This commentary is by David Kelley, a former visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Russian Research Center. He is the author of “The Soviet Joint Venture Decree: Law and Structure”; co-author of “The Moscow Business Survival Guide”; and a co-founder of PH International. He is a former member of the Hazen Union School Board.
The tragedy unfolding in Ukraine as you read this commentary is heart-wrenching on every level — from the innocent Ukrainian civilians whose lives have been shattered and destroyed, to the entire global community that will feel the economic and political tremors for years to come.
Given the enormity of this tragedy, it is appalling when a former Central Intelligence Agency employee (Haviland Smith) claims in VTDigger on March 2 that somehow (he doesn’t say how) that someone (he doesn’t say who) assured Russia, at the time the Soviet Union collapsed, that the breakaway Soviet republics would not be admitted to NATO. And then Mr. Smith goes on to imply this false assurance has contributed to Putin’s sense of insecurity and his bloody assault on Ukraine
Mr. Smith’s recitation of history is not just incorrect, it is ludicrous. The notion that some person, presumably an American, could somehow speak, without any record or any written treaty, on behalf of all of the members of NATO and thus dictate who could, or could not, become a member of NATO is inconceivable.
The notion that somehow the future security of these sovereign countries could be put in eternal jeopardy without any public record, without any treaty, without a vote of the NATO membership, not to mention some kind of dialogue with these fledgling democracies flies in the face of not only the historic record, but common sense. It is a narrative that a bloody megalomaniac has propounded for so long that he, Putin, apparently along with a few ex-CIA agents, has come to believe.
At some personal risk, even Mikhail Gorbachev has come forth and said Putin’s repeated narrative is false.
What the historic record does plainly reveal is that, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine agreed to hand over its nuclear weapons in exchange for assurances of its territorial integrity. The 1994 Budapest Memorandum, signed in Russia by Russia, the United States and Great Britain, bound those countries to respect Ukrainian borders and sovereignty. We agreed to seek immediate U.N. intervention to repel any attack.
If any country has been betrayed here, it is Ukraine. For that we should be ashamed. We were legally bound to do far more than we have done.
Putin does indeed have a sense of insecurity. He fears that the Russian people will look around and see freedom on their doorstep — and like what they see.
In the last 20 years, Russia has laid waste to Chechnya. Russia has invaded Georgia. Russia has annexed Crimea and continues to occupy Luhansk and Donetsk.
It should be obvious to anyone why infant democracies such as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland were so eager to become members of NATO. Without that security, the dark clouds of Putin’s Russia would have hung ominously over those countries.
Ukraine was left to fend for itself. When Russia annexed Crimea, President Obama ignored our obligations under the Budapest Memorandum. President Trump engaged in something akin to extortion with President Zelensky when we had committed to provide military support to Ukraine.
And the world, but most of all Ukraine, is paying a bitter price.
