In recent years, the West has failed to grasp the fact that Russia was preparing for a full-scale war in Ukraine, and continued building up relations with the Kremlin. This turned out to be a grave mistake, Kurt Volker, the Special Representative of the U.S. Government for Negotiations on Ukraine in 2017-2019, said.

“We failed to adequately react to the “little green men” in Crimea and Donbas, because we really could not think or believe that Russia was trying to steal territories from Ukraine,” he said during the 15th annual Kyiv Security Forum, founded by the Open Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk Foundation.

“The Europeans did not supply weapons to Ukraine because they did not want to add fuel to the flame, we did not supply weapons to Ukraine until 2017 because we feared escalation of the conflict. During the Minsk negotiations, we claimed that we wanted Ukraine to implement and adopt the respective laws stipulated by the Minsk agreements. Still, no requirements were put to Russia, even though it failed implement the sole commitment of ceasefire – Russia was preparing for the next war,” said Volker.

According to him, due to the lack of awareness of this threat, the West has lost a lot of time and has not done anything that could make the war in Ukraine not attractive to Russia.

“I have to give credit to the Biden administration because they stood ready for a full-scale invasion and started arming Ukraine. Naturally, it might have been worth doing on a larger scale, and now it ought to be done on a much larger scale. Nevertheless, the United States and Europe have finally united in a true partnership regarding Ukraine, and this way we are rescuing the future of all European security,” said Volker.

The Kyiv Security Forum was held in the Ukrainian capital on May 25-26.