Visits of the top US official never mean anything good for Ukraine, Dmitry Peskov says
US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland’s visits to Ukraine have always been an ill omen for the embattled country, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has suggested when asked for comment on her recent visit.
Peskov made these remarks to Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin, who published excerpts from the interview on Saturday. While suggesting that the Foreign Ministry might have a better assessment of the trip of the outspoken US foreign policy hawk, Peskov still provided his opinion on Nuland’s latest endeavor.
“As a rule, Victoria Nuland’s visit to Kiev does not bring anything good. We remember this from 2014, when she was handing out cookies,” Peskov stated.
The spokesman referred to the infamous episode of the Ukrainian Maidan turmoil. At the time, Nuland, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, showed up in Kiev amid the unrest in early December 2013, giving out snacks to protesters.
The official has been widely perceived as one of the key figures behind the Maidan events, which ultimately brought down Ukraine’s democratically-elected president, Viktor Yanukovich. “Nuland’s cookies” have become a well-known example of direct US involvement in the coup.
Nuland traveled to Kiev on Wednesday, teasing new “battlefield surprises” for Russia set to get supplied to Ukraine. The official said that GLSDB (Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb) munitions, which can strike targets at a distance of up to 150 km, were already on their way to Kiev.
The delivery comes from the so-called Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), which focuses on procuring military hardware for Kiev from private contractors rather than tapping into Washington’s own stocks, the Pentagon has explained.
The looming delivery has been condemned by Moscow, with Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov stating it looked particularly cynical in the aftermath of Kiev shooting down an Il-76 Russian cargo plane with Ukrainian prisoners of war on board.
The GLSDB announcement has effectively become “a kind of a reaction to the terrorist attack by Ukrainian thugs,” the diplomat stated. He continued that it was an “irresponsible” and “simply shocking” move.
