Obama administration ‘contributed’ to Ukraine crisis - foreign policy analyst

The Obama administration in the United States “has contributed to the crisis” in Ukraine, a foreign policy analyst said in an interview with the New Republic, a liberal American magazine.

Dmitri K. Simes, the president of The Center for the National Interest and publisher of the foreign policy journal The National Interest, said “there was a legitimate government in Kiev, led by President Viktor Yanukovych.”

Ukraine’s legitimate leader Yanukovych was ousted in a violent uprising in February. He fled Ukraine. The Ukrainian parliament appointed an interim head of state, set early presidential elections and approved a new government. With all his drawbacks, Yanukovych “was legally elected,” Simes said. “He commanded a clear majority in the Ukrainian parliament. And essentially the United States and the European Union have decided to side with the protesters.”

“If they were using that kind of force and those techniques against a friendly government, we would not call them protesters, we would call them rebels,” he said. “We have sided with these protesters slash rebels. We used them to pressure Yanukovych to negotiate a deal, which the European governments fully endorsed, and which had the support of the Obama administration,” Simes said. “We have to realize, that as we were applying this pressure on the Ukrainian political process to promote those we favor, we clearly were rocking the political boat in Ukraine, a country deeply divided, a country with different religions, different histories, different ethnicities,” the analyst said. “And it was that process of rocking the boat that led to the outcome we have seen,” he said.