White House's Grey Cardinal of Color Revolts: What is Victoria Nuland's Legacy?

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has announced that Victoria Nuland will step down in the coming weeks as Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs. What legacy will the leave?

Victoria Nuland — the architect of the 2014 Euromaidan coup in Kiev — has quit just as her pet project collapses.

Nuland's decision to retire came like a bolt from the blue, given her active role in Ukraine's affairs under presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, retired CIA intelligence officer and State Department official Larry Johnson told Sputnik.

"If it's not for health reasons, she's not resigning to take a better job. That's for sure," Johnson said, "Her only reason for being in that job was because of Ukraine. She was not a factor or force at the State Department in all the other areas such as China, Middle East, those are all back burner issues. Her thing was Ukraine."

He said Nuland's departure was a sign that the US policy in Ukraine was "unravelling" and was "no longer going to be the priority. They’re recognizing that it's not a political winner."

"It's like an albatross hanging around their neck as they go into the election season," Johnson said. "Her leaving is probably going to cause more consternation in Kiev and particularly with Zelensky."

Who is Nuland?

In his press statement on Tuesday, Blinken said "Toria" had served in various capacities under six American presidents and ten secretaries of state and had been "indispensable to confronting Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine" — just as Washington's proxy front with Moscow was collapsing in Donetsk.

Nuland is the wife of American ardent neoconservative strategist Robert Kagan, a leading voice for US overseas interventions and regime-change operations.

Nuland served as the principal deputy foreign policy adviser (2003 – 2005) to Vice President Dick Cheney, the mastermind of the 20003 invasion of Iraq. Between 2005 and 2008, she served as US ambassador to NATO in Brussels, focusing on mobilizing European support for the alliance's military campaign in Afghanistan and sabre-rattling with Russia.

Under the Obama administration, then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton picked Nuland as her spokeswoman. Clinton's successor, John Kerry, appointed her as his assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Sworn in September 2013, Nuland immediately took charge of what quickly morphed under her watch into a color revolution in Ukraine.

Euromaidan, which started in November 2013 as a protest against then-President Viktor Yanukovich's refusal to sign an EU association agreement, turned violent in December 2013.

Nuland called for "taking Ukraine into the future it deserves," boasting that the US had invested over $5 billion into Ukraine achieving "its European aspirations." She travelled to Kiev and handed out bread and cookies to protesters at Kiev's Independence Square ("Maidan Nezalezhnosti") reassuring rioters of US support.

U.S. Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland and Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, offering cookies and (behind the scenes) political advice to Ukraine's Maidan activists and their leaders.

© AP Photo / Andrew Kravchenko, Pool

Coup Plotter on Steroids

In early February 2014, a conversation between Victoria Nuland and then-US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt discussing the shape of the provisional Kiev regime was leaked online. Nuland was heard to dismiss European partners with the phrase "F**k the EU."

The plans they came to fruition the same month after Yanukovich was ousted by a violent nationalist mob in violation of the Ukrainian Constitution, forcing him flee the country chased by neo-Nazi militant groups.

Servicemen from the Azov volunteer battalion read a prayer during a ceremony before being sent to eastern Ukraine, in Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, Aug.17, 2015.

© AP Photo / Efrem Lukatsky

In May 2014 Nuland was grilled by congress representatives Dana Rohrabacher and Brad Sherman over her denial of the role armed neo-Nazis played in the Euromaidan coup during her congressional testimony.

"There were pictures of people running around with these that we were told were neo-Nazis. Were there neo-Nazis in those efforts – street violence that led to Mr. Yanukovych’s removal?" asked Rohrabacher.

Nuland insisted that "the vast majority of those who participated on the Maidan were peaceful protesters," but eventually admitted that "almost every color of Ukraine was represented, including some – including some ugly colors."

Minsk Agreements, Ukrainian Biolabs and Kiev's Retreat

Eight years later she was forced to admit that the US had maintained a secretive network of bio-labs in Ukraine. Documents obtained by the Russian Ministry of Defense in the course of the special military operation showed these facilities were conducting biowarfare research.

On March 8, 2022 Nuland testified that "Ukraine has biological research facilities," hastily adding: "We are now in fact quite concerned that Russian troops, Russian forces, may be seeking to gain control of them."

Nuland also tried to undermine the two Minsk accords between Kiev and the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in 2014 and 2015. She blamed breakdowns in the truce on Russia, one of the three countries that brokered the deals, while turning a blind eye to Ukraine's attacks on the Donbass republics and the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) network of torture chambers.

Then-German chancellor Angela Merkel later admitted that the accords were just a ruse to buy time to arm Ukraine for NATO's proxy conflict with Russia.

The last time Nuland was seen in Kiev was early February 2024, during the rift between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and then-commander-in-chief General Valery Zaluzhny. Zelensky sacked Zaluzhny on February 8, and on On February 17, the Russian army liberated Avdeyevka in the Donetsk region — where it continues to advance.

Nuland Resigns as Anti-Russia Plot Fails

Commenting on the news of Nuland's retirement, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova stated: "They will not tell you the reason. But it is simple — the failure of the anti-Russian policy of [US President Joe] Biden’s 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," she added.

Johnson believes Zakharova is right:

"[Nuland] has certainly been the central figure in the US government going back a decade. This was her thing in 2014, when the Maidan occurred," he said. "She was the one on the phone with the ambassador, trying to figure out who the United States was going to put it in as president of Ukraine."

"So, she's been one of the puppet mistresses behind the scenes, pulling the strings," Johnson added. "The fact that she's now resigning at a time when continued aid for Ukraine is uncertain, as well as growing opposition in Congress, particularly among Republicans, about continuing to pour bad money after good in Ukraine, and with the presidential election looming on the horizon."

The Biden White House has already signalled a shift on several issues, including Ukraine, the CIA veteran said. "I think her resignation may in part reflect some frustration, as a protest against that policy."

Johnson said Nuland's legacy was nothing to boast about.

She will be remembered for "taking Ukraine to the precipice of disappearing into an abyss, passing out cookies," along with "the use of the F-word... The European Union, she said, could go f*** themselves. So that's her legacy."