August 09, 2023
For the record: I was born
in Ukraine, studied in Russia, and worked in America as a laser fusion
researcher and Professor of Mathematics and Physics. I have relatives and
friends in all three countries, and for the last 35 years, I have been trying
to do my best to make them friends, partners, or even allies. Instead, all
three are now at war, even if some call the U.S. war only a war “by proxy.”
This looks like a total
failure of my efforts, but I hope this short summary clears a bit the fog of
war, which might help in the search for avoiding a worst-case scenario.
I think I was the first one
to recognize the independence of Ukraine from the Soviet Union back in December
1976, i.e., 15 years before Ukraine got its actual independence after the
collapse of the USSR in 1991. This happened at the U.S. Embassy in Vienna,
Austria during my application for an entrance visa. Vienna was my first stop
after expulsion from the Soviet Union for dissident activities. My major
“crime” was the distribution of the underground literary magazine
“Kontinent,” which was a leading
publication of Russian pro-democracy forces. It was founded by Nobel Laureate
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, edited by writer Vladimir Maximov, and both had been expelled
earlier. Magazine was printed by German publisher Axel Springer, and then
smuggled into the USSR where at that time distribution of such literature could
get you thrown in prison, mental institution or out of the country. In my case
it was the latter, due to high-level family connections — but this is another
story.
The visa application form
included a question about my place of birth, to which I answered “Kiev,
Ukraine.” Embassy officials didn’t object, and this information was later used
in all subsequent documents, including my first U.S. passport after I got my
citizenship.
The end of the Soviet Union
also ended the Cold War, the smell of freedom could be felt all over the new
Russia. But in my case, it happened even a few years earlier, when in October
1988 I got a call from Soviet President Gorbachev’s science advisor Yuri
Ossipyan, who was also a Vice-President of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, and
Member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. Yuri and I knew each other
back in Moscow, where I was working as a nuclear physicist. He invited me to
discuss various ideas for improving relations between the two countries. Taking
into account my background, including TV interviews and publications in the
U.S. media highly critical of the Soviet Union, this was quite unexpected. Nevertheless,
I decided to accept, and in Moscow, I was introduced to many Soviet VIPs, and
later to Gorbachev himself. The summary of these meetings can be expressed as
follows: Moscow is constantly sending proposals to Washington asking to
significantly expand the agenda for cooperation beyond arms control, but it
doesn’t get an adequate response, only bureaucratic verbiage. Therefore, they
made a decision to engage in what is called two-track diplomacy, sometimes
called “people’s diplomacy” or “back channels.”
I liked the idea, and we
agreed to exchange visits by Russian and American delegations to formulate
concrete proposals. It was a huge effort that included many back and forth
trips, exploring areas starting from business, science, education, culture, medicine,
agriculture to space, security, military, etc.
The mayor of Moscow
provided a downtown mansion for our office, while in Washington money was
raised to buy a townhouse in Dupont Circle area for the same purpose. Both buildings placed American and Russian
flags on their outside walls, and in Washington it was named “Russia House”
where we installed on its front a bust of Andrei Sakharov, the famous Russian
nuclear physicist, Nobel Peace Laureate who was praised in the West but
persecuted by the Soviet authorities until pardoned by Gorbachev.
Drafts of our “Track Two”
proposals were discussed during regular U.S.-Russia forums on Capitol Hill and
at the Russian Academy of Sciences, with participation of Members of Congress
and the Russian Duma deputies, as well as with government officials, and experts
in particular fields of both countries.
Some of us had direct talks
in the White House with President George Bush, Sr., his Vice President, Dan
Quayle, and in the Kremlin with Gorbachev and Yeltsin, who became Russian
President after Gorby resigned on December 25, 1991. Even the U.S. mainstream media, including the
New York Times and the Washington Post wrote laudatory articles about our
activities at the time,
To celebrate 1992 New
Year’s Eve, we brought about 300 American businessmen, some with their
families, to the Kremlin where they were joined by the Russians Who’s Who and
U.S. Ambassador James Collins. The following day the Americans were invited to
different Russian homes to continue our celebrations and pledge friendship and
cooperation. U.S. ratings among Russians
at that time were well over 80%. In a symbolic gesture, Moscow State University
transferred their Communist Party office to the recently registered American
University in Moscow (AUM). Moreover, the mayor of Moscow transferred to AUM a
downtown mansion which had previously housed the Communist Party’s young
leaders’ school, plus a 200-acre estate that held previously country houses
(dachas) of Members of Politburo, including Brezhnev’s, for our future campus.
Vice-President Quayle sent
me a personal congratulation letter on behalf of President Bush, and in
Congress a large bipartisan coalition was working on a bill to fund this
university. I didn’t forget my home country, and at the same time, was working
on the establishment of American University in Ukraine as well.
The good times had arrived,
the sky was the limit, and my dreams were coming true. Many exiles, including
Solzhenitsyn and Maximov were returning to Russia, so did magazine “Kontinent”,
where it got direct financial support from both, Moscow Citi government, and
the U.S. Embassy. My wife and I were
placed on the Embassy’s receptions guest list.
As it turned out – whoops,
not so fast. While some Americans, whom I shall call the “good guys,” were
ready to turn former foes into friends, partners, and allies, the “bad guys”
from other powerful groups had different ideas, which had been described a few
years earlier by a less naive and more realistic thinker, a distinguished
American diplomat, and former U.S. Ambassador to Moscow George Kennan: “Were
the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American
military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged,
until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an
unacceptable shock to the American economy,” – said Kennan.
Still, with George H.W.
Bush in the White House the “good guys” had some leverage, but after Bill
Clinton won the 1992 elections the Washington foreign policy establishment,
sometimes called the “deep state,” was not interested in our work. The euphoria
about winning the Cold War, and the dawning of what they saw as an era of a
unipolar world under total American leadership, some called it hegemony, made
them believe that Russia and her interests were no longer relevant. In their calculations, from now on, Moscow
would have no choice but to obey orders from Washington since it had nowhere
else to go. As Kennan predicted, our ideas of mutually beneficial business and
security cooperation were largely ignored.
Worse than that, under the
leadership of Clinton-Gore and their top Russian advisor, Strobe Talbott, the
greatest robbery of the 20th Century under the “Bandit Capitalism” system had
begun. There are many stories with the details of this robbery, including
Congressional Report “Russia’s Road to corruption,” prepared by a group of
Members of Congress. This is what one
of the most outspoken critics of Russia, who can be hardly called a Putin
apologist, said in his article titled “Who Robbed Russia?”: “What makes the
Russian case so sad is that the Clinton administration may have squandered one
of the most precious assets imaginable — which is the idealism and goodwill of
the Russian people as they emerged from 70 years of Communist rule. The Russia
debacle may haunt us for generations.”
Even worse than that, at
the same time, Clinton and Talbott also started the push for NATO expansion,
including Ukraine, to which many strategically thinking Americans strongly
objected. Among them was the above-mentioned George Kennan, who called it a
“fatal foreign policy mistake,” majority of members of the Arms Control
Association, 19 U.S. Senators, and many others. New York Senator Daniel Patrick
Moynihan said that “NATO expansion would open the door to future nuclear war.”
Our Ukrainian friends had a
different agenda which we’ve been trying to publicize in Washington. The
summary of this agenda is as follows: Free from the communist yoke, having
strong industrial and agricultural sectors, a favorable climate and fertile
land, Ukraine had great potential to become one of the most prosperous European
countries. Effective anti-corruption
reforms, a certain level of autonomy for the regions with large Russian ethnic population,
and neutral status with no membership in any military blocs would have made
Ukraine definitely a happy and prosperous state.
In May 1993 we organized a
trilateral meeting on Capitol Hill with legislators from the U.S. Congress,
Russia’s Duma, and Ukraine’s Rada to discuss what the U.S. were prepared to do
to help Russia and Ukraine in their difficult transition from communism to
democracy thus bringing them to our fold.
Congressman Tom Lantos of
the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who chaired this meeting, said that had
Gorbachev told us in 1989 that he was prepared to dissolve USSR and the Warsaw
Pact – and requested a trillion dollars to do it – Congress would most likely
have agreed, authorizing 100 billion annually for a period of 10 years.
However, as it turned out, the Russians did it all by themselves. So why spend
U.S. taxpayers’ money when the job is already being done? “You are on your own,
guys,” said Lantos. CIA director James Woolsey and other Members of Congress
who spoke afterward more or less repeated the same lines.
If that message sounded
cynical, well, foreign politics always is.
But it was also a bit misleading since the U.S. did not leave Russia and
Ukraine alone, Yankees didn’t go home. Billions of American tax dollars were
poured in Ukraine, not to boost its economy but to reformat public opinion that
was predominantly in favor of neutral status and against joining NATO.
It was Assistant Secretary
of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland who admitted that “We have
invested over $5 billion to assist Ukraine in these and other goals that will
ensure a secure and prosperous and democratic Ukraine.” In reality the purpose
of this money was to drive a wedge between the two Slavic nations, and push
Ukraine into NATO.
This money, plus funding
from George Soros, Canada, and other Western countries, helped to instigate the
“Orange” color revolution in 2004 to bring a pro-NATO government into power.
They succeeded but the anti-NATO mood in the country remained strong.
Therefore, a second revolution was needed. This time its name was “Maidan,” and
it was Victoria Nuland who coordinated it on location in Kiev while constantly
reporting and getting input from then-Vice President Joe Biden, to whom Obama
gave the Ukrainian portfolio.
All the media attention in
her leaked phone call with the U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt discussing the
details of the coup two weeks before it actually happened on February 22, 2014,
was concentrated on her expletive language insulting the EU. However, almost
totally ignored is that a few seconds later she also mentioned that she is
constantly discussing her work with Sullivan, and added that “Biden willing.”
Needless to say, that the
new Ukrainian government that was selected by Washington immediately declared
its intention to join NATO.
There is no doubt, that if
not for this coup, there would be no war in Ukraine today but in line with the
disgraced “Russiagate” narrative it’s no surprise that the White House, a
bipartisan majority in Congress, and think tanks that are funded by the
military-industrial complex are blaming it all on Russia.
One should note that the
position of the U.S. mainstream media is especially disgraceful. Ashley
Rindsberg in “The Spectator” called the anti-Russian hysteria the “media’s
Vietnam.” She bitterly writes that the crusade against Russia has become “the
raison d’etre of the mainstream, so important that it has forced some of the
most famous publications in the country to openly renounce cherished
journalistic values such as objectivity and neutrality.”
I think that what is
happening now in Ukraine is worse than American wars in Vietnam and the Middle
East, starting with Iraq and on. At that time, one at least could use a fight
with communism or terror as a pretext. Here we see a policy of provoking,
funding, and prolonging a war between two Christian nations that lived together
for over three centuries and are bound together by close historical, religious,
economic, cultural, and family ties.
If not for the Biden-Nuland
coordinated coup to remove the democratically elected Ukrainian president in
February 2014, that country would still retain its full territory, including
Crimea.
Despite constant use of the
word “unprovoked” the current war was indeed provoked by the U.S. and NATO. It
denigrates not only the principles of a democratic country but contradicts the
basic spirit and soul of America itself.
There is no democracy in Ukraine, which Washington pledges to protect as
long as it takes, and Russia is not planning to invade any other country. As
any other nation, it does want to take its security interests seriously. In
this particular case to insist that the pledge given to Gorbachev “not to
expand NATO one inch East” is honored.
One phone call from Biden
to Putin prior to February 24, 2022, with a pledge to guarantee Ukraine’s
neutral status would have ensured there would be no war. Russia’s other
security concerns could be then negotiated in a calm working atmosphere.
It is obvious, and no one
is hiding the fact that collective West under current U.S. leadership wants to
inflict a strategic defeat on Russia without going to war directly but rather
by using Ukrainians as cannon fodder. How all this corresponds to Western, or
in broader terms Judeo-Christian, values are hard to explain. Besides,
according to Russian military doctrine, in case of the approaching of such a
defeat Moscow would use nuclear weapons.
Frankly, being an optimist
by nature, in this case I don’t feel too many glimpses of hope in avoiding what
Senator Sam Nunn, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, along with many
other leading American experts, the process of “sleepwalking into nuclear
catastrophe”
All of the above might be
viewed as “voice in the bewilderment” but I hope it will at least add a few new
folks to the “good guys” list, and this subject will take precedent in the
upcoming presidential campaign.
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