Last updated (GMT/UTC): 07.02.2014 14:43
By RFE/RL
A senior U.S. diplomat has denied Russian claims that Ukrainian antigovernment militants are trained at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv.
Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland also said Washington and the international community are ready to provide more aid to Ukraine if leaders move quickly to implement democratic reforms and install what she called a "national technical government" to end the ongoing confrontation between authorities and antigovernment protesters.
"Nobody is going to give economic support from the United States or from the IMF [International Monetary Fund] or from Europe to an unreformed Ukraine," Nuland said.
Nuland was speaking in Kyiv on February 7, one day after she became embroiled in controversy after the leak of a bugged conversation in which she used a vulgarity to dismiss European Union mediation efforts in Ukraine.
The State Department says Nuland has apologized to the EU.
However, Germany, a leading U.S. ally and an EU power, criticized Nuland's comments as "totally unacceptable."
A spokeswoman for Chancellor Angela Merkel said Merkel strongly backs the job being done on the Ukrainian crisis by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.
Neither Nuland nor the U.S. State Department has disputed the contents of the recording of the telephone call between Nuland and the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt.
"I am obviously not going to comment on private diplomatic conversations, other than to say it was pretty impressive tradecraft. The audio was extremely clear," Nuland said on February 7.
Earlier, the U.S. State Department suggested that Russia was likely responsible for the disclosure of the conversation.
UKRAINE ON FIRE: Down The Memory-Hole... 9-Year American Proxy War with Russia
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in 2014 It is a virtual manifestation of the intensifying rivalry
between Russia and the West playing out in Ukraine. Coup Attempt in
process
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