Barack Obama: The Ukrainians have surprised us, Putin I've all known him to be ruthless

In an interview with The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, former US president in 2008-2016, Barack Obama says that despite failing to recognise Putin today. He names the Russian invasion of Ukraine tragic, adding that many things could have been done differently eight years ago. But according to him, the US was at the time suspicious of Ukrainians' determination to fight, while Europeans were divided in their report to Putin.

What you think of war in Ukraine, judged by the knowledge you have on Vladimir Putin. You've met him many times.

It's a tragedy of historical proportions. Putin represented a very special response to the ideals of democracy, but also to globalisation, the clash of cultures, the ability to exploit anger and frustration over an ethno-nationalist mythology.

And what we're seeing is the consequences of that kind of toxic mix into the hands of an autocratic government that doesn't have much control and balance. This war is a reminder that democracies had become dim, confused and uncertain about the dangers emerging on the horizon.

Do you include American democracy here?

Yeah, sure. We've become self-sufficient, but I can't guarantee that as a result of what's happening, we're correcting things. As a man who has faced the Russian Inquisition in Crime and in the eastern parts of Ukraine, I feel encouraged by Europe's reaction, because in 2014, I often had to drag “to raise my voice to understand the importance of what had happened.

As for Putin, I'm not sure that the person I once met is the same as the person who now runs this war. He has always been ruthless. You saw what he did in Chechnya. He had no problem crushing those whom he considered a threat.

But that he would take this step in Ukraine in this way, I wouldn't necessarily have predicted it five years ago. There have been speculations about his psychological state, sickness, aging, isolation during the Paddy-19 pandemic. But no one could even predict the reaction level.

Are you talking about Ukrainian resistance?

What about the high level of resistance, leading a young politician like Voldymyr Zelensky? After 2014, many national feelings continued to be strengthened, and ironically, the annexation of the Crimea and some eastern territories by Putin made clear to Ukrainians what they represented. I think they have the potential to prevent a maximum victory by Putin, and in the long term, that could allow an independent Ukraine.

Do you think Ukraine can win? And what can be called victory by your definition?

We're seeing the destruction of cities, the population leaving. It's hard to talk about a Ukraine victory. And I think it's too early to say what the end of this conflict might be. I think what we can do is support and encourage as much.

Second, we have to read this war as a lesson for which Ukrainians are unfortunately paying a very high price. What is happening in Ukraine is not isolated, we are seeing a return to the old ways of thinking about power, country and identity.

And I think some of our complacency came from the notion that once the Berlin Wall fell, we realized that we had finished the mission. After 60 million people died in World War II, we created a group of institutions and tried to reconfigure the way we could organize our societies.

But they shouldn't get well. We must constantly feed this system

and react to new circumstances, whether these changes in technology, changes in globalization, climate change, etc. And this is something I think we haven't done well enough.

A final question on the matter. If you were to go back to 2013-2014, do you think you could have done more against Putin's intentions in Donbas and Crime?

Not really, because the circumstances were different. The Crimean population had a different attitude toward Russia from the rest. The situation in the east was more complex, and we as a U.S. had a very strong answer, which, as I said, required much work with Europeans.

Ukraine itself was different back then. We were also concerned about not giving Putin an excuse for further encouragement. Many of the arguments then involved arming Ukraine. However, if there was anything more I could have done, it was against the disinformation campaign that was being used as a weapon against us from Moscow. I think I underestimated the degree in which democracies were equally vulnerable to it.

Despite the internet, globalisation, and everything else, most Russians, seem to have very little information that Ukraine is not an aggressor nation, that it is not run by neo-nazis, and so on. How can this strong network of censorship be broken into authoritarian regimes?

I don't think there's an easy solution. We've seen brave journalists. You saw a journalist with a hand sign that came in front of live broadcast cameras to say “this you're hearing is all a lie”, which was quickly printed. But that episode shows that it is possible to inform the public. /abcnews.al/