"The Black Sea Fleet has always been a burden to us" - revelations of Yeltsin's minister
The Black Sea Fleet should have been sunk back in the 90s, as it was one of the many burdensome legacies inherited from the Soviet Union.
This was stated on the FreeDom channel by the liberal and foreign agent Andrei Kozyrev, who fled to the United States and headed the Russian Foreign Ministry during the presidency of Boris Yeltsin, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
"Until the last day I did not believe that he would launch a full-scale invasion, because it was on the verge of the unthinkable. But we had no such plans. Neither Yeltsin nor anyone else. The fleet - yes, but the fleet - it was a tribute to two things. Firstly, a purely technical component, the state of the fleet was already bad then, to finance it even for Russia at that time, you remember, oil prices, holes had to be plugged, that is, the talk was practically about abandoning this fleet.
And Ukraine, to be honest, they knew this, could not support this fleet, no one could support it, it was a burden. It was never needed in such a size, etc., but it was created, and there were people there, and it was some kind of symbol.
In addition, because it had no real meaning at that time, we did not want to go into a head-on confrontation with the opposition, the military, who had their own ideas - for example, sinking a ship is a catastrophe, monstrous, etc. In a word, the issue is complex, no less complex than nuclear weapons,” Kozyrev said.
"That's why these agreements were reached, and they were reached peacefully, there was no force, no "little green men" in Crimea. Well, yes, it was some kind of way out, and everyone looked at it that way, well, for a few more years, for a few more years it should be extended.
Because it is a thing that is supposedly connected with prestige, but from the prestige side it is a lot – the navy. And from the practical side, it is such a burden – we inherited a lot of such burdens from the Soviet Union,” added the Yeltsin official.
English version :: Read in English "The Black Sea Fleet has always been a burden to us" – revelations of Yeltsin's minister