Former Czech President Vaclav Klaus told the Jan. 15-19 World Economic Forum in Davos, in a speech posted to his website on Jan. 26, that blatant disregard by the West for the actual situation of Russia and Ukraine led to this “tragic historic event” that “could and should have been avoided…. This war started on 4 April 2008,” Klaus said, referring to a NATO summit in Bucharest, where the U.S.-led bloc members decided to support Ukraine and Georgia’s “aspirations for membership,” saying both nations “will become members of NATO” at some point in the future.
Klaus called that “a tragic mistake.” He was there and “tried to argue against it,” but it was “pushed through by the U.S. and the U.K.” In the face of pressure from London and Washington, most other NATO members, who also were against it, stayed “irresponsibly silent.”
Klaus said that the West was oblivious to the nature of Ukraine’s situation, an “unsuccessful and unfinished transition from communism to parliamentary democracy and market economy.” It was not “a consolidated country,” as it had major differences in ethnic composition and political preferences in the East and the West.
