EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR TUESDAY JANUARY 3, 2023

‘The Minsk Story’ Proves the Russian Invasion Was Not Unprovoked

Jan. 2, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)—The following account of critical events over the past eight years, ignored willfully by national and international media, was provided today by Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche in a discussion with associates:

“There is a new article by the former Swiss intelligence specialist Jacques Baud, in an Swiss alternative blog called ‘Zeitgeschehen im Fokus.’ (in German) [‘Suche nach Frieden in der Ukraine?’] It’s a long article, I cannot possibly go through all the arguments, which are very interesting. But the key point he is making is that first of all, that Steinmeier was in Kiev at the time of the Maidan coup. He just the day before had made an agreement together with Laurent Fabius and Radek Sikorski, the French and Polish foreign ministers. And then overnight it was all blown away and [German President Frank-Walter] Steinmeier was asked, by Jacques Baud apparently, he said it was [Ukraine’s legally elected] President Viktor Yanukovych, who, because of his flight from Kiev, would have taken away the basis for the agreement. Which is really incredible, because Yanukovych was afraid for his life because of the coup! So for Steinmeier to have said that is just an absolutely unbelievable statement.

“But then [Baud] continues to say that Merkel, in her Dec. 7 interviews with Spiegel and Die Zeit admitted that they lied in terms of what the Minsk agreement was all about, and that his comment is to say that she was obviously willing to sacrifice peace in Europe to create the appearance of unity in NATO, which already is quite incredible. And then he says: So the Western politicians knew from the beginning that they would not realize the Minsk agreement, but that they also said that they would only lift the sanctions against Russia when the Minsk agreement is realized. So the maliciousness of the West is so obvious, that it is absolutely hard to imagine how you can ever create a climate which is friendly to negotiations today.

“Now, that subject, and since noon I looked up the chronology of the Minsk agreement—this lasted eight years—and there were altogether nine rounds of sanctions whereby one can see very clearly that each time they closed the noose around the Russian economy more and more.... And at the same time, it was very clear that what Merkel and now Hollande, who was President of France at the time, admitted, as did [coup President] Poroshenko, they all said the Minsk agreement was a fraud from the very beginning, and they only did it to gain time to arm the Ukrainian Armed Forces, to bring it to a NATO standard. And the EU then moved on sanctions, some of them said, we will lift the sanctions only if the Minsk agreement is done. Several of them went to Moscow, talking to Putin, pretending to be a little more flexible. So a typical hard-cop/soft-cop agreement.

“And therefore, to say that this Ukrainian war was an ‘unprovoked Russian aggression’ is just completely ludicrous. Because one can say, really, that Putin was amazingly patient and as he had said on various occasions, only when he thought there was no other option left, and that they had their back against the wall, that they decided that it was necessary to react to the upcoming Ukrainian offensive against the Donbass.

“But the point is, if you look at that kind of behavior, and remember that already on Jan. 25, there were these unnamed White House officials who said the aim is to prevent Russia from ever having diversification out of oil and gas, to deny them access to any modern technology, and Baerbock saying the real aim is ‘to ruin Russia’—is it a miracle that Russia then says they want to ‘ruin’ us? I mean, give me a break! I think we really have to circulate this widely, because this narrative is what has to be punctured. I’m sure there will be more voices coming out, because this is a bombshell. It is definitely something which is noticed around the world and it for sure totally discredits Merkel and Hollande, but there is no way this could have been done without the total knowledge of the top EU leadership, and naturally also NATO, because they immediately started training Ukrainian troops according to what Merkel revealed.

“So the betrayal is unbelievable, but it now has reached the sunlight. This needs to be discussed widely.”