By Robert A Emmanuel
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Prime Minister Gaston Browne has ignited controversy by saying he supports Russia in its ongoing war against Ukraine – and by calling the Ukraine President “senseless” for seeking to join NATO.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was initially described by Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “special military operation” to “demilitarise” and “de-Nazify” the Donbas region in Ukraine.
Speaking on his weekly radio programme on Saturday, the Prime Minister claimed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was wrong for seeking to join NATO – the North Atlantic Treaty Organization—stating that he couldn’t envision himself sending his people to war.
NATO was formed in 1949 by a dozen countries, including the US, UK, France and Canada, to block expansion by the then Soviet Union. Russia has consistently opposed the idea of Ukraine joining the body, fearing it would bring the alliance’s forces too close to its own territory.
“If I was the Ukrainian leader, there is no way I would subject my people and my country to the kind of destruction to be part of NATO and I don’t think that [Russia’s] request was necessarily unreasonable,” Browne said.
Claiming that he relayed this sentiment to the newly appointed US ambassador for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean Roger Nyhus, Browne compared the US and European support for Ukraine to the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba during the 1960s.
The Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961 was a failed coup of the Fidel Castro regime in Cuba, led by the USA’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) using American-trained Cuban exiles.
The plan to topple the Cuban government, which was crafted under President Dwight Eisenhower, continued by then newly inaugurated President John F Kennedy who took office a month prior to the invasion.
Prime Minister Browne claimed that he doesn’t believe that annexing Ukraine was the motivation for Russia.
He noted that Russia and Ukraine “were practically one and the same” due to their shared history as members of the Soviet Union—alongside Belarus, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.
However, Browne claimed that “Putin and the Russian administration tried to take a position of ‘look we don’t want NATO on our doorsteps, just as you didn’t want Russia on your doorsteps’”.
“And I suspect that the President of Ukraine, he engaged in this senseless war, literally destroyed his country thinking that he had the support of the European and the North Americans which he did at the time, but if you notice the support is dwindling and Russia is still standing,” he claimed.
Recently, the European Union passed a US$54 billion aid package for Ukraine following months of standoff with fellow European country Hungary which threatened to veto any bill in the European Parliament.
In the United States, Republican politicians have spent the last few months stonewalling any effort by Democratic Senators to provide aid for Ukraine by tying it to a deal on addressing the US southern border—which looks unlikely to pass as former President Donald Trump hopes to use immigration as a political talking point in the lead-up to the November general election.
In Russia, many persons—especially the wives of conscripted Russians—have protested the ongoing war, demanding the safe return of their husbands and sons—in defiance of Russian law which has stifled dissent in relation to the war.
Prime Minister Browne claimed that Ukraine will “have to surrender” and “not bother to join NATO”.
“Now, I recognise that there are many other neighbouring European countries that are rushing to join NATO, and I can understand why because, with the conflict in Ukraine, they are concerned that it could spill over to them as they could suffer a similar fate, but I believe that all of that could have been avoided,” Browne added.
Observer media reached out to Foreign Minister EP Chet Greene for comment, who said, “The government and people of Antigua and Barbuda continue to show sympathy for the plight of the Ukrainian people and we will continue to support their cause in the international community.”
Observer also contacted the Ukrainian embassy in the United States, and the US Embassy for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, for comments. Those efforts were unsuccessful up to press time.
