Insightful interview with former Ukrainian Foreign Minister @Ogrysko.
He says THE fatal mistake the West made from the 90's which allowed Putin grow into a monster threatening the world, was the refusal to see Russia as an aggressive, criminal regime.🧵
He says THE fatal mistake the West made from the 90's which allowed Putin grow into a monster threatening the world, was the refusal to see Russia as an aggressive, criminal regime.🧵
Ohryzko made many direct and honest comments about his term as Ukraine's Former Minister in Yulia Tymoshenko's government in 2007-2009. Ohryzko said that Tymoshenko and then president Yushchenko had completely opposite views on Ukraine's future.
Ohryzko says that among many principled differences between Tymoshenko and Yushchenko, the most important was regarding Russia.
Because of her "economic" interests, Tymoshenko wanted to pivot Ukraine towards Russia. Yushchenko was resolutely opposed to that.
Because of her "economic" interests, Tymoshenko wanted to pivot Ukraine towards Russia. Yushchenko was resolutely opposed to that.
President Yushchenko wanted to reform Ukraine as a European country. Tymoshenko was interested in Russian gas in order to benefit from it politically and otherwise.
Ohryzko believes Tymoshenko made the 2009 Moscow gas deals with Putin to get his support for her presidential bid in 2010 elections. He shared that Yushchenko learned about Tymoshenko's deal with Putin not from Tymoshenko's govt but from Ukrainian intelligence sources in Russia.
Tymoshenko's own ministers didn't know the terms of her agreement with Putin.
Ohryzko says that Russia used gas supplies as a corruption bate for political establishment in Kyiv.
Ohryzko says that Russia used gas supplies as a corruption bate for political establishment in Kyiv.
Russia created fake "debts" for gas supplies to avoid paying for the lease of their Black Sea Fleet base in Crimea. "Gas princess" Tymoshenko contributed to that as she pursued interests to make Ukraine more dependent on Russian gas.
Ohryzko says Tymoshenko didn't care about [Ukraine's strategic pro-western course], like when the Charter of the Security Partnership with the was signed, because there was no material gain for her.U.Ss
Ohryzko stressed that during his presidency, Yushchenko issued decrees which made it impossible for Russian Black Sea fleet to freely operate in Crimea. Russians felt so much pressure to leave Ukraine that they were urging their command to move the fleet to a base in Russia.
Ohryzko believes that if Yushchenko remained in power for a second term, the Russian Black Sea fleet would have been forced out of Crimea and the Russian invasion of Ukraine may have been averted.
In 2008, Ukraine supported Georgia against Russia's aggression. Yushchenko was afraid that Ukraine would be next, and wanted to sign a bilateral security agreement with the United States.
When Ohryzko told Condoleezza Rice that Ukraine would be Russia's next target she laughed & said UA is not a small country like Georgia, and that Putin wouldn't dare attack UA - the biggest country in Europe. The US government consequently declined to sign a security agreement.
It's also important to note that Ohryzko said that he is "absolutely convinced that allegations of corruption of Yushchenko were totally unfounded."
This is an important point:
This is an important point:
This corroborates what many have argued: that the "corrupt Yushchenko" narrative was a Russian disinfo campaign aided by Moscow's affiliates in Ukraine to assassinate pro-Ukrainian and pro-Western Yushchenko's political image and thereby subvert his future political career.
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