Kissinger: West should reconsider policy on Ukraine

West should stop backing Kiev at all costs

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger sounded the ‘warning alarm’ to the United States and the EU regarding their policy in the Ukraine, in an interview to magazine ‘The National Interest’ on occasion of the publication’s anniversary. The 92-year old statesman, who served as an advisor to many US administrations lashed out at the US for ignoring Russia’s relationship with its neighbouring Ukraine and the historical context of the conflict. ‘Breaking Russia has become a long-term objective (for US officials) the long-range purpose should be to integrate it’, said the the experienced diplomat. He went on to say that if the west really treats Russia as a great power there they (west) needs to be determine at an early stage whether their (Russia’s) concerns can be reconciled with the west’s necessities. Kissinger lays the blame on the EU for triggering the conflict on Europe’s doorstep, when it proposed a deal with Ukraine without considering the internal politics within that country and the risk of alienating Moscow and dividing the Ukrainian people. ‘The relationship between Ukraine and Russia will always have a special character in the Russian mind. It can never be limited to a relationship of two traditional sovereign states, not from the Russian point of view, not been from Ukraine’s’, underlined Kissinger in his interview. With no end in sight for the military conflict in Ukraine, he repeated his proposal that Ukraine should become a ‘buffer’ or ‘mediator’ state between the West and Russia. Kissinger called on the West to stop backing Kiev at all costs, even with the victims ‘piling up’.