Jeffrey Sachs: Understanding the Ukraine conflict (minidoc)

0:10 let me just explain in two minutes the Ukraine war this is not an attack by Putin on Ukraine in the way that we are told every day this started in 1990 February 9th 1990 James Baker III our secretary of state said to Mel gorbachov NATO will not move one inch Eastward if you agree to German unification basically ending World War I first of all um I would note that Baker who supposedly made this deal

0:56 categorically denies that he ever says it said it does uh George HW Bush he says that it never happened and that there was never such a conversation so that's a question mark

1:47 and uh gorbachov said that's very important yes NATO doesn't move and we agreed to German unification the us then cheated on this already starting in 1994 when Clinton signed off on a basically a plan to expand NATO all the way to Ukraine NATO will not automatically exclude Any Nation from joining at the same time no country outside will be allowed to veto expansion this is when the so-called neocons took power and and uh Clinton was the first agent of this and the

2:36 expansion of NATO started in 1999 with Poland Hungary and Czech [Music] Republic today we welcome Hungary Poland the Czech Republic finally erasing the boundary line the Cold War artificially imposed on the continent of Europe our goal is to help to build a Europe that is undivided free Democratic at peace and secure a Europe in which Russia Ukraine and other states of the former Soviet Union join with us to make common cause we have to reinforce the Practical

3:21 cooperation between NATO and Russia and NATO and Ukraine we have to see through our efforts to secure a lasting peace in the Balkans and we cannot walk away until the job is done at that point Russia didn't much care there was no border other than with the Kingsburg but other than that there was no direct threat then uh the US led the bombing of Serbia in 1999 that was bad by the way uh because that was a use of NATO to bomb a European capital Belgrade 78 straight days to break the country apart the Russians didn't like that very much but

4:08 Putin became president they swallowed it they complained but uh even Putin started out Pro European pro-american actually asked maybe we should join NATO when there was still the idea of some kind of mutually respectful [Music] relationship at a meeting here in the Kremlin with the outgoing President Bill Clinton right here in the next room I said to him I asked him Bill do you think if Russia asked to join NATO do you think it would happen suddenly he said you know it's interesting I think so but in the evening when we met for

4:53 dinner he said you know I've talked to my team no no it's not possible now then 9911 came then came uh Afghanistan and the Russians said yeah we'll support you we understand to root out Terror but then came two other decisive actions in 2002 the United States unilaterally walked out of the anti-ballistic missile [Music] treaty neither side would launch a nuclear attack because it knew the other would resp Bond thereby destroying both today I have given formal notice to Russia in accordance with the treaty that the United States of

5:41 America is withdrawing from this almost 30-year-old treaty I have concluded the ABM Treaty hinders our government's ability to develop ways to protect our people from future terrorists or Rogue State missile attacks we know that the terrorists and some of those who support them seek the ability to deliver death and destruction to our doorstep via missile and we must have the freedom and the flexibility to develop effective defenses against those attacks President Putin and I have also agreed that my decision to withdraw from the

6:27 treaty will not in any way way undermine our new relationship or Russian security as President Putin said in Crawford we are on the path to a fundamentally different relationship this was probably the most decisive event never discussed in this context but what it did was trigger the US putting in missile systems in Eastern Europe that Russia views as a dire direct threat to National Security by making possible a decapitation strike of missiles that are a few minutes away from Moscow and we put in two agis

7:13 missile systems we say it's defense Russia says how do we know it's not Tomahawk nuclear tip missiles in your silos you've told us we have nothing to do with this and so we walked out of the ABM Treaty unilaterally in 200 2 and then in 2003 we invaded Iraq on completely phony pretenses as I've explained in 200 uh 4 five we engaged in a soft regime change operation in Ukraine uh the so-called first color Revolution it put in office somebody that I knew and was I was friends with and and kind of distantly friends with the president yusenko uh because I was in advisor to

8:00 the Ukrainian government in 1993 94 95 and then the US had its dirty hands in this it should not meddle in other Count's elections but in 2009 yanukovich won the election and he became president and in 2010 on the basis of neutrality for Ukraine that calmed things down because the US was pushing NATO but the people of Ukraine on the opinion polls didn't even want to be a NATO they knew that the country is divided between ethnic Ukrainian ethnic Russian what do we want with this we want to stay away from your problems so in February

8:47 22nd 2014 the United States participated actively in the overthrow of yanukovich a typical us regime change operation have no doubt of about it and the Russians did us a favor they intercepted a really ugly call between Victoria nuland my colleague at Columbia University now uh and if you know her name and what she's done have sympathy for me um really uh between her and uh the US ambassador to Ukraine Jeffrey Pat who's a senior State Department official till today and they talked about regime

9:32 change they said who's going to be the next government ah why don't we pick this one no Klitschko shouldn't go in it should be yatsenuk ah yes it was yatsenuk and we'll get we'll get the big guy Biden to come in and do an attab boy they say you know Pat him on the back it's [Music] great we're uh we're engaging uh on a daily basis with the Ukrainian government to make sure that uh we get a positive outcome there Russians have repeatedly accused the United States government of interfering in Ukraine's Politics the US government has to some degree made reciprocal claims about Russia

10:18 um does not the fact that us diplomats uh purportedly are discussing who should and should not be in a Ukrainian government uh hint at some possibility of us interference here absolutely not what do you think I I think we're in play um the the quitch co piece is obviously the complicated electron here um especially the announcement of him as Deputy Prime Minister and you've seen some of my notes on the troubles in the marriage right now so we're trying to get a read really fast on where he is on this stuff but I think your argument to him which you'll need to make I think that's the next phone call we want to set up is exactly the one you made to to

11:03 yachts and I'm glad you sort of put him on the spot on where he fits in this scenario and I'm very glad he said what he said in response good so uh I don't think cleat should go into the government I don't think it's necessary I don't think it's a good idea I think yats is the guy who's got the economic experience the governing experience he's he's the guy you know what he needs is Cle and ton book on the outside he needs to be talking to them four times a week you know I I I just think CLE going in he's going to be at that level working for yatsuk it's just not gonna work yeah no I think that's I think that's right okay when I talked to Jeff feltman this morning he had a new name for the UN guy Robert Siri did I write you that this

11:49 morning yeah I saw that he's now gotten both Siri and Bon kimoon to agree that Siri could come in Monday or Tuesday okay so that would be great I think to help glue this thing and have the un help glue it and you know the EU no exactly and so they made the new government and I happened to be invited to go there soon after that not knowing any of the background and then some of it was in a very ugly way explained to me after I arrived how the US had participated in this all of this is to say the us then said oh okay now NATO is really going to enlarge and Putin kept saying stop you promis no NATO enlargement it's been by

12:37 the way I forgot to mention in 2004 Estonia lva Lithuania Bulgaria Romania SLO Slovakia Slovenia seven more countries in the not one inch [Music] Eastward for

13:58 s for

14:58 part for come

16:21 the US kept rejecting the basic idea don't expand NATO to Russia's Border in a context where we're putting in goddamn missile systems after breaking a treaty 2019 we walked out of the intermediate nuclear force treaty in 2017 we walked out of the jcpoa the treaty with Iran this is the partner this is the trust building in other words it's completely Reckless US foreign policy on December 15th 2021 Putin put on the table a draft Russia US security agreement you can find it online the

17:08 basis of it is no NATO enlargement I called the White House that next week after that begging them take the negotiations Putin's offered something avoid this war oh Jeff there's not going to be a war announc that NATO's not going to enlarge oh don't worry NATO's not going to enlarge I said oh you're G to have a war over something that's not going to happen why don't you announce them and he said no no our policy is an open door this is Jake Sullivan our policy is an Open Door Policy open door for NATO enlargement that is under the category of by the way you don't have

17:55 your right to put your military bases anywhere you want and expect peace in this world you have to have some Prudence there's no such thing as an open door that we're going to be there and we're going to put our missile systems there and that's our right there's no right to that we declared in 1823 Europeans don't come to the Western Hemisphere that's the Monroe Doctrine the whole Western Hemisphere after

18:50 all okay anyway they turned down the negotiations then the special military operation started and 5 days later zalinsky says okay okay neutrality and then the Turks said well we'll mediate this and I flew to ankora to discuss it with the Turkish negotiators because I wanted to hear exactly what was going on so what was going on was they reached an agreement with a few odds and ends and then the United States and Britain said no way you guys fight on we got your back we don't have your front you're all going to die but we got your

19:37 back as we kept pushing them into the front lines that's 600,000 deaths now of ukrainians since Boris Johnson flew to keev to tell them to be brave absolutely [Music] ghastly uh there was a story first told by former Israeli Prime Minister naal banet that that boss siid were really close to the end to the the successful end of of the negotiations and

20:35 and then uh Ukrainian representative arami kind of confirmed it that gu he said in in an interview that that there was some kind of advice from Boris Johnson to uh to stop negotiating and to win this war militarily and and one thing one thing I really do want to demolish and and you know I'd love your assistance in this because it is such such a um a lie is the idea that the UK uh was somehow instrumental in preventing a peace agreement in April 2022 two months after the war when you went out when I when I went out that he I can assure you it is an absolute steaming stinking lie uh there is there was no way that ziny

21:22 could agree could have agreed to anything like the terms that were on offer in his time I never discussed any of that with zalinski that wasn't the purpose of my trip at all um but I can assure even if even if I had raised the question of the Istanbul talks with zinski there was no way they were going to uh do a deal whatever whatever we said and and um I I certainly did nothing to uh to frustrate any such agreement there was just there was no I don't think any Ukrainian president could have agreed to those terms so when you think about your question we

22:10 have to understand we're not dealing with as we're told every day with this madman like Hitler coming at us and violating this and violating that and he's going to take over Europe This is complete bogus fake history that is a purely PR Narrative of the US government and it doesn't stand up at all we are n let's face it we're waging a proxy war we're waging a proxy war but we're not giving our proxies the ability to do the job and and for for years and years now we've been allowing them to fight with one hand tied behind their backs and it has

22:56 been cruel it has been cruel and mor and we need now to give them what they need we so three things we need to do to to get this thing done we need to give them the Weaponry they need give them the permissions they they need give them all the military support logistical tactical we we we can that without coming into direct conflict with the Russians ourselves number two we need to give them the money and I talked about the 300 billion but number three we need to make it we so we need to get abs and the way we should do more than just the 300 billion we should construct a kind of lend leas loan for for Ukraine and you know half a trillion or whatever so that so that Putin know this is all about Russia knowing where what the end state

23:42 is you get back to my my key point the ukrainians the Russians the world has to know where we America UK Europe want this thing to end up and we have allowed that ambiguity to drift on and on and on and that is the whole problem with Ukraine unless and until we clear it up you won't persuade Putin to back down and you won't get a piece everybody understand what does it mean to stand with Ukraine like Boris Johnson stands with Ukraine it means 2,000 ukrainians killed or wounded severely every single day that's not standing with Ukraine that is standing with the destruction of

24:27 Ukraine it's exactly the opposite and so that's a purely orwellian idea that we're standing with Ukraine by continuing this war but I think there's another point that is important in this I'm not without hope for a quite different reason and that is that our politics is not determined by American Presidents our politics is determined by the security State apparatus and and what is happening right now is not in America's security interest and so they could change their mind and President Putin said something actually very interesting in an interview in 2017 I think in figuro uh

25:15 by the time that he had uh had three presidents as his counterparts uh Bush Obama and Trump and he said to this reporter French reporter in 2017 17 he said you know I've dealt with three American Presidents now they come into office with ideas but then men in dark suits and blue ties come to tell them how the real situation is and you never hear of those ideas again and this is uh from a a a very tough-minded leader who was himself KGB he understands how the American system works very well he understands what the CIA means for

26:00 American foreign policy he understands that American foreign policy is very deeply rooted it's not this one wins and then Obama changes everything and then Trump comes in and changes it's nothing like that by the way this has been a consistent foreign policy arguably since 19 certainly since 1991 and arguably since 1945 and by the way British foreign policy is the same and I would say arguably British foreign policy Visa Russia goes back to 1840 it was around 1840 that the British government got the idea that Russia was a threat to Britain to the British Empire uh through Central

26:48 Asia and the idea that uh Britain was going to that Russia was going to invade India through the kyber pass and this became an eday fix and it became the basis for the Crimean War in 1853 to 1856 and russophobia basically never abated of course at two junctures Britain uh aligned with the Soviet Union uh or aligned with Russia in World War I and aligned with the Soviet Union in World War II and the Soviet Union of course with 27 million dead broke the back of Hitler's Army not Britain or the United States which take all the credit for it they can't even

27:34 remember they don't even invite the Russian leaders and Russia bore the whole brunt of fighting the verm but then as soon as you know in the middle of 1945 after 27 million dead in the Soviet Union and an alliance with the Soviet Union Churchill asked the war office to uh consider what about invading the Soviet Union now operation Unthinkable in other words let's continue the war Germany just surrendered now we should go invade the Soviet Union that was not put as a defensive war game that was an actual idea of Churchill in the summer of 1945

28:22 and the United States said no I actually let's not have another uh War right now but that's a kind of that's a little weird by the way but that's how Britain has thought for so my point is these are very deep consistent Trends and Britain taught the United States everything it knows and we continue on the same deep Trend what we need is that the Pentagon and the CIA and the other intelligence agencies come to understand we're in a multi-polar world we Face a nuclear superpower in China a nuclear

29:08 superpower in Russia there is no meaning of Victory tragedy is not an option as far as I'm concerned for a policy and so we need a different strategy and then somebody in a dark suit in a blue tie will come to tell whoever's president that we're doing it differently now and that's what we can hope for