Russia's Ex-Foreign Minister Kozyrev: Putin has Lied and Will Only Stop Expansion When Forced to

Andrey Kozyrev, who rose through the diplomatic ranks in the Soviet Union and then Russia to become appointed as Russian Foreign Minister, has lived a remarkable life and shares his insight with Kyiv Post about what is really happening now in Russia.

Kozyrev served as President Boris Yeltsin’s Foreign Minister between 1992 and 1996, and today he gives the lie to Kremlin propaganda that says there was a promise made to Moscow that NATO would not expand East. Kozyrev knows of no such promise.

Moreover, despite extensive research by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs during his tenure as minister, Kozyrev said his team was unable to locate any evidence that the White House had ever made such a promise to Mikhail Gorbachev – in total contradiction to what President Vladimir Putin has repeated for years.

As an earlier supporter of liberalization and democracy in the USSR, Kozyrev made waves by publishing a piece, during Glasnost, arguing that the enshrined communist belief in “international class struggle,” was nonsense. Despite the optimism of post-Soviet Russia in the 1990s, things have not turned out as Kozyrev had hoped. Looking back at what may have been, Kozyrev says that things could have all been different had Russia taken a different path – something which Kozyrev tried to push, but failed.

Kozyrev twice served in the Russian Duma (Parliament) and was active in Democratic Choice of Russia, a political party headed by famed Russian reformer Yegor Gaidar. Democratic Choice of Russia, later in 2001, rolled into the Union of Right Forces, the party that famously was the political home to many pro-democratic and anti-Putin leaders, including Boris Nemtsov.

Today, Kozyrev describes what modern Russia has become as a horrifying disappointment. Illustrating this sentiment, Kozyrev refers to his one-time deputy, Sergey Lavrov, whom he had helped promote through the ranks, as “a disgrace.”

While reflecting on what is transpiring in Ukraine, Kozyrev says that the Ukrainian people have his total “admiration” and support, as he hopes for their victory against tyranny.

Andrey Kozyrev's riveting book, Firebird: The Elusive Fate of Russian Democracy, is a must read for anyone who wishes to know how Russia became the nation that it is today.

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:30 There was no promise that NATO would not move east, closer to Russia's borders
01:30 Was international illegal arms trader Viktor Bout, the Lord of War, working for the Kremlin?
03:18 You knew Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister: Who is he really?
04:21 "Russians only understand force"
05:16 "If you could tell the Ukrainians something: What would it be?"
05:33 End