Thread by @OlegKostour

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, here’s Biden personally lobbying to disarm Ukraine on Nov 25, 1991, just as they become independent - to save Russia the headache.

> “The Soviet desire to get US support to destroy these weapons is not all because they worry they will be used against the United States. They worry they will be used against them (Russia).

> The Ukraine has a significant number of nuclear warheads on their landmass. They declare independence tomorrow, mr. president. They nationalize, in effect, all those weapons that are now on their territory.

> They become an INSTANT nuclear power, mr. president. With a government, we know naught of, in circumstances we cannot contemplate, and, for the Russian republic… a new dimension with which they have to deal.”

This was done with the knowledge that Russian nationalist leaders were already threatening the Baltics, Kazakhstan and Ukraine with military action.

It’s also mentioned that if a newly independent Ukraine doesn’t comply with disarmament, withholding food aid should be on the table.

Virtually suggesting that the U.S. starve Ukraine into submission on the eve of their independence.

Again, that’s Ukraine, a country that lost millions to a Stalinist genocide. Sam Nunn is a real class act.

To be perfectly clear, the two gentlemen here (Biden and Nunn) are Democrats. But these policies were Bipartisan.

Senator Lugar, Senator Nunn’s direct partner in all this, was a Republican. And in 1991, George H.W. Bush was president.

If you want to understand what the US foreign policy establishment was thinking at this time, read this attached thread.

It deep dives into what Ash Carter and his team at Harvard recommended the US do in reaction to the nuclear Soviet successor states.

Some excerpts of the US study by Carter and his team.

Note that they believed conventional conflict in Eurasia (i.e., this war) was an acceptable price (for America) to pay.