Biden nominates Russia hawk Nuland to key diplomatic post

Joe Biden, the expected successor to U.S. President
Trump, has nominated Russia hawk Victoria Nuland to serve as U.S. assistant
secretary of state for political affairs, his press service announced on Jan.
16. Nuland built her entire career in the U.S. State Department in diplomatic
roles. As assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs,
Nuland distinguished herself in Ukraine in December 2013 by passing out sweet
buns and rolls to EuroMaidan police and boxed lunches to protesters. She was
also secretly recorded in an early February 2014 phone call,
likely leaked by Russia, planning with U.S. diplomats the compromise government
with President Yanukovych, favoring Arseniy Yatsenyuk as prime minister. During
congressional hearings in 2019, Nuland called for intensified sanctions against
Russia, prompting the Kremlin to include her in its black list of those
forbidden to enter the country. 

Andrea Kendall-Taylor, the director of the Transatlantic
Security Program of the Center for New American Security, will serve in the
Biden administration as the Russia director in the U.S. National Security
Council. She previously served in the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency. Kendall-Taylor has indicated
her Russia policy will be based on the principle of targeting Russian President
Putin, but reconciliating with the Russian public. “The U.S. should better
position itself to improve relations with Moscow after the departure of Putin
and to work on reducing the risk of a strengthened alliance between Russia and
China,” she said, as reported by the eurointegration.com.ua
news site. This means total economic pressure won’t be applied under the Biden
administration, such as excluding Russia from the SWIFT international payment
system, the news site said.

Zenon Zawada: Much of the
Obama-era Russia foreign policy team is planning to return, led by the expected
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, along with Nuland and Kendall-Taylor.
That means much of the same foreign policy towards Russia will remain in place
as had been pursued under Presidents Trump and Obama, largely based on
intensified sanctions, particularly against the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. The
neo-conservatives under Trump, and the neo-liberals aligned with Biden, have
almost identical positions on Russia, whose expansion they believe needs to be
challenged. Both camps also seek to bring Ukraine into the Euro-Atlantic fold.

What’s revealing about Kendall-Taylor’s selection is
that the Biden administration approves of her approach of waiting for Putin’s
departure, rather than trying to collapse his government. So we can expect
Putin to hang around until at least 2024. By then, a pro-Russian government
could emerge in Ukraine owing to President Zelensky’s ineffectiveness,
particularly in resolving the war in Donbas.