There's never a dull moment when former high-ranking State Department official Victoria Nuland goes on the record for a new tell-all. She's certainly never shy about broadcasting her role in anti-Moscow covert maneuvering and machinations.
Indeed, many already know her as Victoria-'F--k the EU'-Nuland and for essentially running foreign policy in Europe stretching back through the Obama years as then Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, where many of the problems which sparked the disastrous and tragic Russia-Ukraine war were first set in motion.
Exiled Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar recently sat down with her for a new interview published to YouTube earlier this month. The most interesting part of the interview was when he pressed Nuland on widespread reports saying that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson actively encouraged President Zelensky to back out of a potential peace deal with Moscow early after the Feb.2022 Russian invasion. There was a possible chance to end the war and perhaps avoid hundreds of thousands of deaths. But the West apparently convinced Zelensky to fight it out.
But a deal was on the table, and Russia was demanding a full commitment to Ukrainian neutrality regarding NATO. Nuland laid out that it was "relatively late in the game" when Kiev started seeking guidance on the peace deal from Washington and its allies. Zygar said there were statements from foreign leaders privy to the negotiations saying both sides were "really close" to achieving a deal.
"The Ukrainians began asking for advice on where this thing was going, and it became clear to us, clear to us and the Brits, clear to others, that Putin’s main condition was buried in an annex to this document that they were working on. And it included limits on the precise kinds of weapons systems that Ukraine could have after the deal," Nuland introduced in response.
She went on to describe that Washington didn't like that the end result of the deal would leave Ukraine "neutered" as a military force while at the same time the same limits weren't imposed on the Russian military. "People inside Ukraine and people outside Ukraine started asking questions about whether this was a good deal, and it was at that point that it fell apart," Nuland admitted.
Watch this section of the interview below:
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