Assistant Secretary of State Victory Nuland has apologized for the supposed leak of a telephone conversation with the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, in which she said “f*** the EU.”
The Kyiv Post reported that the conversation appears to have taken place after Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's Jan. 25 offer to opposition leader Arseniy Yatseniuk to be prime minister and former pro boxer Vitali Klitschko, to be deputy prime minister.
In the recording, the American diplomats appear to be cooking up a strategy of their own.
"I don't think it's a good idea," Nuland reportedly says in the recording, referencing Klitschko.
In the conversation, the two Americans go back and forth with updates on the situation and then Nuland comments on how Europe has responded to the unrest, saying UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has arranged for a UN official to travel to Ukraine to "help glue this thing and to have the UN glue it."
"And you know, f--k the EU," she adds about the organization, annoyed that they haven't taken a more active role to quell the unrest.
Nuland has “been in close contact with EU High Representative [Catherine] Ashton,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. “Also, let me convey that she has been in contact with her E.U. counterparts, and of course has apologized.”
The White House is blaming the Kremlin for the leak, given that Russian officials were the ones who first noted and published the video on twitter. Psaki called the move a “new low in Russian tradecraft.”