By Ian Sager, msnbc.com news editor

Sunday, February 27

I hope Moammar is seated.

Reuters is reporting that Galyna Kolotnytska, 38, arrived in Kiev early Sunday morning aboard a plane that evacuated 122 Ukrainians and 68 foreigners from the North African nation.

Efforts by the news agency to get in touch with the medical professional, who WikiLeaks described as a "voluptuous blonde" who "travel[s] everywhere" with Gadhafi, proved unsuccessful. According to television reports in the Eastern European nation, Ms. Kolotnytska will make her way to her native town Grovary, near Kiev, where her daughter lives.

Libya was a popular destination for Ukrainian medical professionals before the unrest.

Weeks of spiraling violence will make some wonder: will a certain eccentric Libyan in need of “medical care” try to make the opposite move?

Saturday, February 26

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has lost the backing of key ambassadors, much of his people, along with some of the nation’s armed forces, but one departure in particular may be hard for the embattled dictator to stomach.

According to reports, Galyna Kolotnytska, described in a cable published by WikiLeaks as a "voluptuous blonde" who "travel[s] everywhere" with Gadhafi, says she is heading home to Ukraine.

Kolotnytska will join the thousands of foreign nationals rushing to depart the turmoil-hit North African nation. Ukrainian daily Segodnya reports that the colonel’s confidant called her family in Kiev on Friday, telling them she intends to return home. Her daughter explains: "Mom got in touch yesterday. She said she was now in Tripoli…she spoke in a calm voice, asked us not to worry and said she'd soon be home."

Like many of his fellow world leaders, the Libyan dictator was not immune to the sting of diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks. If anything, they served to shed further light on Gadhafi's unique indulgences.

One bizarre cable describes Gadhafi's insistence on staying on the first floor when he visited New York for a 2009 meeting at the United Nations.

In one of the more salacious releases, Gadhafi is described as someone who relies heavily on his staff of Ukrainian nurses, including one woman described as a "voluptuous blonde." The cable speculated about a romantic relationship between Gadhafi and Kolotnytska, but nothing of that nature was ever confirmed.

Ms. Kolotnytska’s daughter also revealed that her mother had been in Libya for nine years, originally employed in a hospital prior to working for the regime.

There’s no telling how the Libyan leader will react to this latest bitter pill.

Yonatan Pomrenze, NBC News Moscow Correspondent

Ostensibly, there is no real connection between this week’s release of diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks and Thursday’s announcement that Russia won in its bid to host the 2018 World Cup in soccer.

Denis Sinyakov / Reuters

People celebrate at a sports bar in Moscow, Thursday, after the announcement that Russia is going to host the 2018 World Cup.

At least, not on the surface (I’ll leave the backroom dealings of FIFA to the conspiracy theorists). But one needed to look no further than the World Cup decision to confirm the private musings of some U.S. diplomats about Russia’s leaders.
 
Many of the leaked cables from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow discussed the “tandemocracy” of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev, and who holds final authority in Russia. One cable referenced a school of thought that “argues that Medvedev continues to play Robin to Putin’s Batman,” while another discussed Medvedev’s difficulty in “coming out from Putin's shadow,” and called Putin Russia’s “top dog.”

Although Putin usually defers to Medvedev on the international stage, as it is the president’s area of responsibility, it was Putin front and center this week, taking on both WikiLeaks and Russia’s bid for the World Cup.

First, Putin gave an interview to Larry King, dismissing criticism of Russia’s style of a ruling duo as an attempt to “destroy our effective interaction in running the country.”

Pavel Golovkin / AP

A young man holding a Russian flag hands out free national flags to motorists in downtown Moscow, to celebrate FIFA's selection of Russia as host to the 2018 World Cup.

But the real intrigue came when Putin announced that he would not be traveling to Zurich to preset Russia’s bid for the World Cup. Putin’s support of the bid, and the resources and results his power can deliver, was one of the key points in Russia’s bid. It was Putin’s personal appeal, in English, to the IOC in 2007 which is widely credited for Russia being awarded the 2014 winter Olympics.

The official reason given was Putin’s wish to allow FIFA members “to make an unbiased decision calmly and without any outside pressure,” but some saw it as a sign of the Russian bid’s weakness and Putin cutting his losses. 

One day later, Russia won its bid in only two rounds of voting. 

It’s a huge deal for Russia, and Russian pride, to host the World Cup. Medvedev tweeted his congratulations (@MedvedevRussia), it will be Putin’s influence, and strategy, that Russians remember when they think of how they won.  

By Richard Engel, NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent
 
The Wikileaks release of internal, often secret, diplomatic cables is a major setback for the U.S. State Department. American officials are trying to downplay it and mend fences. Those fences need urgent mending.
 
What was leaked?
American diplomats at foreign embassies issue cables. These are internal notes meant to advise officials at the embassy, the State Department in Washington and, ultimately, the president of the United States. 

Diplomats are encouraged to write cables. If they don’t write them, they get a reputation for being lazy. If a diplomat has a particularly interesting meeting with a foreign politician, political analyst or even a well-connected journalist, he or she might write a cable.

Diplomats will also write cables to brief officials before an upcoming visit. If the American secretary of state is visiting Lebanon to meet the foreign minister, diplomats in Beirut will prepare a cable in advance to describe what to expect and include private information and analysis about the parties involved in the meetings.

It was these cables that were stolen and posted by WikiLeaks. It is a serious blow to the State Department’s information gathering system. 
 
In journalism, we’d call what is happening “burning a source.”  If I interview someone, and that source gives me information “off to the record,” context that I am supposed to know, but asked not to report, and I publish it, I burn the source. If I publish the information and include the source’s name, I really burn the source, I flambé him.

Journalists will burn a source if they can’t contain themselves, usually because they think the story is so good, so juicy, that it will win them kudos and awards, or if they think what they have learned is of such national importance that it needs to be made public.

If you burn a source, the assumption is that the source will never work with you again, and will bad-mouth you to other sources. These are the unwritten rules of the game. 

Wikileaks just flambéed many of the State Department best sources.  
 
Far worse than past leaks
The last WikiLeaks document dump was of military correspondence from Iraq.

Those documents were short bursts of information, most of them in military acronyms. It was essentially a long list of tactical information and witness reports. It was like a giant police blotter of events, a shotgun blast of mostly bad news, field reports of bombings, explosions and shootings. The military was (and remains) furious because the data was stolen from a classified system. 
 
The leak of the diplomatic cables is far worse. The cables discuss on-going policy and conversations with major, usually sensitive, powerful and occasionally vain, world leaders.  They are also written in clear English, not military bullet points, and at times were sprinkled with sarcasm and irony.
 
One cable included a colorful description of the Kazakh defense minister.
 
“Kazakhstan’s political elites also have recreational tastes that are not so exotic. Some, in fact, prefer to relax the old-fashioned way. Defense Minister Akhmetov, a self-proclaimed workaholic, appears to enjoy loosening up in the tried and true ‘homo sovieticus’ style – i.e., drinking oneself into a stupor.”
 
Another took a swipe at Saudi Arabia’s Prince Khalid bin Faisal, Governor of Asir. Prince Khalid is “known for being extremely cheap.”
 
Another cable described Saudi King Abdullah as having little faith in the Iraqi and Pakistani presidents. The cable may also foreshadow the Saudi reaction to the WikiLeaks scandal.
 
“Once the king has lost trust in a counterpart, as has been the case with Nouri Al-Maliki or Asif Zardari, his personal antipathy can become a serious obstacle to bilateral relations.”
 
The cable described the Saudi king as particularly suspicious of Iran: “(King Abdullah) described Iran as ‘adventurous in the negative sense,’ and declared ‘may God prevent us from falling victim to their evil’…Summarizing his history with Iran, Abdullah concluded: ‘We have had correct relations over the years, but the bottom line is that they cannot be trusted.’”
 
It is a powerful exchange, and one the Saudi king undoubtedly expected would remain private.  In the Middle East trust takes a long time to build and once it is lost, is difficult to regain.
 
Why it hurts
Foreign diplomats already have a hard enough time gathering information. In many cities there are two diplomatic communities: the Americans and everyone else. 

I’ve seen this play out countless times from Baghdad to Kabul, Beirut to Cairo.  If a French, Spanish or Polish diplomat for example wants to meet a politician or author, the two go to a restaurant or a private home, have a few drinks, and discuss whatever the subject may be. 

America embassies, however, these days are generally like little (or sometimes really big) fortresses. Security restrictions on American diplomats often make it difficult for them to mingle, especially in cities where the threat of terrorism or kidnapping is considered high.

To travel, American diplomats often have to fill out travel requests, sometimes days in advance, to schedule a meeting and set up a security escort. To make it easier, American diplomats often ask sources to visit them at embassies, which can be inconvenient (going through checkpoints, metal detectors, leaving mobile phones outside) and demeaning, if officials feel they are being summoned.

Now, however, there may be a major change. Sources might ask themselves, why bother? Why go through all the effort to meet with the Americans if they can’t keep a secret?

In many counties, officials and analysts don’t want their peers, and certainly not the general public, to know they meet with American embassy officials. People who were on the fence already, not sure if they should go in and advise an American diplomat, could determine that it’s simply not worth the risk.
 
“None of us are at all happy about it,” a senior American diplomat said to me about the leaks.
“It will certainly setback efforts to build relations of confidence with foreign officials and influential actors.”

More from Richard Engel on Wikileaks: A tool for terrorists and criminals?  and WikiLeaks' Iraq files: 400,000 insights into war

The who, what and why of WikiLeaks

Revealed: U.S. diplomats slam world leaders

Click here for complete coverage of WikiLeaks 

By Richard Engel, NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent 
 
Aside from the diplomatic damage the WikiLeaks dump of more than 250,000 confidential U.S. State Department cables has created, security experts say they also provide a treasure trove of information that could be exploited by terrorists and organized crime syndicates. 

The documents, which claim to have been redacted for safety, reveal much more than the often-embarrassing opinions of American diplomats of world leaders. 

From a security point of view, they also reveal who American officials met, where, and in many cases, for how long. This is the type of information that hit teams spend months, or even years, trying to gather by conducting risky and expensive surveillance. Now the information is online in clearly marked, easily sorted files.

Not just a dinner party guest list
For example, a cable from Abu Dhabi describes a dinner hosted by Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the United Arab Emirates Armed Forces Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. 

He was having the dinner party for the former American CENTCOM Cmdr. John Abizaid. The cables listed a half-dozen senior UAE military officials who attended the dinner.
 
This is not just a guest list. WikiLeaks exposed the inner circle of the UAE’s military and intelligence command. The guest list identified the power players, information that could be useful to someone who wants to harm the UAE, or change the nation’s policy. 

While the names and titles of the security officials are known (they can be looked up on Google), revealing who gathers for a top-level meeting shows who is really important. There are many security officials in the UAE.  The dinner list identifies which ones are critical. 

It would be like releasing the names of the people who gather in the White House situation room at the time of a crisis. 

‘Actionable intelligence’
Another cable described how Jordan’s king, the UAE’s army chief and the Duke of York Prince Andrew often go hunting together.
 
“Jordanian King Abdullah II is a close friend of UAE Armed Forces Chief of Staff Muhammad bin Zayid Al-Nahyan. The two frequently hunt – in Morocco and Tanzania – joined, more often than not, by England's Prince Andrew.”
 
No doubt the security advisers of all three leaders are now suggesting that those trips stop, or be moved to new locations. If they’re not, they should. There can’t be that many hunting areas in Morocco and Tanzania suitable for a king and prince. It wouldn’t be difficult to figure out where they would go. The cables said the group travels frequently. 

“Understanding who is included in a leadership meeting and where the leaders frequently travel is the type of ‘actionable intelligence’ we often seek on our enemies,” said former top White House counter-terrorism adviser and NBC News security analyst Roger Cressey. “What WikiLeaks has done is give any adversary of a U.S. ally that kind of actionable intelligence. It is beyond irresponsible.”
 
In a statement, Sen. Joe Lieberman also said the WikiLeaks release puts lives at risk.

“It is an outrageous, reckless, and despicable action that will undermine the ability of our government and our partners to keep our people safe and to work together to defend our vital interests,” said Lieberman. “Let there be no doubt: the individuals responsible are going to have blood on their hands.”
 
A statement from the British Foreign Office said the cables “can damage national security, are not in the national interest and, as the U.S. has said, may put lives at risk.”

Quirks reveal patterns
That includes the safety of some officials who have had troubled relations with the United States.  The quixotic Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi certainly has enemies who want to kill him (the United States bombed his house in 1986), was exposed in details that would make his security entourage sweat bullets.
 
The leaked cables said Gadhafi won’t fly longer than eight hours, won’t fly over water and won’t stay above the first floor of hotels. I’m surprised they didn’t list what side of the bed he sleeps on.
 
The cables also explain how Gadhafi relies less on his female bodyguards. Back when white suits with epaulets and military hats were in style (at least in style with Gadhafi), the Libyan leader would always be accompanied by a troop of female guards. He said potential attackers would be confused and disoriented by their beauty and sex appeal. Now, the cables said Gadhafi “cannot travel without” a “voluptuous blonde” Ukrainian nurse, whom they name.
 
During WWII and the Cold War, this kind of intelligence – the oddities, quirks, and most importantly, the patterns of world leaders – was gathered by intelligence agencies. It still is. You don’t need to know how to get to a world leader. You need to know who can. It goes on and on. 
 
The cables describe who attended meetings with Gen. Petraeus in Beirut, a city where the government has little control over militants and kidnappers.
 
They identify the key counter-terrorism officials in Arab countries, and their traveling companions. 
 
In a statement regarding WikiLeaks, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, “By releasing stolen and classified documents, WikiLeaks has put at risk not only the cause of human rights but also the lives and work of these individuals. We condemn in the strongest terms the unauthorized disclosure of classified documents and sensitive national security information.”
 
The WikiLeaks release of diplomatic cables will undoubtedly cause many officials, kings, ministers, presidents and princes to review, if not change, their personal security procedures. While the Wikileaks cables contain fascinating insights into political meetings and backdoor dealings, they can also be mined for details used to harm the people named in them.
 
More reporting from Richard Engel on other WikiLeaks: WikiLeaks' Iraq files: 400,000 insights into war 

The who, what and why of WikiLeaks

Revealed: U.S. diplomats slam world leaders

Click here for complete coverage of WikiLeaks 

Following the release of more than 250,000 classified State Department documents, foreign capitals are beginning to respond to how they were seen through the lens of local U.S. diplomats.

While U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted that confidential reports by diplomats about other foreign diplomats  is basically what diplomacy is and has been going on for hundreds of years, there will surely be a few bruised egos abroad.

For instance, Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was quick to say that he does not attend the “wild parties” alleged by U.S. diplomats in Rome, but that he hosts “elegant and dignified” dinner parties.

Here are a few of the reactions compiled by NBC News correspondents and producers in Egypt, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Germany.

EGYPT
By Charlene Gubash, NBC News Producer

CAIRO – In the Arab World, where much of the press is muzzled by all powerful regimes, the public is normally obliged to guess at the reality behind the rhetoric since spokesmen rarely speak and press briefings are almost non-existent. But the WikiLeaks cables have provided a deliciously rare "behind closed doors" view of many Arab leaders.

“Thanks to Wikileaks, I felt like a child who was allowed to listen to grown-up conversations for the first time," gushed "The Sandmonkey," a prominent Egyptian blogger.

The region’s favorite TV news venues – satellite channels Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya – reported extensively on the leaks implicating Arab leaders during Monday’s broadcasts.

There were two items that were considered to be the most explosive: Saudi Arabian King Abdullah’s repeatedly calling on the U.S. to strike Iran’s nuclear sites and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak approaching Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas before Israel’s 2008 offensive on Gaza and asking if they would be willing to take over the Gaza Strip after the defeat of Hamas.

Some felt vindicated by the revelations. Hisham Kassem, former publisher of Egypt’s first independent daily newspaper, Al Masry al Youm, says the leaked documents provide "further exposure of how rotten and double-faced the regimes are: the double standard of public discourse on one hand and what is said behind closed doors on the other."

Sandmonkey also blogged about how the cables proved the duplicity that had been suspected all along. “There is now evidence that Egypt is aiding Israel in isolating Hamas; that Mubarak has nothing but utter hatred for the Muslim Brotherhood and utter distrust towards Qataris and Syrians; that the entirety of the Arab Gulf region, including Qatar, are weary of Iran’s lies and would love to see Iran gone or disarmed; and that they all would secretly support a strike on Iran from either the U.S. or Israel. The dichotomy between their rhetoric and actions was finally exposed as hypocritical and duplicitous to their people and the world.”

Kassem believed the leaks would provoke only short-term public outrage, but that the real fallout will be between governments whose officials pointedly criticized each other to the U.S. in leaked documents.

Sheikh Khalid Bin Ahmad Al Khalifa, Bahrain’s foreign minister, tweeted that the revelations "weakened diplomacy in general, U.S. diplomacy in particular."

Arab analysts in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt concluded that Arab politicians won’t change their policies but will be more guarded in their future conversations with U.S. officials. "They are just going to get better at covering up information,” said Rania al Malky, editor-in-chief of the Daily News, an Egyptian English language newspaper.

Most observers believe that the public, now privy to the real state of affairs between their leaders and the U.S., will take the information in stride. "I think it is helpful, insightful and believable. It didn’t tell us something which is unbelievable," said Mervat Mohsen, head of news at Nile TV. But he added that most Egyptians are too caught up in major issues, like unemployment, to care.
Al Malky said that while the average Egyptian may doubt the veracity of the leaked information, opposition groups "will use the information to make a case against the government to the bitter end."

In any case, Clinton will be able to assess the fallout, public and private, when she meets several of her Arab counterparts this weekend in Manama, Bahrain, where she will give the opening speech before the annual Manama Dialogue.

AFGHANISTAN
By Atia Abawi, NBC News’ Correspondent

Allauddin Khan / AP

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, second from right, is met by his half brother Ahmad Wali Karzai, left, in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan on Oct. 9, 2010.

KABUL – One of the more interesting narratives in the WikiLeaks release describes American officials’ meetings in September 2009 and February 2010 with Ahmad Wali Karzai -- the half brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a power broker in the Taliban’s home turf of Kandahar and allegedly a drug trafficker. 

The cables show a wide-ranging conversation – from Karzai’s attempt to promote himself as a U.S. partner, to his instance that he would take a polygraph test to dismiss rumors that he is a drug trafficker, to his fond recollections of his days as a restaurant owner near Chicago’s Wrigley Field.

In a phone interview on Monday, Wali Karzai said he was disappointed by the leaks – he is well aware of his reputation on the world scene but he believes he has done a lot to help the U.S. and international community.

“We invite them as guests and treat them as guests,” he said about his meetings with American officials, but expressed disappointment that his own countrymen were not treated with the same respect.  He mentioned that he met with Frank Ruggiero, the American diplomat describing his one-on-one with Karzai in the leaked cable, over 50 times. 

“America has done a lot for us; they’ve helped build our army, police forces and institutions. We are grateful for their efforts,” said Karzai.  But he added, “It’s going to be harder to talk to them in the future because we don’t know if what we are saying to them privately will be made public. But we won’t stop cooperating with them. This is about helping Afghanistan and we must work together for that.”

PAKISTAN
By Carol Grisanti, NBC News’ Producer
ISLAMABAD – Pakistan's Foreign Office was quick to issue an official statement criticizing the WikiLeaks release but added that the government was not in a position to comment on the authenticity of U.S. official documents.

Of most concern to Pakistanis were the comments by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia about Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s president.  One cable quotes King Abdullah saying that Zardari was "the greatest obstacle to Pakistan's progress" and "when the head is rotten, it affects the whole body." 

Pakistan’s Foreign Office called the report "misleading and contrary to the facts" and went on to say that the king and the people of Saudi Arabia have always stood by Pakistan. “It is quite evident that these mischievous reports reveal the utter inadequacy of the author to grasp the essence of the Pakistan-Saudi relationship," the statement said. 

The cables also revealed U.S. concerns over Pakistan's nuclear facilities. According to the leaked documents, the U.S. has mounted a secret effort, since 2007, to remove highly enriched uranium from a Pakistani reactor. 

In May 2009, Anne Patterson, former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, reported that the Pakistanis were refusing to schedule a visit by U.S. technical experts because, according to a Pakistani official, "if the local media got word of the fuel removal they certainly would portray it as the United States taking away Pakistan's nuclear weapons."

Abdul Basit, Pakistan’s foreign ministry spokesman, explained that the fuel in question was from a research reactor given to Pakistan in the 1960s by the United States. “Since 2007 they have been asking us to return that fuel," he said in an interview with NBC News. "Our position is that the fuel is our property and we cannot return it."

GERMANY
By Andy Eckardt, NBC News’ Producer

MAINZ, Germany – “The U.S. government is facing a disaster,” was the first line of German public broadcaster ZDF’s report on the WikiLeaks dump.

News stands in Germany prominently displayed the cover of Der Spiegel magazine on Monday morning, with its headline, “Revealed: How America Views the World.” The German magazine, one of the few media outlets worldwide to receive excerpts of the documents from WikiLeaks ahead of the general public, called the release "nothing short of a political meltdown for U.S. foreign policy.”

With a special focus on secret reports from Berlin's U.S. embassy, Der Spiegel wrote that the documents portrayed German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle in rather unflattering terms. Not great timing for Merkel and her governing coalition, which is already under increasing domestic political pressure – the international criticism of the German leaders via the links only adds to the bad news.

In the confidential U.S. diplomatic cables, Merkel was described as risk-averse and Westerwelle as largely powerless.

In one cable to the State Department in 2006, the then U.S. ambassador to Germany, William Timken, wrote that the tone of trans-Atlantic relations may have improved, but that Merkel "had not taken bold steps yet to improve the substantive content of the relationship."

Timken’s predecessor, Philip Murphy was highly critical of Westerwelle, writing that his thoughts “were short on substance," and that "Westerwelle's command of complex foreign and security policy issues still requires deepening.” 
 
Opinions on how damaging the revelations are for German-U.S. relations were mixed Monday.  

“Big secrets are not the problem, at least not in Germany,” John Kornblum, a former U.S. ambassador to Germany told ZDF.  "But if you now speak with an American diplomat, and you have to be worried that it will appear in the newspaper the next day, that is severe.”