NATO’s ‘serious mistake’ led to conflict in Ukraine – Kissinger – RT World News

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has explained how his views on Ukraine’s possible NATO membership changed between 2008, when the bloc first recognized “aspirations” join, and today, after the flow of Western military aid turned it into “best armed country” In the region.

“I am in the ironic position that I was alone when I opposed membership, and I am almost alone when I advocate NATO membership,” the veteran politician told a Wall Street Journal contributor in an interview recorded days before his 100th birthday.

“I think the offer to bring Ukraine into NATO was a big mistake and led to this war,” he explained, but asserted that the scale of the conflict, and “His nature is a Russian peculiarity, and we were quite right to resist him.”

But after Washington and its allies made Ukraine the “the best armed country in Europe” he clearly belongs to the US-led military bloc, the former official said, reiterating his firm belief that peace in Europe cannot be achieved without Ukraine in NATO.

In 2008, NATO said kyiv would join the alliance, but did not say when that might happen. Russia, which views the bloc’s eastward expansion as a major security threat, had singled out Kiev’s growing push to join NATO as one of the main reasons for launching its military operation in Ukraine there. over a year ago.

Kissinger drew the ire of kyiv last year when he suggested Ukraine accept a return to “status quo ante,” or renounce its territorial claims to Crimea and grant autonomy to the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, in the name of peace. In an interview with the WSJ, he went so far as to claim that “the war in Ukraine is won” but said peace terms were unlikely to include Crimea.

“For Russia, the loss of Sevastopol, which has still not been Ukrainian in history, would be such a collapse that the cohesion of the state would be in danger. And I think that’s not desirable for the world after Ukraine. he said.

The US-led bloc is already waging a proxy war against Russia, and Kissinger, despite his vast experience, is “Totally wrong” suggest that Ukraine’s NATO membership would guarantee peace, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said earlier this month.

Medvedev, who is currently deputy head of the Russian Security Council, said that until the “Ukrainian Nationalist Regime” is dismantled “will not abandon attempts to regain lost territories.” He argued that Moscow “should respond harshly with all available means,” which would likely trigger NATO’s Article 5 collective security provision and help spark a wider conflict.