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September 10, 2024 - 4:00pm
Western allies advised Ukraine to reject a peace deal with Russia, according to a former top US diplomat.
In an interview with journalist Mikhail Zygar, former US ambassador to Nato Victoria Nuland claimed that the terms and conditions offered by Russia would have left a demilitarised Ukraine “completely neutered”.
While Nuland dismissed the notion that Western allies scuppered a peace deal in April 2022 as a “Russian myth” and an “urban legend”, she went on to say that Vladimir Putin’s conditions in the so-called Istanbul Communiqué placed major military restraints on Ukraine while having almost none for Russia.
“Relatively late in the game the Ukrainians began asking for advice on where this thing was going,” said Nuland. “It became clear to us, clear to the Brits, clear to others, that Putin’s main condition was buried in an annex to this document […] and it included limits on the precise kinds of weapons systems that Ukraine could have […] such that Ukraine would basically be neutered as a military force.”
By contrast, “there were no similar constraints on Russia,” claimed the former diplomat. “Russia wasn’t required to pull back, Russia wasn’t required to have a buffer zone from the Ukrainian border, wasn’t required to have the same constraints on its military facing Ukraine.”
Her comments follow on from a major report in Foreign Affairs earlier this year, in which writers Samuel Charap and Sergey Radchenko investigated the peace deal, its contents and the players involved. The deal, which was allegedly agreed upon in April 2022, was that Ukraine would become “a permanently neutral, nonnuclear state. Ukraine would renounce any intention to join military alliances or allow foreign military bases or troops on its soil.”
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SubscribeFirst off. You’re out of your bloody mind if you think Ukraine should have nuclear weapons. Secondly, you sign the peace deal and then violate the terms of the agreement. What’s the worst that can happen? Putin invades Ukraine for a second time? This is all smoke and mirrors to cover the fact that America was happy to fight a proxy war on the backs of Ukrainian casualties.
Ukraine has long since given up its nuclear weapons, and received security guarantees for doing so.
Which Russia ignored on multiple occasions over the last 10 years, so why would Ukraine trust them to keep their word this time?
That is the point.
The deal regarding Ukraine’s nuclear weapons explicitly required no foreign interventions or meddling – like not handing out biscuits to demonstrators or getting prosecutors fired – that kind of thing.
Biscuits (more like bulochky but who’s counting?) vs Invasion. Tough choice.
Sarcasm is difficult on the internet.
Getting prosecutors fired was fact…not sarc…
No it did not. So many on here just lap up with alacrity every bit of Russian propaganda while reserving their jaundiced cynical eyes only for the Western states.
Ukraine did have (admittedly residual Soviet) nuclear weapons at one point. I bet Russia wouldn’t have invaded if it still had them.
US?allies believed Iraq had nuclear weapons. Yet still invaded!
Yes, but those old Soviet nukes probably still worked, and would have had no difficulty reaching major Russian cities.
But they could not use them because controls were in Moscow.
They could had extracted warheads from Soviet missiles but not easily deploy them.
Unless as “dirty nuke” weapon.
I’m sure that getting the missiles to work without Russian involvement would have been achievable (they were after all 1960s tech). Even if it wasn’t, the warheads could have been deployed in other ways.
Good points. There was no good reason for this war to start or continue. Nor is there any good reason now why it should not be negotiated to an end. Ukraine and Russia could have agreed (and should now agree) that the Donbas will return to Ukraine but be largely autonomous, that the issue of Crimea will be resolved by further negotiations, and that Ukraine will be given security guarantees but not become part of NATO. In essence, the Minsk accords.
Nonsense.
Russia gave guarantees of territorial integrity of Ukraine in 1994 Budapest memorandum.
Did it work? No.
Please explain why Finland and Sweden joined NATO?
Obviously, because Russia guarantees are worth nothing.
Only Russian stooges like you believe that.
Or rather get paid to post that.
The first thing you do is sign a peace deal and get Russian troops out. Then you can worry about Russian treachery and violate whatever terms of the agreement you feel necessary.
Rubbish.
Russia guaranteed territorial integrity of Ukraine in Budapest memorandum.
The least West should do is to give Ukraine weapons to defend itself against Russian invasion.
The 2022 deal was the same delusion as 1994 Budapest deal.
Russia would never respect it, as we know now.
While Russia, so far, accepts independence of Baltic States, they don’t want Ukraine to be successful part of Europe, because it would be end od Russian cleptocratic dictatorships.
There are so many Ukrainians with family connections in Russia, that successful Ukraine would never be tolerated by Russia.
As traveller in Soviet Union in 70s was told by old Russian lady:
“You have everything but we live like animals”.
Still the case today apart from Kremlin gangsters and 10% in Moscow and StPetersburg.
So you’re saying Russian wouldn’t accept the peace deal that Ukraine was told not to accept? There’s nothing preventing Ukraine from not respecting terms of the deal either.
Why is it absurd that Ukraine might have nuclear weapons but not Israel, India, Pakistan? Probably more in future. And Ukraine had actually inherited such weapons from the USSR. The decision to abandon them doesn’t seem such a good choice today. This “proxy war” trope is just ridiculous propaganda; the US quite rightly is supporting a state that has been invaded by its neighbour twice since that same neighbour recognised its independence only a couple of decades before.
“What’s the worst that can happen?” Despite your supposed sophisticated tone, this is again daft. An international treaty essentially saying one side can’t defend itself? You may recall that was a major cause of German resentment after World War 1. You can’t just suddenly mobilise a military from scratch in a few weeks. Hitler got away with it, but Putin’s Russia is nothing like Britain and France in the 1930s, whose elites and publics desperately wanted to avoid war in that period. Had they not done so, Hitler could easily have been defeated and overthrown.
We should prevent any new country from acquiring the technology, especially corrupt ones.
Instead Ukraine has been neutered…and wrecked.
And? So what?
No “peace deal” I have heard of being offered by Putin was anything Ukraine should even consider or was considering, and advice to that effect from any Western party is superfluous.
Ok. I’ll bite. What were the terms of the deals you heard about? Whats your level of expertise on the culture and geography of the Donbas region?
People on the Left often accuse others of opining without expertise and displaying the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Despite being incredibly vague, you’re essentially claiming expert knowledge here, so do elaborate.
The terms, T-bone, incorporated some of the same silliness proposed at Minsk. All of it unacceptable and offered in bad faith. What’s more, and, if you’re not just engaging in some corn-fed new right trolling, alll of it available on Google or, Yandex, if that’s how you roll.
What was unacceptable about the Minsk Accords?
If Ukraine wants to join the EU, Ukraine would have to grant regional cultural autonomy and minority cultural rights as set out in the Minsk Accords.
Of course, with respect to Russians, Ukraine will likely be accorded the Baltic Exception, where ethnic Russians are Untermenschen and the EU minority protection principles don’t apply. But neither Poland nor Hungary will agree to apply the Baltic Exception to their minorities in Ukraine, much though Ukraine’s social nationalists (their term) would like to.
The EU did make protection of the Russian minorities a precondition for membership.
Ask the Russians, they never implemented the Minsk agreements.
If you agree that the implementation of the Accords would have bestowed autonomy, indeed, parliamentary representation, upon criminal gangs from the Donbas armed and financed from the Kremlin and posing as Ukrainian opposition, and that this would have been a good thing, I suppose then that nothing about Minsk would be “unacceptable” to you.
And yet, even the Moscow stooges in the Party of Regions accepted that the Accords, thus conditioned, were DOA. A fact conveniently ignored by all those who harp on about a Ukrainian “Civil War”, “Kyiv Junta” and “CIA coup” that never happened.
The truth will out: Maidan led to the current tragedy. No argument. But not because it was a western-backed coup to oust a democratically elected President but rather, because it signalled the end of Moscow’s twenty-three-year-long slow coup of Ukrainian sovereignty.
Ukrainians had had enough. I know. Kyiv has been home since 1996.
However it was still actually a US backed coup to oust a democratically elected President.
“To be an enemy of the United States can be dangerous…to be a friend is fatal”…Kissinger
No doubt that would be fully understood by the late Diem of Vietnam, and various others since. The subsequent history of their countries has been “not necessarily to their advantage”…but not disadvantageous to the USA.
Did the Obama administration see Yanukovich’s abandonment of his office as felicitous? Absolutely. But, prior to it, did that administration have any real interest in Ukrainian geopolitical orientation? Sort of. In real terms, Ukraine has always been an afterthought in US foreign policy, and was so for the particular socio-political fixations that colored US foreign policy under Obama. That’s shorthand for: Maidan caught the US by surprise. Almost nobody was watching Kyiv with any real interest. The half-baked trade deals and assurances about EU-membership or the bad faith courtship by NATO. The US, the EU just hadn’t done the work necessary to usher the Ukrainians away from the Dark Side!
Repeating myself: Maidan, far from being backed by the US, etc., was a surprise. Clearly, the US enjoyd a lesser degree of surprise than that experienced by Moscow, but then Kremlin policy fueled by revisionist fantasies about “righting historical wrongs” had been a pet project for decades.
So, I’m going to ask you to define your terms: what does “US-backed” mean in any practical sense? Financed? Equipped materially? I’d suggest this: read about Russian agent infiltration into Ukrainian institutional power/administration and see if it doesn’t affect your perspective.
I’m no fan of Nuland. Despite, if memory serves, Ukrainian roots, her fecklessness (though certainly not hers alone) in Ukraine was a dispiriting confirmation of the Obama State Department’s generally bumbling bad faith in foreign policy worldwide.
Moscow, unintentionally, fomented Maidan, a grassroots revolt and demonstrably so. The anger – over Russian interference, Russian corruption, and Russian organized crime making a joke of Ukrainian sovereignty – that ignited that November had been festering for a long time. Maidan and the flight of Yanukovich and Azarov was a near-fatal blow to the Moscow coup. The kind of decisive response that Obama was incapable of.
What puzzles me throughout all this is why “Russia-backed” is such a difficult concept for anyone skeptical of western political power.
My views are, of course, my own, but to the extent that it matters, I worked for in the Cabinet of Ministers under (way under) Azarov/Yanukovich, and for a bit under Poroshenko.
Finally someone who makes sense and knows what he is talking about. Unlike the rest of us bozos.
Thanks.
The Biden laptop gives $olid reason$ to add missing context to your interesting insights
You emphasize that “Maidan, far from being backed by the US, etc., was a surprise.” It would be really helpful if you would share your source that supports the claim.
All the Russians in Baltic States are free to leave for Russia.
But they don’t.
They quite like the idea of EU recognised passport.
Those who accepted Russian passports should be expelled as traitors.
As should many in Europe with other passports.
Your moronic comments about Russians being 2nd class citizens is just nonsense.
Yes, those who refused to learn the language of the country they want to be citizens of should clear of to Russia.
The same for many immigrants to Europe.
I keep posting it many times on here and elsewhere.
Both Donbas and Luhansk voted over 83% to be part of independent Ukraine in 1991 Ukrainian independence referendum.
Even Crimea voted 54% for the same.
So what is your level of expertise on this part of Europe?
My family is from this parts.
I have no love for Ukrainians (just watch movie Wolyn) but you are just posting Russian propaganda.
I think the real question is “if Ukraine had the chance to be Austria, but on steroids because of its natural resources, why wouldn’t it take it?”
Austria is neutral, in the EU, and prosperous.
Why they would not take the fake chance is obvious, they can not trust anything Russia says or says it will do. Austria is not neutral, it participates in NATO.
When was Ukraine ever offered that chance? It is worth noting that the first invasion of Crimea and (later Luhansk and Donetsk) was triggered by Ukraine daring to – announce their intention to get closer to the EU.
Victoria Nuland (as quoted here) finally gives a sensible account of those negotiations. There was a deal on offer (she says), but Ukraine would have had to demilitarise and renounce any protective alliances, and Russia offered no guarantees in return. And Ukraine, very understandably, suspected that Russia would just have waited for the disarmament and then invaded again to get that they really wanted: full control over Ukraine. The west seems to have shared those suspicions.
If Russia was ever to get to a position where they could take control of Ukraine by force, what arguments do you have to suggest that they would not exploit that possibiliity? Why would they leave Ukraine as Austria if they could have it as their very own, like Bielorussia or Siberia?
Quite simply because Russia cannot hold Ukraine by force. It can only “hold” those areas which actually want to be Russian, and those don’t need any “force” whatsoever, only defence.
Sounds naive to me. At best. They can hold Chechnya and Bielorussia, no? They held Poland, East Germany etc. for a couple of generations. Put in a friendly government – but local, of course, not Russian. Local crooks would be good – dictators tend to stick together. Give technical help to the security services, make sure the top lives well, and depends on you for continuing with their privileges. Leave the local government to take decisions and look local, just make it clear that if they get too far out of line, they will be invaded – like Hungary or Chechoslovakia, and that there is not any chance of getting out from under. Make sure the right things are taught in schools, and make sure everybody understands that only those who toe the line get ahead. Enough people will adapt.
Why would it not work? The Chinese can hold down a province with millions of muslims that are treated like second-class citizens. The Russians may be less sophisticated, but please do not try to tell me that it is impossible to rule over a population that would prefer to be rid of you.
Again, brilliant post.
I was citizens of one of Russian “independent” countries and it was just as you described.
I really dislike posts claiming that any part of Ukraine wants to be part of Russia.
In 1991 Ukraine Independence referendum both Donbas and Luhansk voted over 83% to be part of Ukraine.
Even Crimea voted 54% for the same.
As someone said:
“You can have your own opinion but not your own facts”.
I think on any discussion about Ukraine, Unherd should have pinned posts at the top, so Russian stooges or people without any understanding of this part of the world are not spreading Russian lies.
However in the subsequent Referendum the majority of the people of Crimea voted to be part of Russia…a plebiscite widely recognised as truly representative.
Regrettably the people of Donbas and Luhansk weren’t given the opportunity…so who really knows…
In any event in the 1991 referendum there was still a close relationship with Russia, both economic and ethnic, which was expected to continue.
The economic one was going to be broken, rendering the ethnic Russian areas much worse off…the entire reason the “closer relationship with the EU” wasn’t taken up by the duly elected President. It would have prohibited trade with Russia whilst having a detrimental effect on Ukraine exports..
I am not a Russian stooge and wish the West had left the whole area well alone to sort it out themselves…but BlackRock and friends dislike their profitable colonies being removed… I certainly don’t wish to be incinerated because they face a loss of profits..
And it is interesting that you are in favour of censorship, rather than free speech, discussion and people marking up their own minds…who do you stooge for?
Referenda carried out under the guns of invaders are pretty universally disregarded. Can you give an authoritative link that accepts this as representative?
The reason the closer relationship with the EU was not taken up is 100% Russian pressure. Of course making the change will have a large cost – if Russia is detemined to make it so. Whether that makes Yanukovich a Russian stooge, or he just thought that it was better to submit than to be invaded in the future, this was not a Ukraininan decision.
You will not find any acceptable justification for Crimea and those oblasts chosing to be part of Russia. To be sure, a lot of people living there would prefer Russia, which is what happens when empires break up and people from the dominant group find themselves stranded in someone else’s nation state – but that is no justification for invasion. You could make a case for a different territorial division – Crimea could go to either side for instance – but then Russia already had Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk before the latest war. If Russia had been willing to tolerate a free Ukraine things could have ended there. Only Russia (like a third-wave feminist 😉 ) wanted to ‘have it all’.
You may well be sincere – but that would only make you a useful idiot rather than a stooge.
I have never said the invasion is justified. However it is understandable and was inevitable given the Western coup and previous expansion of NATO, despite assurances otherwise.
And I sincerely do not wish my country to be devastated because the US Empire overreached itself…and the UK poodles along with it because its rulers want to curry favour and look strong.
Thanks…but no thanks. The last British “guarantee” to an Eastern European country ended badly for the UK…and all concerned except the USA.
That opens some interesting questions:
So you are saying it is right and just and understandable that Russia should command its neighbours as defenceless vassals, and anyone who acts against that bears the guilt for the resulting war? Basically, that Ukraine was wrong to try to detach from Russian domination?
Which country is that?
You are talking about WWII, I presume. So, you think that it would have been better for Europe if the world had stood back and let Hitler do his conquests in peace? Really? Can you confirm that in plain words?
If you think it is better to surrender to perpetual Russian dominance than to suffer a war, I shall not shout at you for it. It is not very heroic – in fact it sounds rather like the old sexist comment “If r**e is inevitable, better to lay back and enjoy it” – but it is certainly not for me to be heroic at the expense of other people’s lives. Only, please admit it openly, instead of talking selective rot about ‘inevitable’ invasions and ‘the US empire’.
I am saying precisely what I said. It isn’t difficult to understand…usually.
I am stupid. So, could you please explain what it means, so I can unerstand it?
Thank you for vlarifying things so well.
Well said. The financial incentives, as the Biden laptop and supporting banking transactions demonstrate do well, have been huge for Western “leaders”.
The annexation of Crimea was triggered by the bloody coup d’etat that was fomented by the US and Europe to topple Ukraine’s government and put at risk Russia’s naval base at Sevastopol that it had maintained since 1783.
Nonsense.
Yanukovych was elected on the platform of closer ties with EU.
Then under Putins pressure he refused to sign EU cooperation agreement.
Thus confirming to be Russian stooge.
He now lives in Russia.
The democratically elected president of Ukraine fled the country in fear of his life in a violent coup d’etat that was fomented by the US and other western countries. Whether that Maidan revolution was justified or not is debatable. Whether the coup d’etat happened is not debatable — it is fact.
I’m no fan of Vladimir Putin and I oppose Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But in trying to end a war it’s important to understand the facts that led up to it rather than insisting on myths that demonize the other side in the conflict.
As you know, I disagree with you over covid, mostly.
But this is excellent post.
Austria doesn’t share a border with Russia, so has the luxury of being “neutral”. Finland and Sweden were “neutral” for a long time too, but they realised the error of their ways.
Austrian neutrality was the price for the SU leaving Vienna, I think in 1956.
Yes, true.
Asking Orcs to leave is difficult enough.
So well done Austria.
So Ukraine would have been wise to do the same…
Well.
Just look at the map of Europe and read history of it.
Austria has not got genocidal imperialists States as its neighbours.
But it had one 300 years ago.
Ottoman Empire.
This is now Russia against Ukraine.
Or the US Empire against Russia…
I do recall one genocidal imperialist with a toothbrush moustache being born in Austria though.
American Proxy War! Ukraine Shelling the Donbas for 8 Years! The West-Sponsored Maidan Coup Overthrowing Democratically-Elected Yanukovich! Kruschev illegally transferring Crimea! Azov Brigade Neo-Nazis!
Have I covered them all? When do I get paid?
“Useful Idiot” is not nearly broad enough to encompass the gullibility of some.
Yes, you calling yourself “useful idiot” just about describe your level.
Just add Lenin in front.
He agrees with you.
Interesting how the narrative has shifted from there was no peace deal and it’s all misinformation, to there was a peace deal and it just wasn’t good enough. Only a fool would believe any of it.
There never was any peace deal, and this article does not claim there was. A peace deal would be something the two primary parties agreed to — there never was any such thing. Same as every other topic here, you are only a liar in love with lies.
Word games.
Talia, perhaps reading for content is not your strong suite.
This sounds like a surrender rather than a peace deal
A surrender? Ukraine surrendered nothing under the proposed deal. It got the Donbas back. It left the issue of Crimea open. It could join the EU but not NATO, although it could be given security guarantees. Even Victoria Nuland was relatively happy with the deal itself, but thought that Vladimir Putin would not live up to it.
Surely nobody could be stupid enough to think that Putin would have lived up to that deal.
That’s not what I said. I address this issue in a different comment. For more than two years, we have been told there never was a peace deal on the table.
And they lied about that, blew up nordstream, crippling Germany, and sent $billions in unaccounted transactions.
Ukraine would have been as vulnerable as was Czechoslovakia without Sudetenland after the Munch agreement in 1938, and with the same result. Nobody would have wanted to live in a country under the constant shadow of Russian invasion, and nobody would have wanted to invest in it. Russia wanted Ukraine to be demilitarised AND outside NATO. One demand was perhaps reasonable, but not both.
Neither of those demands was reasonable.
Amazing – simply amazing.
Pride comes before the fall.
So Ukraine rejected a completely untenable “proposal” that Putin would have breached as soon as it suited him anyway. What of it?
Victoria Nuland had previously maintained that there was no proposal. Now after the Foreign Affairs article exposed her story as false, she changes it to the fact that there was a proposal that was reasonable except for some provisions in an annex which she discovered that made it all a Russian ploy. I don’t believe her. I think Volodymyr Zelensky was willing to end the war on those terms and was talked out of it by Boris Johnson and others. To their shame.
Well, when Zelensky himself confirms that, I’ll give it some credence.
Volodymyr Zelensky has every incentive not to tell the truth. His silence says a lot.
I also think Zelensky would probably have agreed, but apart from the “Johnson and others” factor I imagine the almost certainty of “being killed” factor played a major part…
I don’t believe her either. Her record shows she’s a pathological liar. A variety of sources directly involved in the negotiations mention that the U.S. blocked the peace talks at Ankara, including former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, and members of the Turkish government. The only reason to insist on waiting for Zelensky to tell the truth is because by that hopeless criterion one’s belief about what happened won’t be challenged. One is then free to believe Victoria Nuland and other neocon ghouls.
When civil war broke out, NATO flooded Ukraine with billions worth of weapons. Putin proposed a draft security agreement Dec. ’21, which hinged on ending NATO enlargement. The U.S. turned it down, and in Jan. ’22 formally rejected any negotiation that involved NATO enlargement.
This bears repeating: the U.S. refused any agreement that involved NATO enlargement. That’s Nuland’s legacy. Stupid games that could lead to nuclear Armageddon, all to prop up U.S. hegemony that can’t be sustained anyway.
Imagine Russia proposing to set up a permanent military presence along the Mexican border. And that some years prior had backed a coup and successfully forced out the democratically elected Mexican President and hand-picked a new, imposed government. And before that had promised the U.S. they wouldn’t expand their military presence “even one inch,” and then expanded anyway. Imagine the U.S. being sanguine about all this. No big threat there.
Many, many knowledgeable people — diplomats, scholars, military analysts, etc. — had warned about the inevitable result of trying to expand NATO into Ukraine.
Why should anyone believe that demonstrated liar.
Nuland is vile. So many layers of blood on her. She’s been that way for a long time.
She was Cheney’s key advisor on the Iraq invasion, advocating for it, executing it, and governing Iraq afterward. As U.S. Ambassador to NATO she pushed to expand NATO up to the Russian border, including Ukraine, despite a warning by Bill Burns (current CIA director) that doing so would taken as such a grave threat to Russians, not just to Putin, that it would provoke an invasion into the Donbas and Crimea. She wanted to ignore the U.N. and the international community and employ NATO as the means to conduct wars for the U.S., such as attacking Libya. She claimed success in the war in Afghanistan. She played a major role in pushing for more U.S. involvement in Syria, and for keeping troops there.
She was central to spreading the Russiagate fraud using the Steele dossier, which she accepted as authentic, claiming Steele had fed her information previously.
Her husband, Robert Kagan, is co-founder of the neo-conservative think tank New American Century that birthed contemporary neo-conservatism. He and fellow neo-con Bill Kristol constantly entreated Bill Clinton to be more aggressive with Iraq, and Clinton bombed the country to divert attention from his sex scandal. Kagan/Kristol also wanted to carry out regime change in Iran. Kagan/Kristol exploited 9/11 to promote the Iraq invasion, which they’d long been advocating. Kagan’s father was a committed neo-con who was a big booster of the “war on terror.” Robert Kagan’s brother Fred (of the American Enterprise Institute) designed the “surge” on Iraq that the pair successfully promoted to Bush. Kimberley Kagan, Fred Kagan’s wife, wrote articles promoting the plan in places like Salon, which didn’t declare her family interest.
These people have for decades been urging politicians to send American troops to the Middle East to fight wars they crave to start.
Victoria Nuland’s record predicted her attitude toward Ukraine and Russia, especially pushing to advance NATO to the Russian borders including Ukraine — again, because she saw NATO as the way to conduct the interventions and wars she wanted because the EU and the U.N. could no longer be relied on as vehicles for delivering them.
While out of power during the Trump presidency — Trump is hated by neocons because his 2016 platform opposed endless U.S. wars (“America first”) – Nuland was named CEO of “Center For A New American Security,” where she continued to promote war and regime change. The Center was heavily funded by corporations like Northrup Grumman Systems (arms industry), Open Philanthropy and Open Society (both George Soros), the U.S. Dept of Defense in various ways e.g. via Secretary of the Air Force, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the Office of the Secretary of Defense/Office of Net Assessment, Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO), Lockheed Martin, Amazon Web Services (CIA contractor), Apple, Bank of America, Carnegie Corp, Chevron, Comcast, etc.
Despite condemning neocons during his campaign, and running against the war in Iraq (opposing Hilary Clinton), when Obama won he chose several of the think tank’s members for top national security posts. One of the think tank’s major positions was refusing a fixed timeline for withdrawal from Iraq.
Nuland was key in plotting a coup to overthrow Ukraine’s elected leader Yanukovych and selecting a replacement government. She and Biden were caught on tape multiple times threatening to blow up the Nordstream II pipeline if the Germans didn’t cancel it. Pushing the U.S. into a war with Russia has been her consistent goal.
Her base of power is the pentagon, the arms industry, and the deep state.
All of which is right…
Yes.
Expansion of NATO had nothing to do with Russian longstanding genocidal imperialism.
Countries like Baltic States and Poland etc just loved Russia and only vile Americans like Nuland persuaded them to join NATO.
No, they no longer wanted to be part of Russian world.
Scumlands of Moscovy have nothing to offer to humanity apart from poverty, violence and dictatorship.
Your other points might be valid, because arms manufacturers are there to sell arms.
However it was idiotic foreign policy of Obama and Biden which got us to current crisis.
It was Obama who ignored Russian attacks on Ukraine in 2014 and it was him who ignored his red lines on Syria thus allowing Russia free pass to support Assad.
I accept that initial support for so called “democrats” in Syria was insane.
They were Islamofashists.
But you don’t declare red lines as USA president if you are unwilling to keep them.
It makes you look weak.
Whatever Guardian in uk and some other woke outlets in USA claim.
Everything in your post makes me like her more.
Smartass, crappy comment.
Not surprising, just rather pathetic.
Absolutely this.
Fine with all of it, but this sentence – “Nuland was key in plotting a coup to overthrow Ukraine’s elected leader Yanukovych and selecting a replacement government.” – is a gross overstatement and deeply misinformed.
The attempt to strip the Ukrainian people of agency in their own damn revolt against decades of corruption is as disgusting as it is ignorant of the post-Soviet realities of the country. Stop repeating Kremlin agitprop as if it were fact.
You don’t speak for “Ukrainian people.” Stop attempting to strip people of their agency, reducing Ukrainian society to a uniform entity, with you as representative and arbiter of truth.
Nothing new here so why did Nuland give the interview at this time?
An interesting point…one can only assume as some sort of a**se protection…”yes there was a peace treaty but…”
The Pope’s Catholicism and bears avoiding public conveniences again.
Is this a sort of media outing of Mrs Nuland whom, with Biden, has been sponsoring ultranationalism in the Ukraine for 15 years once Mr Cheney handed them the keys to the kingdom?
Or is she trying to wash the blood of her hands in advance should Russia respond to long-range missile offences with the aerial destruction of Kiev?
The truth seems to be that the Belarussian column marching on Kiev was a ruse to allow Russian forces to be moved further into the Donbas and annex those 4 republics.
In effect then, once Biden, Harris, Blinken/Sullivan and Nuland refused Russia’s call for a permanent veto on Ukraine NATO membership in Feb 2021, their only other option was to put US military on the ground to repel Russian forces in the east of the country.
Obviously they didn’t opt for that, they favoured proxy war instead and putting 100,000s of Slavic lives put through the meat grinder. So all the blood is already on the hands.
I highly recommend reading & listening to interviews with Ivan Katchanovski, Ukrainian political scientist at U of Ottawa, School of Political Studies & Conflict Studies and Human Rights Program. He’s a leading expert on the Maidan massacre.
https://x.com/I_Katchanovski
https://threadreaderapp.com/user/I_Katchanovski
Among his many articles, a few of interest:
The Ukraine-Russia War and Its Origins
February 2023
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368780422_The_Ukraine-Russia_War_and_Its_Origins
The Fate of Ukraine. (Volodymyr Zelensky: A Political Portrait)
https://www.academia.edu/99297721/The_Fate_of_Ukraine_Volodymyr_Zelensky_A_Political_Portrait_
The Russia-Ukraine War and the Maidan in Ukraine
24 Oct 2022
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4246203
Nuland’s revelation was already known, but it does serve as a reminder that corporate media omitted the reason why the talks fell apart, among other details.
Katchanovski (he provides source links, not copied here):
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1832894760257991007.html
“Wow! Nuland basically admits that Ukraine-Russia peace deal, which was close to being finalized in spring 2022, ‘fell apart’ because US, UK & other Western governments ‘advised’ Zelensky government that it was not “good deal” even though even members of Ukrainian delegation stated in recent interviews that this was very good deal, best deal that Ukraine could get & ‘very real compromise’ & that Ukrainian delegation celebrated it with champagne. She basically confirms statements by ex-Israeli PM, head of Ukrainian delegation, Ukrainian officials close to Zelensky, ex-German chancellor & Turkish FM that US & UK blocked this peace deal, which was close to being finalized.
“Victoria Nuland does not mention at all Russian war crimes in Bucha, which were inflated & mispresented by politicians, media & self-proclaimed experts as reason for ending peace talks. The peace deal agreement included withdrawal of Russian forces from all territory of Ukraine, with exceptions of Donbas & Crimea, whose status was to be determined at meeting of Putin & Zelensky, in exchange for neutral status & demilitarization of Ukraine.
“Former Israeli prime minister said that US and other Western leaders blocked Ukraine & Russia peace deal which he negotiated on Zelensky request in March because they wanted to continue to strike Putin. He said that there was good chance of such deal.
“Ukrainian delegation head at Ukraine-Russia talks confirmed that Western countries told Zelensky not to sign peace deal in spring 2022 & said that ‘Boris Johnson came to Kyiv and said that we would not sign anything with them at all, and let’s just fight.’
“Ex leader of Germany: ‘At the peace negotiations in Istanbul in March 2022 with Rustem Umerov, the Ukrainians did not agree on peace because they were not allowed to. For everything they discussed, they first had to ask the Americans.’ Ukrainian media reported citing Ukrainian officials close to Zelensky that peace deal to end war was abandoned after British PM visited Ukraine & told Zelenskyy on behalf of ‘collective West’ not to negotiate with Putin.
“Ukrainian Ambassador Chalyi, who participated in Ukraine-Russia peace talks in spring 2022, stated that ‘we concluded’ ‘Istanbul Communique’ & ‘were very close in… April to finalize our war with some peaceful settlement’ & this was ‘very real compromise’
“Victoria Nuland, who was then one of top US State Department officials:
“But relatively late in the game, the Ukrainians began asking for advice on where this thing was going, and it became clear to us, clear to the Brits, clear to others that Putin’s main condition was buried in an Annex to this document that they were working on. And it included limits on the precise kinds of weapons systems that Ukraine could have after the deal, such that Ukraine would basically be neutered as a military force. And there were no similar constraints on Russia. Russia wasn’t required to pull back. Russia wasn’t required to have a buffer zone from the Ukrainian border, wasn’t required to have the same constraints on its military facing Ukraine. And so people inside Ukraine and people outside Ukraine started asking questions about whether this was a good deal, and it was at that point that it fell apart.”
“My 2022 APSA study:
“Ukrainian officials close to Zelenskyy revealed that the British prime minister visited Kyiv in April 2022 to block a peace deal with Russia after the Ukrainian government delegation in peace talks with Russia in its written peace plan proposal reportedly agreed to neutrality of Ukraine, no bases and troops from foreign countries, and no nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Putin made a similar statement. Naftali Bennett, the former Israeli prime minister also said that Western leaders, primarily the US and the UK, blocked the Ukraine-Russia peace deal, which he negotiated with Putin on Zelensky’s request in March 2022 and which had about 50% chance of being reached, because they wanted to continue to strike Putin. He says that after Putin promised him not to kill Zelensky and dropped demilitarization of Ukraine demand during his meeting on March 5, 2022, Zelensky dropped NATO membership of Ukraine. ‘Multiple former senior U.S. officials” confirmed that Russia and Ukraine agreed in April on a peace deal outline (Hill and Stent, 2022)…
[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1564666561335525377.html Note: Co-author Fiona Hill is former Senior Director for Europe and Russia on the U.S. National Security Council.]
“There have been many more additional civilian casualties as a result of the ongoing war versus a possible peace deal that was close to agreement by the beginning of April 2022.”
“US senator JD Vance, who later became vice-president candidate: ‘Indeed, as multiple people, both critics of Vladimir Putin and supporters of Ukraine have pointed out, there was a peace deal on the table approximately 18 months ago. And what happened to it? The Biden administration pushed Zelensky to set aside the peace agreement and to engage in a disastrous counter-offensive, a counter-offensive that killed thousands, tens of thousands of Ukrainians, and depleted a decades worth of military stock and left us where we are now, where every observer of the war acknowledges that the war is worse for Ukraine than it was 18 months ago. Could we have avoided it? Yes, we could, and we should have avoided it. We would have saved a lot of lives and American weapons and we would have had this country in a better and more stable place if we had.”
From the article you cite:
Sorry, but any paper that contains a throwaway line like the one in bold is not a credible source, AFAIAC. Which does not mean that I know he is wrong (how could I?) but claims of a group massacring their own supporters as a false-flag operation for political gain take a lot of proof.
You’ve quoted from an Abstract. An Abstract is an introduction to a study. By definition an Abstract does not contain proof. That is not its purpose. Please have the courtesy to read the study beyond the Abstract before commenting again.
As noted in the body of the study, the Maidan massacre is “one of the most documented mass killings in history.”
Publication a few months later, June 2023:
The Maidan Massacre Trial and Investigation Revelations: Implications for the Ukraine-Russia War and Relations, Jun 2023:
https://brill.com/view/journals/rupo/8/2/article-p181_5.xml
From Oct 2022, The Russia-Ukraine War and the Maidan in Ukraine:
https://tinyurl.com/2bphttzj
Here is Katchanovski’s 2015 paper, The️ “Snipe️rs’ Massacre️” on the️ Maidan in Ukraine️. Annual Me️e️ting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, September 3-6:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2658245
I stand by what i said, but OK, I was a little hasty.
First, those links made me think a lot and changed my mind a bit – for which thanks.
Overall the author seems fact-driven and serious, and many of his judgements make sense – like his refusal to talk about ‘genocide’, on either side. But talking about ‘massacres’ and ‘coups’ and ‘fascists and oligarchs’ is not neutral language. It shows someone who has taken sides, and who is happy to push his oppionions forward as obvious given truth. So while his data might well be (mostly?) correct, his assumptions and judgements are clearly suspect. On his data I would have to either repeat and double-check his research (for which I have neither the qualifications nor the time), or find a serious scholarly rebuttal of this, which would at least show where the weak points were in his arguments. Failing that, I have to file this under ‘maybe’. He did convince me that his ‘massacre’ narrative was at least plausible, which means accepting that there are indeed people on the Ukrainian side who who be capable of doing something like that.
There are two big points missing here:
This was not a ‘coup’ but an uprising. A ‘coup’ means a small group of siloviki who take and keep power. What happened here was a popolar rebellion against government policy, no matter how many unsavoury characters participated or backed their efforts. The rebellion did bring down the legitimate government, but there were several free and fair elections after that to bring in the successors.
The basic problem is that Russia has never accepted that Ukraine can really be separate from Russia, and sees a vital security interest in Ukraine being not just demilitarised, but under eternal Russian control. After all, an independent Ukraine might at some point decide to join forces with Russia’s enemies. And that is not acceptable. Russia planned to control Ukraine by subversion, essentially, but the Maidan proved that to be untenable. Russia then switched over to using straightforward conquest and threat of force, to obtain the same result. The problem with the Minsk accords and the peace proposals for the current war remains that Russia gives no guarantees against future military action, and clearly aims for a situation where Ukraine is defenceless against Russian aggression, and so can be kept obedient in perpetuity. For more details, see Il’ja Rákoš posts.
Oh, and I do know what an abstract is, and I did read the paper (rapidly). No need to patronise me.
I apologise for condescending. I admit I was frustrated with the “hasty” nature of your reply, after I’d taken the time and effort to provide sources and quotes. This haste is so common on Unherd, and in social media generally. What is behind it? A person who is sincere about learning, about getting as close to the truth of a thing as possible, even if it challenges their understanding and opinions, does not read “rapidly.” They read slowly and carefully. If they have criticism, its quality reflects that level of attention and respect.
Katchanovski’s work is peer-reviewed, so you can locate responses by his academic peers if your concern about credibility is as strong as you imply. It’s absurd to point out the impracticality of trying to repeat and double-check his data yourself; the only value of the statement is as another expression of reluctance.
“But talking about ‘massacres’ and ‘coups’ and ‘fascists and oligarchs’ is not neutral language. It shows someone who has taken sides, and who is happy to push his oppionions forward as obvious given truth.”
Consider the context in which Katchanovski uses the words “fascist” and “coup” in this study, which appear a single time only:
He’s telling us how the Russians described the event. He doesn’t use the words to indicate his own opinion.
Katchanovski himself uses the term “violent overthrow,” as in:
In another place he calls the event a “violent undemocratic and illegal overthrow”:
What about use of the word “massacre?” Katchanovski:
You don’t like to call the murder of 74 people a massacre, and prefer more “neutral language” to describe it. Speaking of “taking sides,” that is exactly how whitewashing is done: instead of calling something what it so clearly is by definition and to any reasonable person, we must instead apply “neutral” language. That is, language which neuters the truth.
If you cannot bring yourself to categorize 74 murders as a massacre, then the problem is not Katchanovski’s.
About the rebellion: Nowhere in the multiple studies I’ve read by Katchanovski does he deny or minimize the existence of a popular rebellion. In fact in various publications, including The Ukraine-Russia War and Its Origins (Feb. 2023) cited below, he highlights the disproportion between the bulk of protestors and far-right elements, noting that those “unsavoury characters” exerted a major influence despite their relatively small numbers, because they were willing to use violence. And again, his use of the other words you take exception to are more careful and nuanced than you assume:
Also from The Maidan Massacre in Ukraine: The Mass Killing that Changed the World (2024):
On the word “oligarch.” Oligarchical influence in Ukraine is well understood. There are many scholarly studies describing its extent, citing notable examples like Petro Poroshenkoa and Yulia Tymoshenko.
For example, from Katchanovski, The Maidan Massacre in Ukraine: The Mass Killing that Changed the World (2024):
“The rebellion did bring down the legitimate government, but there were several free and fair elections after that to bring in the successors.”
Hold on a minute. That government’s legitimacy is wholly due to its status as democratically elected. By using the qualification “but,” you’re implying that since the violent, illegal overthrow of a democratically elected government was followed by another democratically elected government, the harm of that overthrow was minimized. Notice that the “successors” just happened to have a different political agenda than the overthrown government, an agenda you just happen to prefer. You’ve found a way to feel more comfortable with a violent, illegal overthrow of a democratically elected government. As long as successors with your preferred agenda get elected afterward, you can apply the “but” qualification. That is an authoritarian rationale.
You are probably not following this any more. Still…
We have two levels here. On the details level I would not deny that you can use the description “violent, illegal overthrow of a democratically elected government”, or that both neo-nazis and oligarchs were heavily involved. A more important level, IMHO, is how you view the overall situation. Do you stop at the overthrow of Yanukovich and claim that anything that happened in Ukraine after that is illegitimate and invalid, because Yanukovich should have stayed and allied with Russia? Or do you accept that the governments that followed were equally legitimate, and for exactly the same reason: they were the outcome of free and fair elections? This was not a coup: in a coup the siloviki not only take power, but keep it. Indeed, I would throw your accusation back at you – if you deny the legitimacy of post-Maidan Ukrainian governments and choices, might is just be because you happen to prefer Yanukovich’s agenda?
We must apply neutral language if we want to have an open discussion about what is happening. If you think that it should be obvious to any reasonable person that the Yanukovich government was legitimate and its successors are not, you are free to use as many charged words as you want – but then people who disagree with you (like myself) cannot talk to you about the substance. Before we can even get to that we must start picking your language apart (like I am doing) checking what assumptions you are smuggling into the debate, and challenging those.
Taking just the word ‘massacre’, the definition may well fit with what happened. But the main point is emotive: anything that begins with a ‘massacre’ is by definition wrong and evil. If we want to discuss what happened in Ukraine and how to evaluate the various political choices we have to stick to a word that does not presuppose a particular conclusion. You can call it ‘killings’ for the purpose of debate without losing any factual precision. Then, instead of working with emotions and hidden presuppositions you can make your argument explicitly. You can say that because extreme nationalists killed over 70 people at teh Maidan, the democratically elected Ukrainian government did not have a legitimate right to resist Russia’s demands. Only it sounds pretty nonsensical when you put it in so many words, does it not?
I’ve neither stated nor implied such a claim. I claim that it’s only reasonable to be skeptical of the legitimacy of a government that exists only due to the violent overthrow of a democratically elected government with a year left in its period of office, an overthrow that involved a massacre — not to mention repeated prior assassination attempts on the President.
To repeat a quote offered above: “The massacre prompted a part of the Party of Regions deputies to leave their faction and support the Maidan opposition and the parliament vote on February 20 to withdraw government forces from downtown Kyiv and subsequent votes to dismiss then President Yanukovych and his government, even though this was unconstitutional. Many deputies were forced to vote or their cards were used to vote for them.” This is not to mention Victoria Nuland caught on tape before the overthrow discussing her choice of replacements.
When a government’s agenda is only realized due to a violent, illegal overthrow of a democratically elected government, involving a massacre that proved so intimidating that politicians either voted as they were told or handed over their voting rights to the attackers, I think it’s reasonable to find the legitimacy of that agenda suspect.
When I learn that 74 civilians and 17 police and Internal Troops were shot dead by snipers, I call it what it was, a massacre. Its severity is the salient fact. I’m not going to neutralize that fact, and I’m not going to neutralize my humanity by choosing euphemisms like “killings,” because that hides the scale of the event. Two people is “killings,” 91 people is a massacre. An entire government was intimidated. Those responsible knew they needed large numbers to accomplish this — in fact their goal was 100 (they inflated the count beyond that number). Katchanovski was able to document this because the perpetrators made their awareness of the necessity for a high death toll explicit.
A change of government “that begins with a ‘massacre’” could well result in some positive things. A classic example is trains finally running on time. But no matter how positive the results, and how many, this has no bearing on the fact that whatever “begins” owes its very existence to a massacre, to violent intimidation, to unconstitutional manoeuvring that forced out a democratically elected government. I think it is therefore reasonable to be skeptical of the legitimacy of the government formed in the aftermath, regardless of benefits it might bestow.
You are choosing to avoid the main point:
Poroshenko and Zelenskyy were elected legitimately, in free and fair elections. Yes or no? That means that their government is fully legitimate, just like Yanukovich’s was, and there is no reason to be ‘skeptical’ of their legitimacy. Yes or no?
If the Maidan had been followed by a dictatorship, the original sin of its creation would indeed be enough to taint whatever positive things it achieved. But whatever may have happened at the Maidan, it does not make Zelenskyy an illegitimate president, any more than Mussolini’s coup – or the various killings by both Italian sides in 1945 – makes Matarella or Meloni illegitimate as (respectively) President and Prime Minister of Italy.
“…Putin’s main condition was buried in an annex to this document […] and it included limits on the precise kinds of weapons systems that Ukraine could have […] such that Ukraine would basically be neutered as a military force..”
The first sentence is a lie..! Everybody new that Russians (not just Putin) wanted a neutral Ukraine. As for the extent of the proposed neutrality in the said proposal, this is due to Western greed and stupidity..!
This war is fully caused by the West..! I wish Russians had found a way to react other than this crazy war but sadly that’s their way..! Now, if one may think different than “we” and “them”, one can clearly understand that the West is rather paranoic on this matter..!
This generation’s best and brightest appear to be just as dim and bloody minded as the 1960s best and brightest. For a bunch ofvhighlyveducated, powerful, enlightened “leaders” they don’t appear to know how to negotiate worth a flip. I guess they are too busy laundering the money to care.