Global Research

(32:40 on the VIDEO of the speech) Putin — [Russia’s] President Putin — was determined to deny Ukraine and the Ukrainian people the power to make their choices about the future — whether to look east or west or both. Under the pretext of protecting Russian-speaking populations, he not only encouraged and supported separatists in Ukraine, but he armed them. He sent in Russian personnel out of uniform to take on the Ukrainian military, those little, green men. 

[As that last link makes clear, there is no reliable evidence that, prior to August, there were any Russian conscript, or non-volunteer, fighters participating in the Ukrainian conflict; but there were volunteers from a number of countries, including not just Russia but Spain, Sweden, and others, fighting on both sides. In addition, there were at least 400 U.S. mercenaries hired by the Ukrainian Government. By the end of June, it was already becoming clear that Ukraine’s troops were losing, the rebels were winning; and Russian conscripts didn’t come into Ukraine until late August, well after the rebel fighters were slaughtering Ukraine’s conscripts and mercenaries. Perhaps Putin wanted the rebels to win faster, so that Russia would be able to get some of the million Ukrainian refugees, who had escaped into Russia, returned back to Ukraine before winter. But, by the time when Russian conscripts were being introduced, in August, Kiev had already lost their war, but they had basically surrendered even by July 1st.]

And when that wasn’t enough, he had the audacity to send Russian troops and tanks and sophisticated, air-defense systems across the border. [This claim, repeatedly made by the U.S. regime, was never supported by any reliable evidence.]

But we rallied the world to check his ambitions and defend Ukrainian sovereignty. We didn’t put boots on the ground. 

Putin sought to prevent a free and open election. We rallied the world to help Ukraine hold quite possibly the freest election in its history. Putin sought to destabilize Ukraine’s economy. We provided a billion dollars directly from the United States and worked with the IMF on a $27 billion international rescue package to keep them from going under.[That ‘rescue package’ was a loan, with onerous conditions, including the requirement that Ukraine must quickly kill and/or drive out the residents in Ukraine’s southeast, who were refusing to accept this coup-imposed Government. As the IMF’s Christine Lagarde warned the coup-Government on May 1st (right before the massacre in Odessa that began the ethnic cleansing that was required in order to eliminate the undesired voters from Ukraine’s southeast), a “loss of economic control over the east [i.e., loss of that region’s gas-fracking income] that reduces [Ukrainian] budget revenue would require a significant recalibration of the [loan] program; and [end] additional financing, including from Ukraine’s bilateral partners,” the U.S. and EU. So, by May 1st at the latest, the coup-Government were, essentially, ordered to exterminate quickly the residents in Ukraine’s southeast. And they tried their best to do that. And Joe Biden’s son could have become a billionaire if they had succeeded.]

(33:40) Putin sought to keep Ukraine weak through corruption. [Though no evidence exists supporting that claim, the U.S. coup in February installed as Ukraine’s new leaders oligarchs who had long records of corruption. President Obama’s favored person to win Ukraine’s Presidency, Yulia Timoshenko, lost the May 25th election, though that vote was held only in Ukraine’s northwest, where her support had traditionally been strongest, not at all in the southeast, where the man whom Obama overthrew had won almost all of his votes, and where Timoshenko’s support was virtually non-existent; but, even the anti-Russian Guardian newspaper had previously reported her corruptness. She was no less corrupt than Yanukovych. And, talk about corruption, the oligarch who hired Joe Biden’s son, Timoshenko’s friend Ihor Kolomoyskyi, was widely regarded as the most corrupt of them all.]

We’re helping those leaders fight back corruption, which by the way is an issue that demands our leadership around the world, by helping them write new laws, set up a new judiciary and much more. Putin sought to hollow out Ukraine’s military the last 10 years, and he was very successful. But we rallied NATO and NATO countries to begin to build that military capability back up. Putin sought to keep secret Russian support for separatists who shot down a civilian airliner. We exposed it to the world, and in turn rallied the world. And remember this all began because Putin sought to block Ukraine’s accession agreement with the European Union. 

[Similarly, Obama sought to end Ukraine’s existing trade-agreement with the Russia-dominated Eurasian Economic Commission. Both sides, the U.S. and Russia, were competing for Ukraine to join — or, in Russia’s case, to remain with — them. The way aljazeera phrased this on 29 November 2013 was that Ukraine’s President, the man whom Obama overthrew, Viktor “Yanukovych believes he can continue to strike a balance between Russia and the rest of Europe, even though both are demanding that he commit to one side.” The difference was that Russia perpetrated no Ukrainian coup, but the U.S. did.]

Well, guess what: That agreement was signed and ratified several weeks ago [yes it was — but directly as a result of Obama’s February 2014 coup in Ukraine, overthrowing Yanukovych].

Throughout we’ve given Putin a simple choice: Respect Ukraine’s sovereignty [though the phone-transcript here proves that EU ministers themselves knew that Obama had raped Ukraine’s sovereignty] or face increasing consequences. That has allowed us to rally the world’s major developed countries to impose real cost on Russia.

(35:24) It is true they did not want to do that. But again, it was America’s leadership and the President of the United States insisting, oft times almost having to embarrass Europe to stand up and take economic hits to impose costs.[But, since EU leaders knew that Obama had raped Ukraine, why did they even go along with Obama at all, on this?]

And the results have been massive capital flight from Russia, a virtual freeze on foreign direct investment, a ruble at an all-time low against the dollar, and the Russian economy teetering on the brink of recession [whereas the U.S. economic ‘recovery’ from the global ‘recession’ has been far worse than Russia’s under Putin has been].

We don’t want Russia to collapse [though the last link there suggests that they do want precisely that].

We want Russia to succeed. But Putin has to make a choice. These asymmetrical advances on another country[such as the Obama Administration’s coup overthrowing and replacing Ukraine’s Government was?] cannot be tolerated. The international system will collapse if they are. And to state the obvious, it’s not over yet. And there are no guarantees of success. But unlike [EU leaders] — the Ukrainian people have stood up. And we are helping them, leading and acting strategically. [Click on that link, to find out how “we” are “helping” “them.” It’s by actually destroying them.]

The fourth element of our strategy is countering violent extremism [such as by placing fascists and even nazis in control of Ukraine, as Obama did. And, if those are not “violent extremists,” then no one is.].

[NOTE: None of the many questions that were raised at the end by Harvard Kennedy School students — during the question-period extending from 0:51:00 to 1:31:00 on the video — related to anything Biden said about Ukraine or about Russia: virtually all of these students’ questions concerned Islamic terrorism, the rest ebola or else Ferguson, but none concerned Ukraine or Russia. No student there was interested in that, though it’s mega-strategic for the United States. Biden had virtually insulted these students with his string of lies about this crucially important topic, and they showed themselves appropriate for that implicit insult; they responded as the lackeys they’re evidently practicing to become: uncaring careerist self-obsessed automata, the students at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Some “Government,” that! Some “students,” those!]

[CONCLUDING NOTE: On 28 August 2014, President Barack Obama himself had said:

“Russia is responsible for the violence in eastern Ukraine. The violence is encouraged by Russia. The separatists are trained by Russia. They are armed by Russia. They are funded by Russia. Russia has deliberately and repeatedly violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”

So, it’s clear where Vice President Biden gets his talking-points: he’s just a hack-peddler of his boss’s lies.

But that’s good enough for Harvard — as it was for the U.S. Supreme Court, which unanimously accepted Obama’s view that political lies are protected by the First Amendment: that deceiving the public about political matters is a right which no state government may restrict.]

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.