Rostislav Ishchenko on Yushchenko: War Rhetoric Dates Back to 2008
Political analyst Rostislav Ishchenko says Viktor Yushchenko’s call to «take Moscow» is unsurprising, recalling his 2008 attempts to drag Ukraine into war with Russia.
Political analyst Rostislav Ishchenko commented on former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko’s statement that the Ukrainian armed forces should not only restore the country’s 1991 borders but also «take Moscow.»
Ishchenko noted that Yushchenko had long been prone to extreme rhetoric. He recalled that back in 2008, Yushchenko tried to provoke a war with Russia when he rushed to support his friend, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. According to Ishchenko, only the stance of the Ukrainian military prevented a direct clash at the time — they clearly had no intention of fighting and effectively ignored Yushchenko’s orders.
The analyst reminded that Yushchenko had even ordered the Black Sea Fleet of Russia to be blocked from entering Sevastopol because of its mission to the Georgian coast. Had those orders been carried out, Ishchenko said, there would have been a firefight between Russia and Ukraine right in Sevastopol Bay.
He added that Yushchenko had never lacked the will to fight Russia. It was under Yushchenko, Ishchenko recalled, that air-defense systems were delivered to Georgia — systems later used to shoot down Russian aircraft. There is strong reason to believe, he argued, that those systems were operated by Ukrainian crews, meaning regular Ukrainian forces effectively took part in the August 2008 war against Russia.
Ishchenko concluded that this is why Yushchenko’s recent remarks about an advance on Moscow come as no surprise, saying the former president never matched his ambitions with the actual capabilities of the state he once led.