The West’s response to Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014 has been brought under fresh scrutiny this week – as outgoing NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg insisted the war in Ukraine may not have happened if the U.S. and NATO had a stronger response to that incursion.
"If we had delivered a fraction of the weapons we have delivered after 2022, we may have actually prevented the war," he said in an interview with Politico.
Stoltenberg, a Norwegian politician, led NATO from 2014 until last week.
President Biden reportedly expressed a similar sentiment.
"They f---ed up in 2014," Biden said, according to Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward’s upcoming book, "War," obtained by Fox News Digital.
"That’s why we are here," the 81-year-old said. "We f---ked it up. Barack never took [Russian President Vladimir] Putin seriously."
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"We did nothing. We gave Putin a license to continue!" the president went on. "Well, I’m revoking his f---ing license!"
In 2014, the Kremlin annexed the Crimean Peninsula after the so-called Revolution of Dignity, when Ukrainians ousted Moscow-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych. It was a quick and bloodless takeover. Russia flooded the regions with migrants and fended off Ukrainian efforts to take it back.
The Obama administration provided Ukraine with defensive weapons, sanctioned the Kremlin and kicked Russia out of the G-8, but some, even reportedly including Obama’s then-vice president, Biden, believe he should have done more.
It came as Russia had also invaded Ukraine’s Donbas region and shot down a Malaysia Airlines flight with nearly 300 people on board.
He stopped short of providing Ukraine with lethal weaponry. As president, Donald Trump reversed Obama’s policy, approving a plan to sell Ukraine Javelin missiles for $47 million.
In a 2014 interview with The Atlantic, Obama said he saw no benefit in the U.S. getting involved in the unfolding events in Europe related to Russia and Ukraine.
"The fact is that Ukraine, which is a non-NATO country, is going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what we do," Obama said. "This is an example of where we have to be very clear about what our core interests are and what we are willing to go to war for."
In 2012, Obama famously downplayed the threat of Russia during a debate with Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Romney had asserted that Russia was the U.S.’s greatest geopolitical foe.
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"The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years," Obama chided at the time.
He also tasked his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, with pursuing a "reset" in U.S.-Russia relations, scrapping plans by President George W. Bush to build a missile shield in Eastern Europe that Russia saw as a direct military threat. Putin called that decision "correct and brave."
Obama defended his 2014 policy in a 2023 interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.
"Ukraine of that time was not the Ukraine that we’re talking about today," Obama said. "There’s a reason there was not an armed invasion of Crimea, because Crimea was full of a lot of Russian speakers, and there was some sympathy to the views that Russia was representing."
The U.S. has offered some $175 billion in security assistance and financial aid since the outbreak of war in 2022.
Earlier this week, Ukraine struck a large oil terminal off the coast of Russian-occupied Crimea in the latest wave of attacks on Russian-controlled energy facilities.
