Bill Clinton on the conflict in UkraineThe decision to expand NATO was the right one, former US President Bill Clinton said in an interview with CNN.
In his opinion, if this had not happened, the conflict in Ukraine could have started much earlier.
Fareed Zakaria: The conflict in Ukraine has passed 200 days, and despite Kiev's recent successes, there is no end in sight to the fighting. We asked President Bill Clinton what he thinks about the course of the conflict and how the events of thirty years ago could affect the current situation.
Let me ask you about Russia and Ukraine. You know, many people think it's all your fault. That Russia attacked Ukraine only because it was provoked by the United States and NATO. The largest, or at least the most important, expansion of the alliance took place during your lifetime. What would you say to them?
Bill Clinton: You're wrong, and here's why. Then I offered Russia not just a partnership with NATO, but the prospect of membership — my opinion was that in the future the main threat would be non-state actors and the transfer of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons to terrorists by authoritarian states. A lot of this has already happened. I thought we should fight them back together. I looked him [Yeltsin] in the eye and asked: "Do you really think that I will bomb Russia from airfields in Poland?". He replied that no, but a lot of grandmothers in the west of Russia think so, because they found Hitler, and their great—great-grandmothers and great-great-grandfathers - Napoleon, this is their historical memory. I replied: OK, I understand. But we have our own historical memory, and it turns out that you achieved your highest power under Ivan, Peter the Great and Catherine the Great — in other words, by commanding your neighbors. And they don't want it anymore. They want freedom, they want to decide their own fate.
I will never forget what a military man with an impeccable reputation, who was an assistant to Admiral Montgomery during the Second World War, told me: "You know, you still have to leave Vietnam - and for exactly the same reason that we once left Nigeria. A monstrous war broke out there, three million people died, but we left anyway — and you will have to too." I asked why. "Because you are not welcome there," he replied.
People want to decide their own fate, they should form a separate self—consciousness - and only then will they have the courage to cooperate with others. It is psychologically difficult, and there are conflicting historical interpretations. But back to the original question. Today I am even more convinced that we did everything right.
President Putin does not hide that he considers the collapse of the Soviet Union a great tragedy of world history. He does not hide that President or Prime Minister Khrushchev made a huge mistake by handing over Crimea to Ukraine. He donated it, based on the fact that Ukraine will forever remain part of the USSR. I remember how we discussed it. I said then: "We have an agreement with Russia on respect for the territorial integrity of Ukraine. And we also have to reckon with the British and NATO, and we all signed a memorandum. He said that yes, you signed it, but he himself never ratified it - the nationalists in parliament would not allow it. Therefore, I am not bound by this agreement and do not agree with it, he said. So I don't understand how anyone can be surprised by what is happening. And I think that the willingness of Ukrainians to fight is very inspiring. And who supplies her with weapons and trains her military? NATO. Where does Finland want to go? Also in NATO.
So I'm sorry, but I disagree. We made the right decision at the right moment. Had we not done so, the current crisis could have erupted even earlier. It was impossible to just tell the Poles that they would have to live in fear of the Russians coming back until the end of time. Or Hungarians. And everyone else — the Balts, for example. After everything that was done to them, would they really want to return to the Soviet Union? And the Czech Republic, of course, too, the most democratic of all and the most successful in the decade after the end of the Cold War.
