Dear Editor:
With the U.S. presidential campaign behind us, it’s important for history’s sake that partisan mythologizing not gut sobering details of how American figures influenced tragic developments in Ukraine’s recent history. Already several times The Ukrainian Weekly’s columnists have penned paeans skirting inconvenient items related to then Vice-President Joseph Biden’s part in events affecting Ukraine. Sadly, Mr. Biden played a role in getting Ukraine to forgo armed resistance while Crimea was being invaded. The loss of Crimea – likely long-term – has been independent Ukraine’s great geopolitical tragedy (chances for eastern Donbas’s return are better).
In his recollection of events for a recent interview, Ukraine’s 2014 interim President Oleksander Turchynov relates what a blow it was to be confronted by U.S. President Barack Obama’s emissaries, John Kerry and Joe Biden, with their dismissive take on the territorial guarantees of the Budapest Memorandum. “I was patted on my shoulder and told, ‘The Budapest Memorandum doesn’t require a thing of us. We condemn the aggression but will help only in political and diplomatic spheres. We aren’t ready to discuss any military assistance.’” Mobilization was also discouraged: “You’re provoking Russia to war, therefore revoke the mobilization!”
In the years that followed Mr. Biden visited Kyiv several times, primarily focused not on Ukraine’s existential threat but on removing select corrupt officials. The Obama administration persisted in preventing Ukraine from obtaining lethal weapons, though invasion and war were raging. Recently, Mr. Biden’s penchant for improving his biographical record with fanciful tales has presented a dissenting spin. For those affected, however, touching up history is hardly constructive.
Ihor Mirchuk
Easton, Pa.