What follows here is a transcript of a YouTube Video ‘Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Explains How The Ukraine Russia War Started‘.
It is not without its critics. The Washington Post fact-checked a four-minute video by RFK Jr., finding it contained “so much misinformation and Russian talking points that it flunked the fact test.” I have put a fairly full version of that analysis after RFK’s talk.
Then follows the text of a talk by Jeffrey Sachs, an American economist and public policy analyst, that broadly follows RFK’s line.
And then my comments.
RFK’s Talk
“Every day Putin says I want to settle the war, let’s negotiate. And Zelensky has said we’re not going to negotiate, but Zelensky didn’t want to start that way. I don’t want to belabour the history, but Russia was invaded three times through Ukraine. The last time Hitler killed one out of every seven Russians. They don’t want to have Ukraine join NATO.
So when the wall came down in Europe, Gorbachev destroyed himself politically by doing something that was very, very courageous.
He went to Bush and he said, I’m going to allow you to reunify Germany under a NATO army. I’m going to remove 450,000 Soviet troops. But I want your commitment. After that, you will not move NATO one inch to the east. And we solemnly swore we wouldn’t do it.
Well then in 1997, Brzezinski was the first of the neocons and he said we’re gonna move NATO 1,000 miles to the east and take 15 countries into it and surround the Soviet Union. So then we not only move it into 14 new nations, but we unilaterally walk away from our two nuclear weapons treaties with the Russians. And we put Aegis missile systems in Romania and Poland 12 minutes from Moscow.
When Russians did that to Cuba in 62, we came this close to nuclear war until they removed them. So the Russians don’t want nukes 400 miles from Moscow.
We then overthrow the Government of the Ukraine, in 2014, their elected government – and put in a Western sympathetic government. Russia then has to go into Crimea because they have a port. It’s their only warm water port. And they know the new government that we just installed is gonna invite the US Navy into their port.
So Russia then went into Crimea without firing a shot because the people of Crimea are Russian. Then the new Ukrainian government we installed started killing ethnic Russians in Donbas and Luhansk and they voted to leave and join Russia. Putin said I don’t want them. Let’s give them protection and give them some semi autonomy and make an agreement to keep NATO out of Ukraine.
That treaty was written by Germany, France, Russia and England, the Minsk Accords and the Ukrainian parliament which is controlled by ultra Rightists, and that’s a nice way of talking about them, refused to sign it.
So Zelensky runs in 2019. He’s an actor. Why did he get elected with 70% of the vote? Because he promised to sign the Minsk Accords. He promised peace. He gets in there and he pivots. Nobody can explain why but we know why. Because he was threatened with death by ultra Rightists in his government and a withdrawal of support by the United States by Victoria Nuland, who’s the leading neocon in the State Department. We told him he could not sign it.
So then the Russians go in, they don’t send a big army. They only send 40,000 people. It’s a nation of 44 million people. They clearly do not intend to conquer Ukraine, but they want us back at the negotiating table. We won’t allow Zelensky to go back. So he goes to Israel and Turkey and says, will you please help me negotiate a treaty, the Russians just want a guarantee that Ukraine won’t join NATO? Zelensky signs the treaty. Putin’s people signed the treaty and Putin starts withdrawing the Russian troops in good faith.
And what happens? Joe Biden sends Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister, over to Ukraine in April and forces him to tear up the treaty. And since then, 450,000 kids have died, who none of them should have died. Every one Russian that dies, five to eight Ukrainians died and they don’t have any men left. We’re giving them all these weapons, but they don’t have men left. It’s a catastrophe and we look kind of like the aggressor. That’s the way the rest of the world sees it.”
The Washington Post
Here is the Washington Post point by point on why RFK’s analysis flunked the fact test.
With regard to the claim that “Russia was invaded three times through Ukraine. The last time Hitler killed one out of every seven Russians.”
It’s unclear what the three invasions refer to. Napoleon didn’t invade via Ukraine, and while WWII did cause immense Soviet losses—roughly one-seventh of the population—the phrasing is vague and misleading.
With regard to the claim that Gorbachev told President Bush that NATO would not move “one inch to the east,”, there is no record of such a promise. Gorbachev himself said in 2014 that NATO expansion “was not discussed at all” during the negotiations. Other documents show that NATO expansion was not a central topic, and Gorbachev later indicated that Eastern European nations could choose their alliances.
With regard to calling Brzezinski the “first neocon” who said they’d expand NATO to “surround the Soviet Union.” no such quote or phrase exists. Brzezinski did support NATO expansion—but using “neocon” in that context is inaccurate and historically misleading.
With regard to the claim that deploying Aegis missile systems in Romania and Poland near Moscow is analogous to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the comparison is false. Aegis systems are defensive, non-nuclear systems, unlike the Soviet nuclear missiles placed in Cuba.
With regard to the claim that the US brought about the 2014 Ukraine Government Overthrow, Viktor Yanukovych was removed by a unanimous parliamentary vote after security forces killed protesters. There’s no credible evidence of direct U.S. orchestration of the removal.
With regard to the claim that Russia invaded Crimea to protect its only warm-water port, fearing the U.S. Navy might gain access, Crimea had been a Russian warm-water port since the 18th century, and newer technologies allow Russia to maintain ports like St. Petersburg and Vladivostok year-round. There’s no evidence Ukraine planned to offer Sevastopol to the U.S. Navy.
With regard to the claim that the Ukrainian government began killing ethnic Russians in Donbas and that people in that region hen voted to join Russia, Russia deployed troops into Donetsk and Luhansk regions, establishing separatist territories. Elections held under Russian supervision are not credible.
With regard to the claim that Russia proposed autonomy under the Minsk treaties and that the Ukrainian parliament refused to sign them because it was controlled by ultra-rightists, the Minsk agreements were signed by representatives including Russian and Ukrainian officials and OSCE. They weren’t parliamentary votes, and saying Kyiv rejected them because of extremist influence is misleading.
With regard to the claim that Zelensky was elected on a promise to sign the Minsk Accord, Zelensky’s platform mainly focused on economic reform and anti-corruption, not signing Minsk. He did express interest in a later Steinmeier formula,’ which triggered protests among nationalists.
With regard to the claim that Nuland, described as a neocon threatened Zelensky, stopping him from signing Minsk, Nuland was not in government until 2021; she had no role in 2014–15 Minsk talks. Describing her as the leading neocon is false.
With regard to the claim that Zelensky sought peace, both nations signed a treaty keeping NATO out and that Biden sent Johnson to tear it up, no such treaty was ever signed. There were tentative agreements in early 2022, but nothing binding. Johnson’s alleged involvement is described as “total nonsense and Russian propaganda.”
Jeffrey Sachs’s Version
Jeffrey Sachs is an American economist and public policy analyst, and in a talk he gave he said as follows, and you will pick up that he and RFK take broadly the same line.
It started in 1990, when US Secretary of State James Baker said to Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not move one inch eastward… The US then cheated on this, starting in 1994, when Clinton signed off on a plan to expand NATO all the way to Ukraine. The expansion of NATO started in 1999 with Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. Then, the US led the bombing of Serbia in 1999. That was the use of NATO to bomb a European capital for 78 straight days to break the country apart. The Russians didn’t like that very much, but even Putin started out pro-European and pro-American. He considered whether to join NATO when there was still the idea of some kind of mutually respectful relationship.
In 2002, the US unilaterally walked out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. What it did was trigger the US putting in missile systems in Eastern Europe that Russia views as a dire, direct threat to national security, by making possible a decapitation strike of missiles that are a few minutes away from Moscow. In 2004-2005, the US engaged in a soft regime change in Ukraine, the so-called First Color Revolution. In 2009, Yanukovych won the election and became president in 2010 on the basis of neutrality in Ukraine. In 2014, the US participated actively in the overthrow of Yanukovych. Nuland and the US Ambassador to Ukraine…talked about regime change. So they made the new government!
The US then said ‘now NATO’s really going to enlarge.’ Putin kept saying ‘stop, you promised no NATO enlargement.’ Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, seven more countries in the ‘not one inch eastward.’ In 2021, Putin put on the table a draft Russian-US security agreement.
The basis of it was no NATO enlargement. The special military operations started, and five days later Zelenskyy said ‘okay, okay, neutrality.’ And then the US and Britain said no way, you guys fight on. We’ve got your back. That’s 600,000 deaths now of Ukrainians since Boris Johnson flew to Kyiv to tell them to be brave. Absolutely ghastly. We’re not dealing with, as we’re told every day, this madman like Hitler. This is complete bogus, fake history that is a purely PR narrative of the US government. We’re playing games here. So God forbid a nuclear power comes at us. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but we came at them.
The Opposite View
The West’s view of James Baker’s promise to Gorbachev is that no formal treaty was ever signed restricting NATO expansion, and that the former satellite states wanted to be in NATO because of historical fears of Russian aggression. Further, that NATO always had an open door policy and could and would not refuse an application when it was the democratic wish of the population provided the country met the criteria of being a democratic non-repressive regime.
The 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia during the Kosovo War was a humanitarian intervention to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and justified despite the lack of UN approval. It did not signify a breakaway NATO intent on reshaping Europe without UN approval.
The U.S. Withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty was in response to new emerging threats from North Korea and Iran and that missiles were never aimed at Russia.
The first ‘colour revolution’ of 2004-5 in Ukraine was a democratic uprising against election fraud, a victory for democracy and self-determination and not a U.S.led operation.
The 2010 victory by Yanukovych in Ukraine was never denied but his legitimacy ended when he cracked down on protests about corruption. That led to the 2014 Euromaidan movement, a popular, grassroots uprising against corruption and Russian influence. The US supported the Maidan Movement but it did not orchestrate a coup and deny blocking peace proposals through Boris Johnson or otherwise.
Conclusion
How can an observer conclude anything when each event is seen through different lenses? The Western perspective emphasises democracy, sovereignty, and Russian aggression. The Russians see broken promises, and NATO encroachment through Western-backed regime changes.
Add to this the fact that a lot of the points made by both sides are ‘who said or didn’t say what to who and with what intent’. Trying to get to the bottom of that is a fruitless task.
And questions about an alleged US government overthrow of Ukraine’s Government is by its nature clothed in secrecy and ripe for claims both ways.
But the big question for me is whether Aegis missiles could carry nuclear warheads. And the answer seems to be that they could not as currently deployed in Europe but technically the system could launch nuclear-capable missiles if modified. The basis for the claim is that the Mk 41 VLS launcher is the same launcher used on U.S. Navy ships, which can launch a variety of missiles, including Tomahawk cruise missiles, and that certain Tomahawk variants historically had nuclear capability.
Yes, from the US point of view, Russia itself is not to be trusted and the more contained it can be, the better. But I don’t see any way around seeing through Russia’s eyes that the missiles are a threat right on their doorstep. And that is a recipe for distrust.
Where do we go from here? The world has become smaller. COVID made it obvious how interdependent we are. Time for people to wake up and behave as though from the point of view of the whole, and not of a faction.