These days, saying Russia's war in Ukraine is "unprovoked" is a must.  There are some notable exceptions from a few American "dissidents," who say Russia was provoked, but their opinions are dismissed at best or submerged in name-calling at worst. I'd leave it up to those who will read this article to the end to decide who is right.

This subject is important for someone who was born in Ukraine, studied in Russia, and worked in America; who has relatives and friends in all three countries; and who for almost three dozen years has been doing his best to make them all friends and even allies.

Instead, all three are now at war, even if some call the U.S. war only a war "by proxy."  This looks like a total failure of my efforts, but I hope this short summary clears a bit the fog of war, which might help in the search to avoid a worst-case scenario.   

I'd start with the 1992 New Year's Eve celebration, when about 300 American businessmen, some with their families, descended on the Kremlin, where they were joined by the Russian Who's Who and U.S. ambassador James Collins.  A Russian military ensemble performed American music, with soloists singing "God Bless America."  U.S. approval among Russians at that time was well over 80%.  In a symbolic gesture, the mayor of Moscow transferred to the recently registered American University in Moscow a downtown mansion that had previously housed the Communist Party's young leaders' school, plus a 200-acre estate that previously held dachas of members of the Politburo, including Brezhnev's, for our future campus. 

Vice President Dan Quayle sent me a personal letter of congratulations on behalf of President Bush.  But I didn't forget my home country, and at the same time, I was also working on the establishment of the American University in Ukraine.

The good times had arrived, the sky was the limit, and my dreams were coming true.  But while many Americans, were ready to turn former foes into friends, other powerful groups had opposite ideas.  A distinguished American diplomat and former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, George Kennan, was a more realistic thinker when he said a few years earlier that "were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented.  Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy."      

With George H.W. Bush in the White House, hope for a better future remained.  But after Bill Clinton won the 1992 election, the Washington foreign policy establishment, sometimes called the "Deep State," was no longer interested in our ideas.  The euphoria about winning the Cold War, and the dawning of what they saw as an era of a unipolar world under total American leadership — some called it hegemony — made them believe that Russia and her interests were no longer relevant.  In their calculations, from now on, Moscow would have no choice but to obey orders from Washington since it had nowhere else to go.

Worse than that, under the leadership of Clinton-Gore and their top Russian adviser, Strobe Talbott, the greatest robbery of the 20th century had begun.  There are many stories with the details of this robbery, including the congressional report "Russia's Road to corruption."  This is what one of the most outspoken current critics of Russia said in the 1999 Washington Post article titled ""Who Robbed Russia?": "What makes the Russian case so sad is that the Clinton administration may have squandered one of the most precious assets imaginable — which is the idealism and goodwill of the Russian people as they emerged from 70 years of Communist rule.  The Russia debacle may haunt us for generations."

Even worse than that, at the same time, Clinton and Talbott also started the push for NATO expansion, despite strong objections from many strategically thinking American experts.  Among them was George Kennan, who called it a "fatal foreign policy mistake"; a majority of the members of the Arms Control Association; and many others.  New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said that "NATO expansion would open the door to future nuclear war."

Our Ukrainian friends had a different agenda, saying that, free from the communist yoke and having strong industrial and agricultural sectors, a favorable climate, and fertile land, their country had great potential to become one of the most prosperous European nations.  Effective anti-corruption reforms, a certain level of autonomy for the regions with large Russian ethnic population, and neutral status with no membership in any military blocs would have made Ukraine definitely a happy and prosperous state.

This is why in May 1993 we brought legislators from Russia's Duma and Ukraine's Rada to Washington to present these ideas to power brokers, but no one was interested.  At the same time, the U.S. did not leave Russia and Ukraine alone.  Yankees didn't go home.  Billions of American tax dollars were poured in Ukraine — not to boost its economy, but to reformat public opinion that was predominantly in favor of neutral status and against joining NATO.  This led to the Washington-inspired and supported first 2004 "Orange" color revolution, and then in 2013, a second one called "Maidan" that led to the installation of pro-NATO government.

All the media attention in Victoria Nuland's leaked phone call with the U.S. ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, discussing the details of the coup two weeks before it actually happened on February 22, 2014, was concentrated on her expletive language towards the E.U.  However, almost totally ignored is that a few seconds later, she also mentioned her constant briefings with Sullivan and added, "Biden willing." 

One should note the disgraceful position of the U.S. mainstream media.  Ashley Rindsberg in The Spectator called the anti-Russian hysteria there the "media's Vietnam."  Actually, I think that what is happening now in Ukraine is worse than the American wars in Vietnam and the Middle East, starting with Iraq.  At that time, one at least could use a fight with communism or terror as a pretext.  Here, we see a policy of provoking, funding, and prolonging a war between two Christian nations that lived together for over three centuries and are bound together by close historical, religious, economic, cultural, and family ties.  

One phone call from Biden to Putin prior to February 24, 2022, with a pledge to guarantee Ukraine's neutral status, would have ensured that there would be no war.  Russia's other security concerns could then be negotiated in a calm working atmosphere.

It is obvious, and no one is hiding the fact, that the collective West under current U.S. leadership wants to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia without going to war directly, but rather by using Ukrainians as cannon fodder.  How all this corresponds to Western, or in broader terms Jewish and Christian, values is hard to explain.  Besides, according to Russian military doctrine, in case of the approach of such a defeat, Moscow will use nuclear weapons.

Frankly, even being an optimist by nature, in this case, I don't feel much hope in avoiding what Senator Sam Nunn, former secretary of defense William Perry, and many other leading American experts called the process of "sleepwalking into a nuclear catastrophe."

All of the above might be viewed as "voice in the bewilderment," but I hope it will at least help to clear a bit the smog of this war and make policy-makers think about how to avoid a looming disaster.

Edward Lozansky is president of the American University in Moscow.

Image via Pxfuel.