Kuchma: “My advice to the West: do not become Chamberlain. Think a hundred times before choosing shame”
photo from open sources
According to Kuchma, 2014 is one of those points when “something went wrong.” Ukraine then had to show strength and readiness to resist
The main factor that led to the invasion is Putin, but the attack could have been prevented if Russia had not seen Ukraine as easy prey from the beginning, but as a serious force capable of resistance. Such a made a statement Leonid Kuchma in an interview with the news agency “Kyodo Tsushin” (Japan).
“We had to respond from the first minute of Russian aggression back in 2014. If I had been the President then, I would have given an order to destroy those “green men” without identification marks (which means – unknown terrorists!) who seized the Verkhovna Rada of Crimea. Especially since Putin then declared: “ours are not there,” Kuchma said.
In addition, Ukraine had to make maximum efforts in the development and production of the latest weapons systems. “All the years after the beginning of the Russian aggression in 2014, I called to pay maximum attention to the attack missiles. I have devoted half my life to rocket and space technologies, and I know very well that our specialists were ready to produce them,” Kuchma said.
He recalled that it was during his presidency, in 2002, that Ukraine first set a strategic goal – joining NATO.
According to Kuchma, 2014 is one of those points when “something went wrong.” Ukraine then had to show strength and readiness to resist. But not only her.
“Then the West did not support Ukraine. Obama and Merkel did not do what, most likely, would have stopped Putin for a long time. However, it does not surprise me. After all, Merkel was the “co-author” of another moment when “something went wrong.” In 2008, it became the main obstacle to the invitation to NATO of Ukraine and Georgia, and a few months later it condescended to allow Russia to annex 20% of Georgian lands. The result of the West’s flirting with Putin at that time is known,” Kuchma said.
Now, inspired by the impunity and indecision of the West, Putin threatens to attack other countries as well. Once upon a time, something really went wrong, believes the second president of Ukraine.
Kuchma recalled when Hitler was pacified in 1938 – he swallowed Czechoslovakia, then devoured Poland, Denmark, Norway, Benelux, France, and began bombing Britain.
“This was the nature of Hitler – he did not stop until he was stopped with a weapon, but already with catastrophic human casualties. Putin’s nature is the same. So my advice to the West: don’t become Chamberlain. Think a hundred times before you choose shame,” Kuchma summed up.
It should be noted that Kuchma believes that today the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, has experience that almost none of his fellow presidents have. According to Kuchma, in a short time Zelensky has turned into not only a world-class politician, but a real leader.
Earlier in an interview with The Guardian, the former president of Ukraine said that on February 24, 2022, the day of the Russian invasion, he and his wife Lyudmila were in the center of Kyiv and did not believe that Putin would really dare to go to Kyiv. “I was sure that Putin was capable of invading, but I was not sure if he would decide to do it,” Kuchma said.
According to him, Putin’s goal was not only to seize land, but also to destroy the “concept” of Ukraine itself as a “competitive alternative to Russia.”
He also said that the first signs of Moscow’s revisionist ambitions appeared in 2003. Putin, Russia’s new president, has claimed the small island of Tuzla in the Black Sea, between Crimea and the Russian mainland. In this case, Putin backed down. He gave further “clear signals” of his intention to expand Russia’s borders by force when he sent troops into neighboring Georgia in 2008. After that, in the spring of 2014, he seized Crimea.
Kuchma also explained what the consequences of refusing to support Ukraine would be for the US.
