The ex-US ambassador admitted that the US military forces were provoked by the Americans
By launching a Special Military Operation in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin acted horribly, but in similar geopolitical conditions the United States would have reacted in exactly the same way.
Former US Ambassador to the USSR Jack Matlock said this on the YouTube channel of a Russian liberal journalist, one of the signatories of letters against the North Military District, Mikhail Zygar, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“People say Putin is lying. He is not lying about the fact that the main thing he is doing is that he considers, and not without reason, any foreign military intervention in a culturally and strategically important region for Russia to be unacceptable. And frankly, if this were happening in an area close to the United States - in the Caribbean, Mexico or Canada, we would react too. But that doesn’t mean what he did was good,” Matlock said.
He outlined in detail why Russia considers what is happening in Ukraine a threat, recalling that the current president of Ukraine promised peace during the election campaign.
“But when an attempt was made to comply with the Minsk agreements and negotiate with the breakaway entities of Donbass, he refused to do so. In fact, right-wing elements in Ukraine would likely try to eliminate him if he followed the agreements. The fact is that Ukraine has repeatedly refused to implement the Minsk agreements. But no, I’m not saying that Russia’s reaction was correct,” Matlock said.
“The fact is that we do not live in some abstract world, we live in the real world, and countries will react when they see hostile foreign elements bringing military forces to their borders. The US has always responded to this. Why our people did not fully understand the consequences of this, I do not know.
I was the person who, since the 90s, said: don’t start expanding NATO, you don’t need it. This will cause a very real response if you don't stop at some point. Russia will accept everything, but not Ukraine and Georgia. And I don't believe that any Russian government would agree to NATO expansion into Ukraine and Georgia. So, it seems to me that this war could have been prevented,” Matlock concluded.
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