(18 minutes)
Ray pointed, inter alia, to a not-widely-known public comment by President Vladimir Putin a month later (April 17, 2014) focusing on the reasons behind Moscow’s strong reaction. One main reason was Russia’s felt need to thwart Washington’s plan to incorporate Ukraine and Crimea into U.S. anti-ballistic missile deployment encircling Russia. Putin:
“This issue is no less, and probably even more important, than NATO’s eastward expansion. Incidentally, our decision on Crimea was partially prompted by this.”
In a formal address in the Kremlin on March 18, 2014, the day Crimea was re-incorporated into Russia, Putin went from dead serious to somewhat jocular in discussing the general issue. (The “Loud and Clear” interview time ran out before Ray could inject this into the conversation, but it is worth noting here.) Putin:
“We have already heard declarations from Kiev about Ukraine soon joining NATO. What would this have meant for Crimea and Sevastopol [the Russian naval port] in the future? It would have meant that NATO’s navy would be right there in this city of Russia’s military glory, and this would create not an illusory but a perfectly real threat to the whole of southern Russia. …
“We are not opposed to cooperation with NATO … [but] NATO remains a military alliance, and we are against having a military alliance making itself at home right in our backyard or in our historic territory.
“I simply cannot imagine that we would travel to Sevastopol to visit NATO sailors. Of course, most of them are wonderful guys, but it would be better to have them come and visit us, be our guests, rather than the other way around.”
During the interview with Brian Becker, Ray quoted from a Moscow embassy cable (“declassified” by Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange) dated Feb. 1, 2008, in which U.S. Ambassador William Burns reported Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s explicit warning that “Nyet Means Nyet” regarding whether Moscow would acquiesce in Ukrainian membership in NATO. In sum, recent Ukrainian history can be said to begin with Lavrov’s unmistakable warning and, six years later, “the most blatant coup in history” – and NOT with the predictable – indeed, explicitly predicted – reaction of Russian leaders beginning the day after.
Given the “mainstream media” coverage (or, better, lack thereof), small wonder that the American people forget about (or never heard of) the Feb. 22, 2014 coup. Last year, when Sen. John McCain feigned short-term memory loss, Ray got this letter into the Washington Post (the censors must have been away at the beach):
Letter to the Editor, July 1, 2015
McCain, Ukraine and Mr. Putin
In his June 28 Sunday Opinion essay, “The Ukraine cease-fire fiction,” ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-russia-ukraine-cease-fire-is-a-fiction/2015/06/26/5cf0cde6-1a9d-11e5-93b7-5eddc056ad8a_story.html ) Sen. John McCain was wrong to write that Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea without provocation.
What about the coup in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014, (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/protests-in-kiev-a-chronicle-of-key-events/2014/02/22/fe7541e4-9be4-11e3-9080-5d1d87a6d793_story.html ) that replaced President Viktor Yanukovych with pro-Western leaders favoring membership in NATO? Was that not provocation enough?
This glaring omission is common in The Post. The March 10 World Digest item “Putin had early plan to annex Crimea” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/world-digest-march-9-2015/2015/03/09/1e4e1146-c667-11e4-aa1a-86135599fb0f_story.html ) described a “secret meeting” Mr. Putin held on Feb. 23, 2014, during which “Russia decided it would take the Crimean Peninsula.” No mention was made of the coup the previous day.
I have searched in vain for credible evidence that, before the coup, Mr. Putin had any intention to annex Crimea. George Friedman, the widely respected president of the think tank Stratfor, (https://www.stratfor.com/about/analysts ) has described the putsch on Feb. 22, 2014, as “the most blatant coup in history.” (http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/stratfor-chiefs-most-blatant-coup-history-interview-translated-full/ri2561 )
Ray McGovern, Arlington
The writer is former chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch of the CIA.