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.
