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US President Joe Biden meets Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, US, December 21, 2022. Photo/REUTERS
KIEV – A growing number of observers are drawing parallels between the chaos and devastation engulfing Afghanistan during 20 years of US and NATO-led war and occupation, and the crisis in Ukraine.
A Western-backed coup in Ukraine in 2014 led to civil war in Donbass, and eventually culminated in a full-scale NATO-Russia proxy war.
Former Prime Minister (PM) of Ukraine Nikolai Azarov insists President Volodymyr Zelensky’s legacy is turning his country into a “new Afghanistan”.
“For years, the president of Ukraine promised to turn the country into a new France or a new Switzerland. However, Zelensky went further than anyone and turned the country into a new Afghanistan, to the delight of Anglo-Saxons and defense companies,” Azarov wrote in a post. social media.
“What do you think? Is there a chance that Washington will get tired of his ‘toys’ in the future? Or is the pleasure of toying with Russia more important than the lives of the hostages of the Kiev regime?” asked the politician.
In an interview with Sputnik earlier this month, Azarov detailed the roles the United States and Britain played in turning Ukraine into a failed state, recalling how, in the nine years since the 2014 Euromaidan coup, the country’s population halved, a disaster not witnessed even during the World Wars. Second.
Characterizing Zelensky as an empty vessel and tool of Western power and oligarchic interests who care more about profits and popularity abroad than the Ukrainian people, Azarov expects him to suffer the same fate as his pro-Western predecessor Viktor Yushchenko.
Azarov served as prime minister of Ukraine from 2002-2005, 2006-2007 and 2010-January 2014, presiding over Ukraine’s strongest economic growth in post-Soviet history.
He was forced to resign in early 2014 amid street protests in Kiev, weeks before the Euromaidan coup ousted President Viktor Yanukovych.
Azarov is not the first to draw comparisons between his country’s crisis and the 20-year war in Afghanistan, with independent observers characterizing both conflicts as opportunities for the US military-industrial complex to secure massive new defense contracts.
But he warned Ukraine could become the next Washington-style “forever war”.
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