Seasoned Russia Envoy Joins Biden’s NSC

The White House has tapped Nicholas Berliner to serve as U.S. President Joe Biden’s top Russia advisor, putting a career foreign officer in charge of one of Biden’s most critical foreign-policy challenges just weeks before Ukraine is expected to launch an offensive to punch deep into Russian lines and regain more territory.

Berliner took over as special assistant to the president and the U.S. National Security Council’s (NSC) senior director for Russia and Central Asia in recent weeks, three people familiar with the decision told Foreign Policy. This comes as another career U.S. diplomat, Eric Green, retired from the job after seeing his tenure in government extended by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. Berliner has served as the U.S. State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for Russian affairs since September 2022. 

Two officials familiar with the matter framed the move as a routine personnel change at the two-year mark of the administration. They said Berliner was recommended by Victoria Nuland, the State Department’s No. 3 official and one of the U.S. administration’s most prominent Russia hawks who has helped craft U.S. strategy to isolate Russia and ramp up arms sales to Ukraine. Bloomberg first reported that Green had departed the NSC’s top Russia job. 

Berliner will spearhead the U.S. administration’s continuing response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and handle possible emerging threats from Russia, such as Moscow expanding its covert activities to destabilize countries on NATO’s periphery or another flare-up in Russian nuclear saber-rattling over Ukraine. The move comes as the Biden administration has sped up the delivery of tanks, munitions, and air defenses to Ukraine ahead of an expected Ukrainian spring offensive, which could help determine whether Kyiv is able to gain more territory from Russia or if Russian forces can blunt the offensive and the conflict spirals into a prolonged war of attrition.

Berliner, a Russian speaker and seasoned career diplomat, has served in overseas postings in Russia, Georgia, Croatia, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Belgium. During the Trump administration, Berliner served as head of the Office of Russian Affairs at the State Department from 2017 to 2019. 

Biden administration officials stressed that Berliner’s appointment does not signal any shift in policy. The administration has come under fire from some Republican lawmakers for not delivering military aid to Ukraine fast enough.

In a visit to Kyiv last month, Biden pledged to continue supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia. “Our support for Ukraine will not waver, NATO will not be divided, and we will not tire,” he said in a speech in Poland after the visit to Kyiv.

The Biden administration has sent $32.2 billion in security assistance and munitions to Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s ties with Russia and rapport with Russian President Vladimir Putin received widespread criticism from other Western officials, including after a highly controversial press conference with Putin in Helsinki in July 2018 and his first impeachment trial over the withholding of U.S. military aid to Ukraine to try to pressure Kyiv into opening an investigation into Biden, then his top political opponent in the 2020 elections.

Berliner served on the State Department team that wrote talking points for Trump for the meeting with Putin in Helsinki, according to two officials familiar with the matter. Trump ignored those talking points, and then took fire for contradicting U.S. intelligence and siding with Putin over Russia’s role in meddling in the United States’ 2020 elections. Trump later walked those comments back.

Yet many of Trump’s top foreign-policy advisors—including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Defense Secretary James Mattis, and others—were seen as hawkish on Russia and ramped up U.S. defense spending in Europe.