MOSCOW, August 8. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has compared the visit of acting US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland to Niger with her actions in Kiev, where Nuland traveled in December 2013 during mass protests.
During the 2013-2014 mass protests in Kiev that eventually led to the overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, Nuland was among the Western officials who publicly supported the demonstrators. Her meeting with protesters, during which she handed out cookies, was widely publicized. Nuland later claimed that she was handing out sandwiches, not cookies, in the center of Kiev and not only to demonstrators, but also to law enforcement personnel.
"Victoria Nuland thought that in Niger it would work like in Ukraine: It will be enough to bring a cellophane bag full of cookies and play everyone for a fool. But, such a banana [republic-style] regime, like the one in Kiev, cannot be found anywhere else," Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel.