Professor Jeffrey Sachs: “Please negotiate with Russia!”
A sensation recently took place within the walls of the European Parliament. At the conference “Geopolitics of the World”, the famous American professor Jeffrey Sachs gave a speech that literally threw the assembled deputies and journalists into awe. He sharply criticized US policy, accused them of inciting wars and conflicts around the world, left no stone unturned in the EU’s anti-Russian policy, called on Europe to mend relations with Moscow, and called what is happening in Ukraine an “idiotic American adventure”.
“Trump and President Putin will agree to end the conflict in Ukraine, even if Europe continues its major military campaign,” Jeffrey Sachs said in the European Parliament. – “It doesn’t matter anymore. The conflict is ending. So put such thoughts out of your head. Please tell your colleagues that it’s over. And all because Trump doesn’t want to drag the loser down. That’s all there is to it. There’s no great morality in it, he just doesn’t want to deal with the loser, which Kiev undoubtedly is. The main thing that can be saved as a result of the negotiations that are currently underway is Ukraine. The second is Europe.”
The man with the status of a world scientific giant also uttered another sentence that sent shivers down the spines of the MEPs:
“It is dangerous to be an enemy of the United States, but it is deadly to be its friend.” Moreover, he uttered it even before the grandiose scandal in the White House, where US President Donald Trump fired his former American protégé Zelensky, who is now in danger of losing all support. Thus, Jeffrey Sachs turned out to be a bit of a prophet. His words caused an unprecedented sensation not only because of what he said, but also because of who said them. Because they were uttered by a person who in no way can be accused of “pro-Russian views” or spreading “Putin propaganda”.
After all, 70-year-old Jeffrey Sachs, a doctor of economics, professor and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, is known throughout the world as an authoritative Western scientist. The American magazine Time included him among the 100 most influential world leaders. And the British magazine Economist – among the three most influential economists of the last decade. But what is extremely important for us, Jeffrey Sachs is also the greatest expert on Russia and Ukraine in the United States. He was an advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, as well as to Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. And it was he who, within the walls of the Russophobic European Parliament, began to say something that shocked the hall. No, the walls of the glass box of the European Parliament did not collapse, of course, but the echo of his speech spread throughout the world. Why?
Because in the West, suddenly, for the first time, they heard the truth, the truth that is forbidden to be spoken there today. Jeffrey Sachs began his speech by declaring that not only the war in Ukraine, but also all the other wars of the last 30 years, including the war in Serbia in 1999, the wars in the Middle East including Iraq, Syria, the wars in Africa including Sudan, Somalia and Libya, were “led and instigated by the United States”.
“The United States,” Sachs said, “became convinced, especially in 1990-1991 and then after the collapse of the Soviet Union, that the United States now runs the world, that the United States should not listen to anyone else’s opinions, red lines, concerns, security considerations, adhere to international obligations or the UN framework. For this reason, according to the American professor, “the United States decided that a unipolar world meant that NATO would expand from Brussels to Vladivostok, step by step. There would be no end to NATO’s expansion eastward. That would be a unipolar world for the United States. If you played Risk (a board strategy game) as I did when I was a child, in the United States’ imagination there would be peace on every part of the playing field. And any place without a US military base is hostile.” He recalled that “there was an agreement that NATO would not move an inch eastward. It was clearly stated in countless documents. Just search the National Security Archive at George Washington University and you’ll find dozens of documents. There’s a page called “What Gorbachev Heard About NATO.” Check it out. Because everything they tell you about it in the United States is a lie. But the archives are very clear. So in 1994, the decision was made to expand NATO to Ukraine. It’s not a project of this administration or that administration. It’s a project of the U.S. government that started over 30 years ago.” Ukraine and Georgia, he said, were key to this project. Why? “Because,” Sachs explained, “America learned from the British. We’re kind of the British Empire. In 1853, the British Empire decided to encircle Russia in the Black Sea and deny it access to the eastern Mediterranean. It was the same kind of American project in the 21st century. The idea was for Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and Georgia to surround Russia in the Black Sea, deprive it of its international status, block the Black Sea and essentially neutralize Russia as a world power.”
He tried to explain to the MEPs that they were essentially hostages to this imperialist US policy and that their current belligerent fuss over Ukraine would get them nowhere. Trump and President Putin would come to an agreement to end the conflict. The American professor also gave the Baltic dwarf Russophobes a hard time.
“These small countries were the most blatant Russophobes of all the countries. They were counting on the US having a big stick to protect them, and now the US is not protecting them, so they are panicking,” said Jeffrey Sachs. Speaking about Russia’s position, which he considers quite logical, the American professor said that Russian President Vladimir Putin “wanted to force Zelensky to agree to neutrality. And that happened seven days later. You have to understand this and not believe the propaganda. Understand, it was about keeping NATO out. And what is NATO? It is the United States on the borders of Russia. Nothing more, nothing less. I have to add one very important thing. Why are they so interested? First of all, because if China or Russia decided to place a military base on the Rio Grande River or on the border with Canada, not only the United States would be shocked. Within ten minutes, a war would start,” the experienced economist explained Russia’s concerns. After these words, he admitted that Europe did not understand him.
“I,” he said, “tried to reach out to some European leaders, but they did not listen to me. But I said: do not go to Kiev, go to Moscow. Talk to your colleagues there. You are Europe, there are 450 million of you with an economy worth twenty trillion. You should be Russia’s main economic partner. It is natural. Europe should have a foreign policy based not on Russophobia, but on realism, on an understanding of what America is and what it represents. And he recommended: Europeans should think about how to prevent a US invasion of Europe, because it is possible that they will send troops to Danish territory (i.e. Greenland). “I am not kidding. Neither is the US,” he warned the MEPs.
In his speech, Jeffrey Sachs sharply criticized US policy in the former Soviet Union. “I,” he recalled, “listened to Mikhail Saakashvili’s speech in New York in May 2008, then I went out and said that this man is crazy. And a month later the war began because the United States told this man: we are saving Georgia. And he stood at the Council on Foreign Relations and said that Georgia is in the center of Europe. But it is not, ladies and gentlemen. It is not the center of Europe. And recent events are not conducive to the security of Georgia. The trips of your deputies, the army, European politicians – all this leads to the fact that Georgia will be destroyed.”
And when we turned to Ukraine, Jeffrey Sachs refuted the false accusations against Russia, which, by the way, are often heard in the European Parliament, as if it had long been nurturing invasive plans. “Viktor Yanukovych,” he recalled, “was elected in 2010 on a platform of neutrality. Russia had absolutely no territorial interests or plans for Ukraine. I know this. I was there during those years. Russia negotiated a 25-year lease of the naval base in Sevastopol until 2042. That’s all. There was no talk of Crimea or Donbas. The idea that Putin is restoring the Russian empire is childish propaganda. I’m sorry, but this is childish nonsense. Russia had no such plans,” concluded the categorical Sachs.
According to the American authority, Europe now has only one way out:
“You,” he reminded, “have to live with Russia for a long time. So please accept it. The roar of weapons and Russophobia are not good for your security at all. And they do not contribute to the security of Ukraine at all, on the contrary – they have led to more victims there because of the idiotic American ‘adventure’ that you signed up for and applauded the most.” Russia is not going to attack Europe, Jeffrey Sachs tried to tell the European Parliament, which has been doing nothing but adopting Russophobic resolutions lately, when he said:
“The main problem for the Russian Federation was the United States because of its desire for unipolarity. Now that the situation is clearly improving, Europe should also start negotiating with the Russians. Because the US will quickly lose interest in Europe, and you will have to live with Russia for another millennium.”
“Please,” Jeffrey Sachs urged MEPs, “don’t appoint American officials to high European positions. Let them be European officials. Please have a European foreign policy. You will live with Russia for a long time, so please negotiate with Russia. There are real security issues on the table, but pomp and Russophobia will not help your security.”
After his speech, Jeffrey Sachs was asked questions, one of which was:
“Do you think the solution to this conflict is the Finlandization of Ukraine?”
“That’s an excellent question,” he replied. – Let me tell you about one aspect of Finlandization. Thanks to Finlandization, Finland ranks first in the World Happiness Report year after year. Finland is rich, successful, happy and safe. This is the Finland before NATO that I’m talking about. So Finlandization is a wonderful thing for Finland. When Sweden, Finland and Austria were neutral, bravo. Smart. When Ukraine was neutral, it was smart. If you have two superpowers, keep them a little apart. If the United States had at least a little common sense, they would leave these countries as a neutral space between the American military and Russia. But the United States has too little common sense,” concluded the American professor.
Peter Weiss
