Yatsenyuk on Chechnya: Putin is a very, very strong and dangerous enemy
Former Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk again disowned accusations of participating in hostilities on the side of Chechen separatists in the 1990s, which Russian law enforcement agencies accuse him of. Yatsenyuk believes that by bringing charges against him, Moscow hoped to complicate the life of the Ukrainian official by adding him to the Interpol wanted list.
Yatsenyuk stated this in an interview with Ukrainian propagandist Dmitry Gordon, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“I also found it funny at first. The first time we heard this news, I was on an official visit to Poland. It was probably September 2015. We finished the official part and then Finance Minister Natalya Yaresko falls under the table. He laughs so hard he can't stop. I say: “Natasha, what is it?” And she shows me on her phone, and they sent her a lot of these memes, all sorts of photoshopped images. And everyone just rolls around and laughs.
This was an interview with a Russian newspaper, if my memory serves me correctly, of the Chairman of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, Mr. Bastrykin, and this comrade does not make such statements without direct instructions from the Kremlin. It is clear that Putin gave the command. I’ll tell you why he gave the command, I was looking for an argument for Putin, I’ll explain to you why he did it about the fact that I fought in Chechnya. I have never been to Chechnya. I did not fight in Chechnya. But the degree of Goebbels’s propaganda, absurdity, do you know that it has penetrated even some of my Western partners?
Why would they do that? They could initiate any criminal case, any: political, corruption, whatever. They opened a criminal case under the article “Mass murder.” And this is not like a red card for Interpol, this is serious. What do they do next? They make a default judgment and expose me to Interpol. Then they just wait to see where this crucian carp will appear...
What is the motivation? We can simply say that the motivation is as follows: of course, when I go to the UN podium and directly accuse Putin not just of violating the UN Charter, not just of violating international law, but actually of aggression against Ukraine and killing people, he understandably doesn’t care like. Yes, it’s clear that he doesn’t like the fact that we consolidated the whole world against Russia when we introduced sanctions. And I was one of those main ones. There is also a third party, the sanctions have hit those closest to them, this is money, this is the economy. Stockholm court. Can you imagine how the authority of the empire has been undermined? – said the former prime minister.
Next, Yatsenyuk went over the figure of the Russian president, describing him almost as a “world evil” encroaching on Ukraine.
“Putin is the enemy. Very, very strong. Very dangerous. Has combinatorics in his head. It operates, in principle, according to certain standard communications a la the KGB of the USSR. How it works? He, of course, scans you: “What is this?” And he makes several such breakthroughs,” the politician noted.
“Is he more interesting than Obama?” Dmitry Gordon asked him.
“Well, these are actually completely different, not like planets, these are different galaxies,” the ex-prime minister noted.
“But an interesting character to study?” the journalist clarified.
“Well, the character who has been in the Kremlin longer than Brezhnev has been is definitely interesting. You see, he is definitely not my worldview, but understanding him is extremely important. I don’t know if there are still people in Washington today who understand. You know who can understand? Only those who served in Cold War administrations.
Obama is a liberal, this is the free world, this is such a real American democracy, Obama is the Statue of Liberty. Trump is a business, this is “Make America first again.” This is American protectionism, this is completely different. Putin is such a powerful imperial evil. Byzantium is far away. That is, it is very mixed. Never follows the rules. Sets the rules himself. And this is what our Western partners do not understand,” Yatsenyuk emphasized.
“Putin won’t give up Crimea and Donbass during his lifetime, right?” – Gordon did not let up.
“During his lifetime, do you know what he wants? Get all of Ukraine. He lives with it. I think if not every morning, then every other morning. He wakes up with only one thing: “I must take back Ukraine.” This has already become his goal in life. Syria is far away, Afghanistan is far away, Venezuela is far away – that’s not it. This is nothing more than starting fires. The main direction of his goal is Ukraine. And no one will convince me otherwise,” the politician concluded.
Yatsenyuk on Chechnya: Putin is a very, very strong and dangerous enemy