REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, BERLIN - A top US diplomat tried to play down the damage to Washington's diplomacy in Ukraine from a leaked telephone call, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel called an obscene remark about the EU "absolutely unacceptable." The leaked conversation was posted on YouTube. 

US officials blamed Moscow for the Internet leak of recordings of a senior State Department official and the US ambassador discussing a possible future government for Ukraine, where Washington and Brussels back anti-Kremlin demonstrators.

Western officials described the leaks as a throwback to the cloak-and-dagger tactics of the Cold War, apparently aimed as much at sowing discord among Western allies as at discrediting the opposition in Ukraine, a country of 46 million people on the verge of bankruptcy, torn between east and west.

Senior State Department official Victoria Nuland was heard using an expletive to tell the US ambassador it would be better if a new Ukrainian government was backed by the United Nations than the EU.

"Fuck the EU," she says. US officials have not denied the authenticity of the recording and said Nuland apologized to EU colleagues for the comment.

Angela Merkel - already furious with Washington for several months over reports that U.S. officials bugged her own phone - found Nuland's remarks "totally unacceptable", a spokeswoman for the German chancellor said. Merkel also expressed support for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who heads the bloc's Ukraine policy.

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