NATO Criticism of Russia’s Ukraine Policy Is Answered by Putin
A NATO supporter criticized Russia’s President Vladimir Putin for Russia’s Ukraine policy, on October 19th, at the Valdai Discussion Club’s annual meeting in Sochi, and Putin fired back with his most detailed statement to-date, describing the overthrow in February 2014 of Ukraine’s democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych, as having been a “coup” by the West, especially by the EU (which he blamed for it, rather than blame the US).
Asle Toje, a Norwegian supporter of the NATO anti-Russian military alliance, had raised this subject when he asked Putin:
What about Ukraine? From the European point of view, the ball is firmly in the court of Russia. It has turned into a semi-frozen conflict; the sanctions that were meant to be dynamic have become semi-permanent. What does Russia intend to do about this?
Putin replied:
Well, we think the ball is in Europe’s court, because due to the completely unconstructive – I am choosing my words so as not to appear rude – position of the former members of the European Commission, the situation went as far as a coup.
On 4 February 2014 the agent whom US President Barack Obama had tasked to plan the coup, Hillary Clinton’s longtime friend Victoria Nuland, instructed the US Ambassador in Ukraine whom to appoint to run Ukraine as soon as the coup would be culminated, which occurred 23 days later, on 27 February: “Yats is the guy who’s got the economic experience the governing experience he’s the” person to appoint, she told the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt. And “Yats” Yatsenyuk got the post, which was the appointment as Prime Minister, because Obama wanted the rabidly anti-Russian Yulia Tymoshenko to win Ukraine’s Presidency in an election, so as to be able to describe the change-of-government as being ‘democratic’ i.e., ‘elected’, not imposed (as was the appointment of “Yats”). However, Tymoshenko had too much of a public reputation as being a US agent (and grifter), for her to win; and, so, Petro Poroshenko won the ‘election’ instead. It was an ‘election’ in all of the majority Ukrainian-speaking areas of Ukraine, but without allowing to vote the populations in many of the majority Russian-speaking regions, where the man whom Obama overthrew, Yanukovych, had won by over 75% of the votes, in the last democratic election in Ukraine, which was the Presidential election in 2010 — the final election in which Ukrainians in all parts of the country voted. Although Poroshenko was anti-Russian, he wasn’t nearly as anti-Russian as was Tymoshenko. Yatsenyuk was Tymoshenko’s subordinate, and he had been selected by Nuland because the Obama Administration were thinking that after the Presidential election, Yats would hand off the government to Tymoshenko, who led Yats’s Party.
Putin blamed the EU for the coup, though (in fact) when the EU’s Foreign Minister, Catherine Ashton, learned, on February 26th of 2014, that this overthrow had been a coup instead of a democratic revolution, she expressed shock and disappointment but went right on carrying out the Obama Administration’s plan for the integration of the formerly Russia-allied Ukraine into the EU, and, ultimately, as was expected, into NATO, so that US nuclear missiles will be able to be installed there, on Russia’s border, as close to Moscow as possible, for a blitz-attack against Russia, to conquer Russia. Furthermore, in Nuland’s instruction to the Ambassador in Kiev, she said “F—k the EU”, because the EU aristocracies weren’t nearly as eager to conquer Russia as the US aristocracy are; the EU aristocracies had wanted Vitaly Klitschko to head Ukraine; Klitschko wasn’t rabidly anti-Russian, like Tymoshenko and Yatsenyuk were. Putin knew this — he knew that the coup was done by the US, not by the EU.
Putin then described the coup as follows:
There were riots backed by the United States – both financially, politically and in the media – and all of Europe.
They supported the unconstitutional seizure of power, a bloody one at that, with casualties, and took things as far as a war in southeastern Ukraine. Crimea declared its independence and its reunification with Russia, and now you think that we are to blame for that? Was it us who brought about the anti-constitutional coup? The current situation is the result of the unconstitutional armed seizure of power in Ukraine, and Europe is to blame, because it backed it.
What could have been easier than to say back then: ”You staged a coup, and after all, we are the guarantors.“ As guarantors, the foreign ministers of Poland, France and Germany signed a document, an agreement between President Yanukovych and the opposition. Three days later, it was trampled upon, and where were the guarantors? Ask them where these guarantors were? Why did they not say, ”Please, put things as they were. Get Yanukovych back in office and hold constitutional democratic elections.“ They had every chance of winning, 100 percent, no doubt. No, they had to do it through an armed coup instead. Well, we were confronted with this fact, accepted it and signed the Minsk agreements.
However, the current Ukrainian leadership is sabotaging every paragraph of these agreements, and everyone can see it perfectly well. Those who are involved in the negotiation process are fully aware of it, I assure you. Not a single step has been made towards implementing the Minsk agreements. Still everyone is saying, ”Sanctions will not be lifted until Russia complies with the Minsk agreements.“
Everyone has long since realised that the current leadership of Ukraine is not in a position to comply with them. Now that the situation in that country has hit rock bottom both in terms of the economy and domestic policy, and the police are using gas against protesters, expecting the President of Ukraine to take at least a small step towards implementing the Minsk agreements is an exercise in futility. I am not sure how he can accomplish this. But there is no alternative to it, unfortunately. Therefore, we will keep the Normandy format in place as long as our colleagues like, and we will strive to implement these Minsk agreements that you mentioned.
Nowhere has Putin ever blamed the US Government for that coup, but he knows at least as much about it as did the head of the “private CIA” firm Stratfor when Stratfor’s head described it as “the most blatant coup in history” because it had been so well documented via leaked phone-conversations and other solid evidences. There was no doubt that the US State Department had run it, and, ultimately, evidence became public that Google and the US State Department were already preparing the operation as early as in 2011.
Putin continued his response:
It is not enough only to appeal to Russia; it is also necessary to influence Kiev’s position. Now they have made a decision on the language, essentially prohibiting the use of ethnic minority languages in school. Hungary and Romania raised objections. Poland also made some comments in this regard. However, the European Union as a whole is silent. Why are they not condemning this? There is silence.
Now they have erected a monument to Petlyura. He was a man with Nazi views, an anti-Semite who killed Jews during the war. Except for the Zionist Jewish Congress, everyone else is silent. Are you afraid of hurting your clients in Kiev, is that it? This is not being done by the Ukrainian people; this is being done at the prompting of the relevant ruling authorities. But why are you keeping silent?
Putin was appealing for the EU to become neutral on the Ukrainian matter, not for the US Government to do so, because Putin recognized that the US Government wants to conquer Russia and took Ukraine in order to advance that goal, whereas many in the EU want instead to have peace and trade with Russia and aren’t so eager to invade. Putin has given up on America, whose Government is — along with Ukraine and Canada — the only defender of nazism (i.e., of racist fascism), at the U.N. But he knows that if he blames the coup on the US Government, this would make more difficult any possible efforts by the EU to move away from the US toward neutrality, because such an accusation against the US Government would only unify NATO, not break it up. He might be able to pick off a few EU members, to move toward neutrality and away from the NATO goal of ultimately invading Russia, but this can work only if he plays down the real power-contest, the contest between the US Government, whose goal is to conquer Russia, versus the Russian Government, whose goal is to remain a free and independent nation — to protect its national sovereignty. The reason Putin blames the EU instead of the US is thus tactical. Especially interesting is that he says “This is not being done by the Ukrainian people; this is being done at the prompting of the relevant ruling authorities. But why are you keeping silent?” He is there making his appeal to anti-nazi Europeans, for them to break away from today’s pro-nazi US regime. He is saying: Speak out against it; publicly separate yourselves from it. Then, he said:
I hope that this realisation will eventually come. I can see our partners’ interest, primarily our European partners’ interest in resolving this conflict. I can see real interest. Angela Merkel is doing a great deal, putting the time in, becoming deeply involved in these matters. Both the former president of France and President Macron are also paying attention. They are really working on this. However, it is necessary to work not just technically and technologically but politically. It is essential to exert some influence on the Kiev authorities, get them to do at least something. Ultimately, Ukraine itself has a stake in normalising our relations.
Now they went and imposed sanctions on us, as the EU did. We responded in kind. The president asks me, “Why did you do this?” I say, “Listen, you introduced sanctions against us.” This is just amazing!….more here