[Newsflash: The official CSIS transcript of the Nuland talk is missing this question/interaction. Isnt that swell?]
Ok, so first - I’ve found the chief editor of the austrian newspaper “Der Standard”. Its Victoria Nuland. Took a while, but there is total congruency in all relevant positions.
Except for one.
Moderator: “There is often being concerned, by the Ukrainians and others that russia would want to negotiate over Ukraines head with the United States, I guess I’d ask you if you or the US government had gotten any indications of the Russians trying to engage with the United States in backchannel negotiations over Ukraine.”
Nuland: “Thats always the russian way, you know. Everything about Ukraine without Ukraine. You know I faced the same, when I was in UR [?] negotiating with Putins guys in 15 and 16, you know, they think that this is about a much larger chess board, and this is the narrative of greavance, that Putin has woven to try to justify, what he has done, that this is about european security, that this is about NATO, which after all is a defensive alliance, and never intended to come anywhere near russia unless it was attacked, you know… He will always try that. But we are resolute, and Ukrainians are resolute, that they lead in any discussions of this, and nothing about Ukraine, without Ukraine.”
Yeah… So first thank you for the confirmation that Putin is not a crazed history buff making impromptu snap decisions based on historical ideas and his mood. Its almost like thats just a propaganda narrative no one relevant really believes in -
See also:
Hanno Pevkur (Minister of Defence of the Republic of Estonia), 31. 05.2023, Globsec Conference:
“What Russia wants to achieve, the political goals, let’s be honest - and they, these political goals of Russia have never changed, they want to have a grey-zone between Russia and NATO, they want to have a control over this grey-zone and this is what they want to achieve. And they want to have some “security guarantees” for themselves, sorry this is not the Free World and this is what Ukraine is fighting for at the moment, that they are fighting for - the Free World and rule-based world and this is why we support Ukraine so this is obvious and then this is why we can never accept this approach of Russia, looking at international law.”
src: click (bei 43:50 in)
- so thats ahm… good to know… Thank you for confirming that, first and foremost.
About that “greavance” narrative Putin was building up to “rectify all of this”, what timeframe are we talking here? Because when the Russians engaged the US with their “european security infrastructure concernes” and wanted to hold talks (December 2021) - there was no grievance narrative in play yet - everyone was quite polite and all around elated that the meeting could finally take place, and when Russia brought forward similar concerns in writing with NATO afterwards (and Stoltenberg even repeated that statement months later) - there still was this public aura of tentative hope that there wouldnt be any war, which actually most of the analysts at the time agreed on, as the majority of them believed this maybe would escalate to a more active conflict in the Donbas, but nothing beyond that - and this was just both sides rattling the chains, and then the US flat out ignored any and all of russias security concernes (because they were “far too excessive” (the initial demands were, not the red lines, according to Thomas Graham of the CFR), or so the public narrative goes) - so at which point did the “greavance” narrative “Putin expertly weaved” kick in Miss Nuland if you dont mind me asking?
At the point where they dared to talk about security concerns they had in the region? Over Ukraines head? Or at the point where the Atlantic Council published the “the best thing russia could do is to move out of Ukraine entirely, and then maybe we could start normalizing relationships again” mockery of a statement in November of 2021?
Was war eigentlich US und Nato Position im November 2021
About that grievance narrative the russians used to rectify that war internally, Miss Nuland… When exactly did you notice it becoming a greavance narrative?
Might be important for european history and the historical public record in terms of the actual sequence of events.
After you closed down all efforts and blocked all negotiations “over the heads of the Ukraine”? Or before?
Oh and by the way, thank you for confirming, that Russia actually tried to negotiate with the US on a regional peace, but that the US denied all efforts that would have gone over Ukraines head… And that that may actually be the source of the “the Ukraine has to decide for itself” rhetorical figure in the western narrative.
I havent heard that talked about/represented even in english speaking media before…
Huh…
Lets just end with: Nuland should give more interviews.
That self assured “I’m not that smart, but want to show great initiative and poise” flair and bravado that comes across in all answers, actually is very helpful in coaxing out more of the actual information on what took place, than you might think. Actually - this time around you were exceptionally helpful, Miss Nuland.
Now lets work on a way to also make this the public stance of Der Standard, to have that pleasant total congruency in all relevant positions with austrian news media again. 🙂
Listen up Standard, you’ve heard it from Victoria here - Russia tried to negotiate a regional peace, more than once, with the US directly - but the US didnt want to betray Ukraine so… They stopped their military aid packages.
Got that? Good, so now repeat after me: The russians actually tried to get a regional peace settlement with the US several times, using backchannels.
Now you alone, german speaking news media, its actually fun.
Repeat after Victoria Nuland.
edit: Oh, the buzzword of this months conference was “Ukraine venturing into more asymetric warfare”, in a sense at least.
