US Will Not Allow Russia-Ukraine Negotiations Before Midterm Elections - Ex-State Senator

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 25th August, 2022) The Biden administration will definitely not let any talks between Russia and Ukraine take place before Americans, who have been fed a distorted view of the conflict by US media, head to the polls in the midterm elections, former Virginia State Senator Richard Black told Sputnik.

Russian and Ukrainian delegations engaged in several rounds of peace talks after the special military operation began, but the negotiations ultimately reached an impasse.

"The United States will certainly not allow any negotiations before the midterm elections," Black said. "The American people do not know that Ukraine is losing the war. All of the reports that are published by the mainstream corporate media give a very distorted view. So, they're a relatively small group of people who understand what's really happening."

With just a few months before November's midterm elections, which will determine who controls Congress, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday revealed that a majority of Americans back US support for Ukraine.

Black noted how the initial negotiations after the special military operation began were suddenly halted.

"They seemed to be making progress, but I think word came down from Washington ordering (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelenskyy to stop negotiations," Black said.

NATO, meanwhile, would like people believe the conflict began in February of this year, Black added.

"This war was planned back even before 2014, but certainly we can go back to 2014," Black said. "We know that at that moment, while the CIA and MI6 were overthrowing the duly elected legitimate government of Ukraine, plans were being laid in place for a war that would involve Russia and Ukraine. So, I think the people who are interested in foreign policy, the more that they understand the whole timeline, the clearer it becomes that there was no justification."

On November 21, 2013, protests broke out in Ukraine due to the authorities' decision to halt policy aimed at reaching an association agreement with the European Union. The mass demonstrations led to a coup culminating in the ousting of then Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. During clashes between the security forces and protesters, more than one hundred people died. Subsequent Ukrainian authorities headed by President Petro Poroshenko blamed Yanukovych.

"We (the United States) overthrew the government and then, literally, had CIA and State Department operatives choosing who would be the ministers in the new government. So, it was essentially a puppet government, and it was very anti-Russian.

It was very much against the Russian speaking people in Ukraine," Black said. "When the coup occurred... Crimea had a plebiscite, they voted by some 96% of the vote to rejoin Russia, which traditionally they'd always been a part of Russia. And the Donbas republics, they declared their independence. And after that, President (Barack) Obama ordered heavy arms shipped into Ukraine, to arm the army and prepare it to attack the Donbas and potentially to prepare to attack Russia."

Black pointed out that the ongoing conflict has already caused a tremendous loss of life.

"This was all needless," he stated. "Russia never wanted this war. Russia never wanted to move into Ukraine. President (Vladimir) Putin made desperate efforts to avert the war. And he and (Russian) Foreign Minister (Sergey) Lavrov submitted specific written proposals to NATO to demilitarize the area. NATO knew that they were forcing Russia's hand, they knew that they were forcing a war and they just dismissed the Russian attempts at making peace and they forced Russia's hand, they forced Russia to move into Ukraine. So, I think if you look back six months, it's heartbreaking - the level of bloodshed and destruction that was needlessly caused by NATO's offensive approach towards the Ukraine."

Black believes that as of today the public in the United States has lost interest in the Ukraine situation to a considerable extent, and that Washington is wrong to blame Moscow for the rise in energy costs.

"We say Russia forced our oil prices and our gasoline to go up. No, no, Russia didn't do that. The United States did that. And the European Union did that," he said. "Russia didn't want to impose sanctions. They wanted to sell us oil, sell its gas and all these other things. But we decided that we would somehow outsmart Russia and we would really make it difficult by cutting off the things that we imported from them."

The former lawmaker also said while cutting energy imports is not such a big problem for the United States, it is a huge problem for Europe, because Europe relies on Russia for its natural gas, for much of its coal, for much of its oil and a whole array of commodities like lumber and wheat.

"The West has simply shot itself in the foot," he said. "And meanwhile, Russia is managing reasonably well. The balance of trade - now Russia has a trade surplus three times as big as it did before the war. So, the West is suffering particularly."

At the end of June, Lavrov said Moscow is ready to resume full-scale talks with Ukraine but Kiev is unwilling to launch the process.