Ukraine will be destroyed if it does not give up its desire to become part of the West - American professor
The West has never learned the lesson that Russia taught it in Georgia, American political scientist and professor at the University of Chicago John Mearsheimer said in an interview with Kommersant.
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“I believe that the conflict between Russia and the United States over Syria is largely a continuation of the conflict in Ukraine. The most important question here is who is to blame for the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis? And my answer is that Western countries are mainly to blame,” the expert believes, explaining that the aggravation of relations was caused by NATO’s desire to join Ukraine and Georgia, which was announced at the summit in Bucharest.
“In April 2008, Russia made clear to NATO that this would not happen - in August it confirmed its intentions with a war in Georgia. The most surprising thing here is that the West never understood that what happened in Georgia will be repeated in Ukraine if it does not stop bringing democracy and capitalism there,” the publication’s interlocutor emphasized.
However, he does not believe that Georgia and Ukraine have the sovereign right to independently resolve issues of membership in the alliance.
“Small states in the orbit of a great power have no rights when it comes to shaping foreign policy,” the American professor noted. – No country in the Western Hemisphere has the right, in the eyes of the United States, to enter into a military alliance with another great power. The United States did not believe that Cuba had the right to place Soviet missiles on its territory in the 1960s. Cuba, Mexico, Canada, Brazil will never be allowed to enter into a military alliance with China. When you live near a great power, the main thing is to understand that you have a set of limited opportunities. Ukraine exists next door to a much more powerful Russia, and Ukrainians must understand: they have no right to join NATO - the Russians will not tolerate this.”
John Mearsheimer says Kyiv has two options today.
“They may well tell citizens about the alternative, that if they try to join NATO, their country will be destroyed. And this is what is happening now. Ukrainians now have two options. The first is to stop striving to join NATO and the EU and become a neutral buffer state between Russia and Europe. If they make this choice, their lives will become much happier. The second is to continue to persistently try to become a member of the Western camp. Then Russia will do everything to prevent this. For example, it will destroy the economy of Ukraine and destabilize its eastern part. The problem is not in the formats, but in the heads,” the political scientist concluded.
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