Valéry Marie René Georges Giscard d'Estaing
Valéry Marie René Georges Giscard d'Estaing, also known as Giscard or VGE, is a French centrist politician and a member of the Constitutional Council of France. He served as President of the French Republic from 1974 until 1981. Extensive excerpt from Isabelle Laserre's interview:
Isabelle Lasserre: How do you view the annexation of Crimea and the destabilization of eastern Ukraine by Russia?
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing: Concerning the "return" of Crimea to Russia, very frankly, I judge it in conformity with history. I've re-read books describing Russian history of the 18th century. Crimea was conquered in the reign of Catherine II, with the predominant lead of prince Potemkin, when Russia went south toward Turkey with the idea of reconquering Constantinople. The conquest of Crimea was rather harsh, but it was not at the detriment of Ukraine,
which did not exist, but at the expense of a local sovereign who depended on Turkey.
Since then, it has not been populated by anyone but Russians. When Nikita Khrushchev wanted to increase the weight of the Soviet Union in the UN, which was then aborning, he invented Ukraine and Bielorussia to give two more votes to the Soviet Union, and he gave Ukraine authority over Crimea that it had never had before. At the time, already, I thought this dependance was artificial, and that it would not last. The recent events were predictable. Further,
the return of Crimea to Russia has been largely approved by the population. It is only since the problems extended to the east of Ukraine that one gets worried.
IL: Numerous analysts and responsible politicians plead for a greater understanding regarding Vladimir Putin. Seeing that you've always been a supporter of detente vis-a-vis Moscow, during the Cold War as well as today, do you accept that one can thus violate international law and destabilize a country?
VGE: The conventional rules adopted at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 set the principle of respect for sovereignty and frontiers; in virtue of this principle, some suppose that Ukraine must absolutely keep the totality of territory that was theirs at the moment of Ukraine's independence in 1991. But let us not forget that the decomposition of the USSR happened in a stampede and provoked a crumbling of borders! But today, the question of Crimea ought be left aside. The matter of the east of Ukraine, though, is more difficult. Do not forget that Ukraine was long Russian; Kiev was the capital of Russia. Why, when I was finance minister, I went to the Soviet Union at the request of general De Gaulle, and Khrushchev received me in Kiev!
To see the matter clearly, you have to ask what really happened a year ago in the Ukrainian capital. What role did the CIA play in the Maidan revolution? What is the meaning of the systematic anti-Russian policy conducted by Barack Obama? Why did the US want to advance their pawns in Ukraine? Is there a potent Ukrainian lobby in the US? Do the Americans want to compensate for their impotence in the Middle East by conducting a harder policy against Russia on the European continent?
Comment: Interesting that no US judge would try any of these cases against the US citizens accused of the rape of young girls. Meanwhile, when three US military contractors on a 'drug surveillance' mission in Colombia were captured by FARC and held captive for 5 years, they were awarded $318 million by a US court. That's the American "justice" system.