RFK Jr. talks Ukraine, COVID-19, the CIA and border crisis

By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Tuesday, August 22, 2023

Kennedy rejects ‘comic book depiction’ of Russia-Ukraine conflict

Kennedy described the media’s portrayal of the Russia-Ukraine conflict as a “comic book depiction” with Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “bad guy who’s … unspeakably evil who’s planning world conquest or a terrorist attack.” On the other hand, the U.S. is portrayed as “the good guys” that have to push back. Kennedy contended that in reality, the situation is “much more complex.”

“A group of people that are known as neocons since 2001 have been talking about putting NATO in Ukraine,” Kennedy said. He recalled how, at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union a decade earlier, Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev removed troops from East Germany and former Soviet states. His actions enabled the reunification of West and East Germany in addition to paving the way for former Soviet states to become independent nations.

Gorbachev did so on the condition that NATO, an alliance of nations set up to counter the aggression of the Soviet Union, never expand east of Germany. Kennedy outlined how Russia has consistently viewed the presence of NATO in Ukraine as a red line in light of the fact that “the Russians were invaded three times through Ukraine.”

“The last time they were invaded, Hitler killed between 20 million and 40 million Russians,” he added. His uncle, former President John F. Kennedy, worked to communicate to the American people that the Russians won World War II, with the younger Kennedy summarizing his point as “the sacrifice they made to destroy Hitler was beyond anything Americans can imagine.”

Half a century later, Kennedy contended that the neocons, whom he characterized as people who believe the U.S. has an obligation to lead the free world following its victory in the Cold War, fail to recognize this historical context and have taken actions that have escalated tensions in Eastern Europe. According to Kennedy, in 2014, rioters overthrew the democratically elected government in Ukraine that had elected not to choose between Russia and the West.

Kennedy stated that neocons worked to ensure that a U.S.-backed government took its place. He told Carlson that the U.S.-backed government made the Russian language illegal in parts of Ukraine with a predominantly Russian heritage, prompting an effort by Russia to formulate an agreement between France, Germany and Ukraine to make the region semi-autonomous so it could remain part of Ukraine while continuing to speak Russian.

While Ukraine refused to ratify the agreement, now-Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ran for office on a platform of signing it. Kennedy suggested that American neocons, along with Ukrainian “ultra-nationalists,” talked him out of doing so. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year that provoked the current conflict, Zelenskyy and Putin had agreed to a peace deal effectively achieving the same goal as the previously unsigned agreement but Biden and other Western leaders worked to “torpedo” it.

Kennedy cited “regime change in Russia” as the goal of the neocons and the Biden administration, accusing them of misleading the American public to achieve that objective by presenting American intervention in Ukraine as an effort to protect Ukrainian sovereignty.