Speaking to Irish broadcaster RTÉ, former President Bill Clinton said that he feels personally responsible for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, due to his role in convincing Kyiv to surrender nuclear weapons in the aftermath of the Cold War, Newsweek reported.
"I feel a personal stake because I got them [Ukraine] to agree to give up their nuclear weapons," Clinton said "None of them believe that Russia would have pulled this stunt if Ukraine still had their weapons," he said.
As Newsweek points out, in 1994 Ukraine gave up the stockpile of nuclear weapons it had collected since the Cold War. "...some experts have disputed whether nuclear weapons remaining in Ukraine would have diverted the course of the current war," Newsweek's report stated. "Clara Guest, a research assistant in proliferation finance at King's College London, U.K. wrote in March 2022 that 'Ukraine would never have been able to maintain its nuclear weapons and facilities or manufacture and produce new components' given the lack of funds for the newly-independent country."
Clinton went on to say that he knew Russian President Vladimir Putin "did not support the agreement [then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin] made never to interfere with Ukraine's territorial boundaries—an agreement he made because he wanted Ukraine to give up their nuclear weapons."
"When it became convenient to him, President Putin broke it and first took Crimea," Clinton said. "And I feel terrible about it because Ukraine is a very important country."
