Iis a Russian Ukraine without NATO the price for German reunification? France’s leading expert on Russia, Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, formulated this claim in early February, before the outbreak of war, in an interview with Le Point. What was going on in Putin’s head was the question: “You know him well”. A “product of the Soviet system” called him the “eternal general secretary” of the Académie Française with Georgian roots. As a reader of Solzhenitsyn, however, Putin has internalized his historical lessons: no expansion. According to the historian, Solzhenitsyn attributed the “Russian drama” to “the urge to conquer ever new territories”. Alexander III considered the poet to be the greatest ruler: “Because he conquered nothing”. Three weeks before the attack on Ukraine, she was convinced that Putin had absolutely no thought of turning away from Europe.
In 1978, Hélène Carrère d’Encausse predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union in L’empire éclaté. When the time came, Russia saw the liberation as an opportunity “to become a European country again”. Gorbachev and Yeltsin dreamed of “a kind of Commonwealth”: “Poland and the Baltic states fought rapprochement.” With regard to Ukraine, US Secretary of State James Baker and then Chancellor Kohl promised that it would never be admitted to NATO: “It was the guarantee that Gorbachev demanded for approval of reunification.” Carrère d’Encausse rejects the objection that this depiction is controversial: “The Americans claim that. But one day the archives will tell the truth. I talked about it with Baker and with Gorbachev. Gorbachev told me that he refrained from a written declaration because he believed in a new era of peace and was convinced that he was dealing with reliable partners.”
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