U.S. official uses expletives while speaking about EU

U.S. official uses expletives while speaking about EU

In the first clip, senior U.S. State Department official Victoria Nuland is speaking with U.S. Ambassador in Kiev Geoffrey Pyatt, disparagingly referring to the EU's attempts to mediate in that country, and at one point saying, "F--k the EU."

Nuland and Pyat were discussing which leaders of the Ukrainian opposition should join a new Ukrainian government.

They then talk about sending a UN envoy to Kiev in order to marginalize the role of the EU there. Nuland says she already discussed this and that UN chief Ban Ki-moon was ready to appoint his envoy.

“So that would be great, I think, to help glue this thing and have the UN help glue it and, you know, f--k the EU,” she says.

“Oh exactly, and I think we’ve got to do something to make it stick together, because you can be sure that if it does start to gain altitude the Russians will be working behind the scenes to torpedo it,” Pyatt replies.

In another clip, senior EU foreign service official Helga Schmid speaks in German to Jan Tombinski, the EU ambassador to Ukraine.

“The Americans are going around telling people we're too weak while they are tougher on sanctions. I talked to Cathy (Ashton) about what we have already discussed and she is on the same page: we have to do it but we have to prepare it in a very clever manner. But what you should know is that it really bothers us that the Americans are going around naming and shaming us - this is what several journalists have told us. Maybe you can speak to the US ambassador?," Schmid says, EUobserver is reporting.

Tombinski replies: “We are not in a race who is the toughest. We have other instruments.”

AN EU diplomatic source told EUobserver the EU clip was authentic, and that the U.S. clip “appears” to be so too.

The contact said "Russian or Ukrainian intelligence services are probably responsible."

“These recordings are coming out precisely because the Russians and the Ukrainians are afraid the EU and US will co-operate together on Ukraine. They are calculated to split this unity.”

The EU diplomat noted the Nuland expletive reflects “a general mood among the Americans, and not just on Ukraine, that they are getting tired of EU diplomacy, that we are not effective even in our own neighbourhood.”

On Friday, a spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton refused to comment on the controversy.

Russian Deputy PM Dmitry Rogozin commented on the clips on Twitter, after which Washington accused Moscow of "involvement" in intercepting and publishing the phone conversations.

But Rogozin's aide Dmitry Loskutov rejected these allegations.

"I merely followed the goings-on on the internet, while my boss was in a meeting," he said, according to a Srna news agency report.