Victoria Nuland, Third-highest Ranking US Diplomat And Critic Of Russia’s War In Ukraine, Retiring

WASHINGTON: Victoria Nuland, the third-highest rating U.S. diplomat and frequent goal of criticism for her hawkish views on Russia and its actions in Ukraine, will retire and go away her submit this month, the State Department mentioned Tuesday.

Nuland, a profession international service officer who served as Assistant Secretary of State for Europe throughout the Obama administration however retired after Donald Trump was elected president, returned to authorities as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs within the Biden administration.

She had been a candidate to succeed Wendy Sherman as deputy Secretary of State and had served as appearing deputy since Sherman’s retirement seven months in the past however misplaced an inner administration personnel battle when President Joe Biden nominated Kurt Campbell to the no. 2 spot. Campbell took workplace final month.

Nuland had served on the U.S. embassy in Moscow within the tumultuous Nineteen Nineties and was within the metropolis throughout the tried coup in opposition to former Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

She then grew to become U.S. ambassador to NATO earlier than being tapped to function the State Department spokeswoman beneath former Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton throughout President Barack Obama’s first time period.

As the division spokeswoman and later as assistant Secretary of State for Europe, Nuland drew the ire of many Russian leaders for her outspoken protection of Ukraine, notably after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014.

Former Secretary of State John Kerry has recalled on quite a few occasions that when Nuland left the spokeswoman’s job throughout his tenure to change into the highest diplomat for Europe, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov congratulated him for “getting rid of that woman.” Kerry mentioned he replied to Lavrov that he didn’t do away with her, “I promoted her.”

Current Secretary of State Antony Blinken praised Nuland for her three and a half a long time of public service and thanked her for her position in shaping U.S. coverage all over the world beneath six presidents and 10 secretaries of state.

“But it’s Toria’s leadership on Ukraine that diplomats and students of foreign policy will study for years to come,” Blinken mentioned in an announcement.

“Her efforts have been indispensable to confronting Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, marshaling a global coalition to ensure his strategic failure, and helping Ukraine work toward the day when it will be able to stand strongly on its own feet – democratically, economically, and militarily.”

The Russian international ministry instantly seized on the announcement, calling it an admission of failed U.S. coverage towards Russia.

“They won’t tell you the reason,” spokeswoman Maria Zakharova mentioned. “But it is simple – the failure of the anti-Russian course of the Biden administration. Russophobia, proposed by Victoria Nuland as the main foreign policy concept of the United States, is dragging the Democrats to the bottom like a stone.”

Nuland shall be changed quickly as beneath secretary by one other profession diplomat, John Bass, a former ambassador to Afghanistan who oversaw the U.S. withdrawal from the nation. He is at the moment the undersecretary of state for administration.

U.S. officers mentioned the favourite to succeed Nuland in a everlasting capability is the present U.S. ambassador to NATO, Julianne Smith, a one-time Pentagon official who additionally served as then-Vice President Biden’s deputy nationwide safety adviser.

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(This story has not been edited by News18 workers and is revealed from a syndicated information company feed – Associated Press)