Putin Apologists!

ByDon Smith
U.S. Secretaries of Defense, senior diplomats, and journalists explain how the U.S. provoked Russia in Ukraine.
U.S. Secretaries of Defense, senior diplomats, and journalists explain how the U.S. provoked Russia in Ukraine.

Sources:

George Kennan: quoted by Thomas Friedman in his New York Times essay This Is Putin’s War. But America and NATO Aren’t Innocent Bystanders.

Jack Matlock: in Ukraine: Tragedy of a Nation Divided

William J. Perry: How the U.S. Lost Russia—and How We Can Restore Relations

Robert Gates: quoted in We Always Knew the Dangers of NATO Expansion

Michael Gfoeller and David H. Rundell: in Newsweek’s Lessons From the U.S. Civil War Show Why Ukraine Can’t Win

Ted Galen Carpenter: The U.S. and NATO Helped Trigger the Ukraine War. It’s Not ‘Siding With Putin’ to Admit It.

Christopher Caldwell: in the New York Times’ The War in Ukraine May Be Impossible to Stop. And the U.S. Deserves Much of the Blame.

James W. Carden wrote in Simone Weil Center’s America’s Crisis of Reality and Realism: A Symposium (Part I):

The de facto alliance of Ukrainian westernizing liberals and the fascist Ukrainian far-Right which together drove the so-called Revolution of Dignity in 2013-14 ignored their obligation to respect the democratic process. The violent overthrow of the duly elected Ukrainian president was praised in the US and in certain European capitals as a victory for the “right” of Ukrainians to choose their European future, but was in fact a violation of their obligation to respect the results of a democratic election – and by extension their obligation to respect the will of their fellow citizens in the southern and eastern parts of the country.

 

Fiona Hill in the New York Times:

At the time, I was the national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia, part of a team briefing Mr. Bush. We warned him that Mr. Putin would view steps to bring Ukraine and Georgia closer to NATO as a provocative move that would likely provoke pre-emptive Russian military action. But ultimately, our warnings weren’t heeded.

Thomas Friedman: in the New York Times’ This Is Putin’s War. But America and NATO Aren’t Innocent Bystanders.

For documentation and more damning details see Putin Apologists? at antiwar.com and How the US Provoked Russia in Ukraine: a Compendium.