As the two major candidates for the U.S. vice presidency prepare to debate Tuesday night in Manhattan, veteran U.S. intelligence officials have some firm advice for them on Ukraine.
Protesters clash with police in Kiev February 2014. (Mstyslav Chernov, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
September 30, 2024
MEMORANDUM TO: The Candidates for U.S. Vice President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
SUBJECT: Clarity on Ukraine
At Tuesday’s debate, we strongly suggest you avoid repeating familiar “facts” that do not bear close scrutiny. Chief among these is the claim that Russia’s decision to send troops into Ukraine was “unprovoked”. A companion is the claim that Russia will not stop in Ukraine and that Poland will be “next”.
A constructive debate needs to be informed by accurate facts; we offer some below:
Unprovoked
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg inadvertently gave the game away on Ukraine during a speech at the European Parliament on Oct. 7, 2023, with these words:
“He [Putin] wanted us never to enlarge NATO…We rejected that…So he went to war to prevent more NATO.”
Reaching farther back, we remind you that on Feb. 1, 2008 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told then-U.S. Ambassador William Burns in no uncertain terms that Russia would be provoked if NATO invited Ukraine to become a member.
Burns titled the embassy cable #08MOSCOW265, sent immediately to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice:
“NYET MEANS NYET: RUSSIA’S NATO ENLARGEMENT REDLINES.”
Nevertheless, Bush and Cheney scorned that warning and just two months later successfully pressed other NATO leaders to agree, in the NATO Summit Declaration of April 3, 2008, that Ukraine “will become a member of NATO.”
You
will probably recall that earlier still, on Feb. 9, 1990, Secretary of
State James Baker successfully persuaded Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
to accept reunification of Germany in return for an undertaking by the
U.S. not to expand NATO “one inch eastward.”
Since then NATO has more than doubled in size, with all new members east of what had been East Germany.
Coup d’ Etat, Kyiv, Feb. 2014
The coup in Kiev, appropriately known as the “most blatant coup in history” – drove out duly elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and turned the issue of Ukraine joining NATO into a very live issue. The coup government, which was given official U.S. recognition in record time, immediately called for NATO membership
Crimea was the first big fly in the ointment. By an accident of history Crimea, traditionally part of Russia, had been ceded to Ukraine by Soviet fiat (ukaz) in 1954. It hardly mattered then because Ukraine was a constituent Republic of the USSR.
After the USSR fell apart in 1991, and after the 2014 coup leaders declared NATO membership as a main goal, it mattered greatly.
Crimea’s strategic significance to Russia cannot be understated. Suffice it to point out here that Russia’s only ice-free naval base is in Crimea. That’s why a quick plebiscite was held; the vote was overwhelming in favor of annexation by Russia; and that was speedily accomplished.
This too was branded “unprovoked” by the likes of Sen. John McCain. The Establishment media were obfuscating this issue to such an extent that one of us was provoked into sending a letter to the editor of The Washington Post, published on July 1, 2015:
“Sen. John McCain was wrong to write that Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea without provocation. What about the coup in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014, that replaced President Viktor Yanukovych with pro-Western leaders favoring membership in NATO? Was that not provocation enough?
This glaring omission is common in the Post.
The March 10 World Digest item ‘Putin had early plan to annex Crimea’ described a “secret meeting” Mr. Putin held on Feb. 23, 2014, during which ‘Russia decided it would take the Crimean Peninsula.’ No mention was made of the coup the previous day. …”
‘Poland Is Next’
During his debate with Donald Trump, President Joe Biden claimed that Putin “wants all of Ukraine. … Do you think he’ll stop? … What do you think happens to Poland and other places?” Vice President Kamala Harris has posed the same question.
The following facts should not come as a surprise. Official Ukrainian sources have long since confirmed that Putin did stop in March 2022, after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to forswear membership in NATO.
This was the key provision in the Ukraine-Russia deal initialed by Davyd Arakhamia, who at the time was Zelensky’s chief negotiator at the talks in Istanbul at the end of March 2022, hardly a month into the war.
Ukraine agreed to become neutral and the Russians lifted their objection to Ukraine joining the EU. Security guarantees sought by Kyiv (short of NATO membership) would be worked out. The fighting would stop. Agreement on the status of Crimea would be put off to the future.
Arakhamia was so outspokenly disappointed by this outcome, that The New York Times was forced to carry the story, replete with the texts of various treaty drafts that it had been keeping under wraps. (That was more than three months ago. Better late than never, we suppose.)
Accordingly, it is not quite right to warn that “Putin won’t stop” after Ukraine, when it is “flat fact” that he already did stop barely seven weeks after hostilities started. You are probably aware that it was the U.S. and U.K., courtesy of former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, that put an end to the talks and the draft treaty, and told President Volodymyr Zelensky to fight on.
Former Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland has admitted, with a smirk, that she and Boris “encouraged” Zelensky to scuttle the deal.
These are just some of the facts that should be honored in a truthful debate. We shall be happy to answer any questions either of you may have.
FOR THE STEERING GROUP —
VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY
- Marshall Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer (ret) and former Office Director in the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research
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Bogdan Dzakovic, former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA Security, (ret.) (associate VIPS)
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Graham E. Fuller, Vice-Chair, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
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Philip Giraldi, C.I.A., Operations Officer (ret.)
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James George Jatras, former U.S. diplomat and former foreign policy adviser to Senate leadership (Associate VIPS)
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Larry C. Johnson, former C.I.A. and State Department Counter Terrorism officer
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John Kiriakou, former C.I.A. Counterterrorism Officer and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
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Karen Kwiatkowski, former Lt. Col., U.S. Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of Defense watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003
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Douglas Macgregor, Colonel, USA (ret.) (associate VIPS)
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Ray McGovern, former U.S. Army infantry/intelligence officer & C.I.A. analyst; C.I.A. Presidential briefer (ret.)
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Pedro Israel Orta, former C.I.A. and Intelligence Community (Inspector General) officer
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Scott Ritter, former MAJ, USMC; former U.N. Weapons Inspector, Iraq
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Coleen Rowley, F.B.I. Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)
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Sarah G. Wilton, CDR, USNR, (ret.); Defense Intelligence Agency (ret.)
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Ann Wright, retired U.S. Army reserve colonel and former U.S. diplomat who resigned in 2003 in opposition to the Iraq War