‘Russia Started Its Attacks on Ukraine 20 Years Ago,’ Says Former EU Ambassador to Ukraine

Jason Jay Smart: At what point did everything start to“fall apart” between Russia and Ukraine?

Jose Manuel Pinto Teixeira: The situation with Russia, that we have today in Ukraine, was started 20 years ago by Vladimir Putin who wished to undermine Ukraine’s stability. Especially since the Orange Revolution in 2004, which led to the electoral victory of [Viktor] Yushchenko, a committed pro-European and pro-Western candidate.

During the “gas wars” – between roughly 2006 and 2010,which were always carried out during the peak of winter, around new year, to discredit Ukraine, in the eyes of Europe as a reliable partner to transit gas – Russia’s objective was to hurt Ukraine’s reputation and to reduce the amount of revenue that Ukraine got from the transit of gas.

Putin also wished to convince Germany, France, and others, that if they wanted to have a reliable supply of gas,then they needed to have a different option than via transiting Ukraine – specifically North Stream toGermany. Of course, that is something that former Chancellor Schroeder, having become one of the top leaders of Gazprom, strongly supported. All the while, Russians spread rumors that Ukrainians were stealing from the gas supply being pumped via their country.

What was Putin’s longer-term goal?

Putin’s strategy was that by making Europe dependent on Russian gas, then Europe would not challenge what Putin had in mind for the future – the realization of his imperialistic ambitions. Now, we see that Putin is realizing that dream.

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It has been a decade and a half already. Can you refresh our memory as to what role the gas deals, between Kyiv and Moscow, had on Ukrainian politics at the time?

During early January 2009, Putin again interrupted the supplies of gas leaving central and eastern European countries. Countries like Bulgaria were more than 90percent reliant on Russian gas. These gas cuts created a humanitarian disaster.

The European Union sent a delegation to resolve the crisis. The then-Prime Minister of the Czech Republic visited Moscow where he met with Putin and received the Russians’ conditions on gas transit that were essentially an “ultimatum” for Ukraine.

Returning via Kyiv, the Czech leader met with then-Prime Minister [Yulia] Tymoshenko. As Tymoshenko was pro-European Union, he used this as leverage to pressure her to sign the agreement, lest she damage Ukrainian-European Union relations and the process of signing the Association Agreement with the European Union.

Tymoshenko, thus, to keep the Europeans happy, was compelled to sign the deal, even though the “deal” resulted in absurdities – such as gas in Ukraine costing more than gas in Germany.

However, while the Europeans may have been satisfied by this deal with Moscow being signed, the Russians were not. Putin continued to push for North Stream while publicly alleging that the Ukrainians were stealing gas. Allthis operated to help make Europe ever more dependent on Russian gas, which Putin wished to have as leverage, to use against the Europeans, in terms of his future ambitions regarding Ukraine.

How did that play out next? For instance, during the 2009 elections?

Tymoshenko and [Viktor] Yanukovych were the two candidates for president. In the end, Yanukovych won by a thin margin that was contested, but the international community, the OSCE, certified the elections.

In an incredible show of cynicism, one of the first things that Yanukovych did was to lock up Tymoshenko. For what? Precisely for signing the gas deal that Putin had coerced her to sign. The arrests, obviously, were politically motivated as the real objective was to remove her from the Ukrainian political scene – hence he kept her locked-up for three years, until she was finally released during the Maidan uprisings.

What led to Yanukovych’s downfall?

Yanukovych, in his 2009 election campaign, had promised that he would continue the ongoing process of negotiatingthe Association Agreement, understood as a step towards European integration, which aligned with the views of more than 70 percent of Ukrainians.

Remember, throughout his presidency, Yanukovych continued the process of European association, for which it was expected he would sign the Agreement in a summit of the EU, with the Eastern Partnership, in Vilnius, in late-2013.

However, I had already warned Brussels that I thought Yanukovych was not being sincere about his objectives. He was a gangster with no intention of ever moving Ukraine closer to Europe.

Yanukovych knew that European integration would meanan increase of transparency, democracy, and of rule-of-law, things that would directly impinge on his desire to model Ukraine on Russia’s “vertical power” which allows for a lawless autocracy to go unchecked and for corruption to remain dominant.

But in the end, Yanukovych did not sign the Agreement…

In late 2013, after travelling to Moscow to meet with Putin, Yanukovych announced that he would not sign theAssociation Agreement, as he had been expected to dowithin the next few days.

Why did Yanukovych change his mind?

Since 2004, when he ran the first time, Yanukovych was known as “the candidate of Putin,” with sympathies for the model established by the Russian autocrat.

Ultimately, Yanukovych likely never had any sincere intent, ever, of signing the Agreement but he, politically, could not say this openly until it became unavoidable, as the signing was imminent, knowing full well what the reaction would be within Ukrainian society.

After this, did the EU back Yanukovych being overthrown?

Yanukovych was the legitimate president. We did not expect there to ever be a revolution. The EU always dealt with Yanukovych in good faith – naively, I believed –thinking that he would keep his promises.

It is totally false – Russian propaganda – that the Maidan was anything but the real, legitimate, grassroots uprising of the people of Ukraine showing the indignation that a president, who was elected based upon the major issue for the future of Ukraine – European Integration – had lied to his own citizens. In no way, at all, was it orchestrated by the West – the Europeans or the Americans.

But didn’t Nuland say “F**k the Europeans”?

That is what Russia promotes, but that quote is used without any context being given. The process of Maidan had nothing to do with the Americans or the Europeans. It was driven by the Ukrainian people. You know who were the real organizers of the Maidan protests?

Yanukovych and Putin were the ones responsible for the Maidan protests. Yanukovych spent three years promising his people that he would sign the Association Agreement, something that he publicly abandoned, after meeting with Putin, shocking his citizens – thus it was he himself whosparked the Maidan.

Why did Russia not want Ukraine to be part of the West?

According to Russian propaganda, NATO moving closer to Russia presents a danger to Russia’s security. However,the reality is that Moscow knows that NATO is a defensive alliance that would never pose any threat to Russia.

On the contrary, Russia is a permanent threat to Ukraine as well as to all former Soviet Republics and even to the other former satellite states in central and eastern Europe. Therefore, when these countries got their freedom, their priority was to join NATO.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated that Ukraine was right to have sought NATO membership, which was regrettably vetoed in the Bucharest Summit of 2008, namely by Germany and France, despite the early warning given by Russia’s invasion of Georgia that same year.

For Putin, there is a major issue should Ukraine become stable and successful, it will be a “bad example” for the Russian people who would then ask: “Why do the Ukrainians live better than us as part of Europe?” This would pose a major challenge to the current autocratic system prevailing in Russia.

Then began the “separatist” movements in the Donbas?

When the USSR collapsed, separatist movements broke out in a lot of places: Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, Karabakh, Chechnya, etc.

However, never in any single region of Ukraine – including in Crimea – was there ever a separatist movement. For that matter, even when there was a referendum, whether Ukraine should leave the USSR, over 60 percent of Crimeans voted to leave the USSR, and over 90 percent nationally.

Why did Putin use proxies, the “separatists” and “little green men,” instead of openly using his Army?

In Crimea and the Donbas, the “separatism” began in 2014, after the departure of Yanukovych. Which demonstrates that this was a creation of Putin, having lost hope of anchoring Ukraine in Russia with Yanukovych, to exacerbate the instability in Ukraine.

Therefore, in the Donbas, a “separatist rebellion,” did not start when Ukraine gained its independence, but rather only in 2014. Likewise, in Crimea, using “unidentifiedgreen men,” they quickly took over the territory and held a mockery that they called “a referendum.” Had these regions really felt as part of “the Russian World,” they would have tried to move away from Ukraine, and towards Russia, when the USSR disintegrated – as other former Soviet regions did.

Putin used “rebels” and “little green men,” in 2014, because Putin still feared how the West would react. By 2022, Putin had convinced himself that the West would not react to his invasion of Ukraine, since he faced no consequences in 2014, so he thought that he could get away with it.

Putin, incredibly, invaded a country with the objective of annexing a sovereign state, for the first time since the Second World War, thinking that there would be no significant reaction from the world. Russia, a founder of the UN and a member of its Security Council, acted directly against the principles of the UN Charter which they are charged to uphold.

Only the invasion of 2022 woke the Europeans up to the real threat posed by Russia to not only Ukraine, but to the entire continent.

What more should be done now?

The West has great responsibilities in the situation that exists today in Ukraine, by inaction towards all the advances that Putin has been doing over the past decades. The US a signatory of the Budapest Memorandum, of which they were the main promoters, are bound to ensure the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. Therefore, the provision for military and other assistance, falls short of keeping their promises.

Europe, is responsible for having always appeased Russia, becoming dependent on Russia, for instance for its energy supplies, and not reacting enough to the actions that Russia has taken against Ukraine for nearly 20 years. This inaction led greatly to the situation today in Ukraine.

The EU and the US imposing restrictions, on the use of weapons that they provide, prevents Ukraine from defending its population and infrastructure. There is no justification for this.

Since Ukraine is subject to an unprovoked, illegal war, it therefore should be able to attack legitimate military targets within Russia.

Likewise, all the delays in sending assistance have caused thousands of lives and allowed massive amounts of Ukrainian infrastructure to be destroyed.