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Ukraine: the West must own up to its mistakes - The Voice of Russia

The West has been painting the current crisis in Ukraine and in Crimea in black-and-white only, with Russia attacking and Ukraine’s coup-imposed regime on the defensive, with Western powers protecting a fledgling democracy and Russia vying to stomp it into dust. But just how true is this picture? Malcolm Fraser, who served as Australia’s 22nd prime minister between 1975 and 1983, pointed to grave mistakes that Western powers have been making again and again since the fall of the Soviet Union, because what is now happening in Crimea has grown exactly from the short-sightedness of Cold-War-minded Western governments.

In his Guardian article, Mr. Fraser notes there were many ways in which the former Soviet republics could have been guaranteed security for the future. Instead, the West chose to expand, moving closer and closer to Russia’s western borders, despite talks between the then US Secretary of State James Baker and Russia’s Gorbachev, who insisted that NATO shouldn’t move into what had historically been the Russian domain.

http://d.hatena.ne.jp/d1021/20140311#1394534331
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/d1021/20140308#1394275014