Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World

by Adam Tooze

Quite how deeply Washington was engaged was revealed by the infamous bugged conversation between Victoria Nuland, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, and the US ambassador to Ukraine, which is as illuminating in its characterization of US-EU relations at this point as it was in its blunt instrumentalization of Ukraine’s politicians. On January 28, 2014, as Nuland discussed options with Ambassador Pyatt, she casually remarked: “That would be great I think to help glue this thing and have the UN glue it and you know, fuck the EU.” For Nuland’s taste, the EU was too slow moving and too willing to compromise with President Yanukovych, with whom it had been eagerly pursuing a comprehensive Association Agreement only a few months earlier. Without flinching, Ambassador Pyatt replied: “We’ve got to do something to make it stick together, because you can be pretty sure that if it does start to gain altitude the Russians will be working behind the scenes to try to torpedo it.”