Kissinger called for the West to stop backing Kiev at all costs, even as the victims of the conflict pile up.

Kissinger: ‘Breaking Russia Has Become Objective For US’

By RT

August 24, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - "RT" - Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has hit out at American and European Ukraine policy, saying it ignores Russia’s relationship with its neighbor, and has called for cooperation between the White House and the Kremlin on the issue.

“Breaking Russia has become an objective [for US officials] the long-range purpose should be to integrate it,” the 92-year-old told The National Interest in a lengthy interview for the policy magazine’s anniversary that touched on most of the world’s most pertinent international issues. “If we treat Russia seriously as a great power, we need at an early stage to determine whether their concerns can be reconciled with our necessities.”

The diplomat, who is most famous for serving in the Nixon administration, and controversially being awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize, for negotiating the Vietnam ceasefire, accused the West of failing to recognize the historical context in which the fallout occurred between Moscow and Kiev.

“The relationship between Ukraine and Russia will always have a special character in the Russian mind. It can never be limited to a relationship of two traditional sovereign states, not from the Russian point of view, maybe not even from Ukraine’s. So, what happens in Ukraine cannot be put into a simple formula of applying principles that worked in Western Europe.”

Kissinger lays the blame for sparking the conflict at the door of the EU, which proposed a trade deal in 2013, without considering how it would alienate Moscow, and divide the Ukrainian people.

“The first mistake was the inadvertent conduct of the European Union. They did not understand the implications of some of their own conditions. Ukrainian domestic politics made it look impossible for [former Ukrainian president Viktor] Yanukovych to accept the EU terms and be reelected or for Russia to view them as purely economic,” said Kissinger.

This Kissinger interview in @TheNatlInterest is well worth reading USE_FULL_LINK_PLEASE8og25i9UQ5pic.twitter.com/y2zYL3hsku

— Danielle Ryan (@DanielleRyanJ) August 20, 2015
Once Yanukovich rejected the deal in November 2013, the EU “panicked”, Russia became “overconfident,” the US remained “passive” as “each side acted sort of rationally based on its misconception of the other” and “no significant political discussions.”

For Kissinger, the wheels of the stand-off between Moscow and the West were already set in motion during the subsequent Maidan street protests – heartily endorsed by the West – which demanded the toppling of the pro-Russian Yanukovich, an aim that was eventually achieved.

“While Ukraine slid into the Maidan uprising right in the middle of what Putin had spent ten years building as a recognition of Russia’s status. No doubt in Moscow this looked as if the West was exploiting what had been conceived as a Russian festival to move Ukraine out of the Russian orbit.”

Obama, as his critics will remind you, did not seek to "break" Russia. We tried to Reset relations with Russia. Putin in 2012 rejected.

— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) August 20, 2015
With the armed conflict in Ukraine still showing no signs of resolution, Kissinger repeated his previous proposal for Ukraine to become a buffer, or mediator state between Russia and the West.

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