⁣Victoria Nuland, Asst. Sec. of State for Europe, phone call to US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, in a phone call leaked to the news media on 4 February 2014.

Remember the famous line: F**k the EU!

What's really important here is the level of planning for the coup that overthrew the elected President Viktor Yanukovych, which brought to power (as heard on the recording) a group of select individuals described as "moderate democrats." In fact, most of them, including Oleh Tyahnybok (whom Nuland insists the new head of state consult four times weekly), are a far-right nationalist faction with overt and long-standing ties to the neo-Nazi movement.

Meet the characters in the story that led to what's called "the worst crisis since the old cold war" and which Russia experts at American universities describe as a new cold war more dangerous than the first.