prejudices are running very strong, and they’re being given a voice by European Commission experts, and nobody is giving them any criticism,” said one of the members attending a consultation.* In the words of another, Brussels is waiting for the agreement to be signed in upcoming days. Likewise, the question of presidential elections being held on May 25 and their subsequent ratification with the chosen president is still being discussed. The question of whether there is any common ground with Russia and the Eurasian Economic Community, which had been agreed upon at a summit in January between the EU and Russia, is rejected by the European Commission. “The sovereignty of CIS countries being handed over to an authority which is controlled by Moscow is out of the question. We’ve put far too much time and effort into supporting their independence from Russia, to give them that union and commission,” say European bureaucrats.*

* Editor’s Note: These quotes, accurately translated, could not be verified.