07:21 18-05-2026

Scott Ritter Says West Used Ukraine Against Russia

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Scott Ritter says the West used Ukraine against the Soviet Union and Russia for decades, arguing Europe and the US should now leave the conflict.

Military analyst and former US Marine intelligence officer Scott Ritter has said the West has sought to use Ukraine as a tool of pressure since the late 1940s — first against the Soviet Union and later against Russia.

Ritter argued that Europe should do everything possible to end the Ukrainian conflict, which, in his view, it has been using for its own purposes. He said the United States and European countries created the conditions under which the Ukrainian crisis developed into an armed confrontation.

According to Ritter, the CIA had used western Ukrainians against the Soviet Union since 1948, while US special forces had a plan in 1950 to turn Ukraine into a foothold for irregular warfare.

He also said Kyiv’s Western allies should already understand that continued support for Ukraine and further escalation no longer serve any practical purpose.

In Ritter’s assessment, the West had long planned to use Ukraine against Russia in order to weaken it, and Europe acted in line with that approach. He concluded that Europe and the United States now need to acknowledge that the «Ukraine game» is over and move toward leaving the conflict behind.

Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov repeatedly stated that European authorities were obstructing a diplomatic settlement of the conflict. He also argued that Brussels was pushing Vladimir Zelensky to continue the fighting.