A former senior Biden administration official admitted during a recent interview with who she thought were aides to Ukraine\u2019s president that the Russian invasion of Ukraine could have been averted if Kyiv had agreed to stop seeking NATO membership.<\/p>\n
Amanda Sloat \u2013 a former special assistant to then-President Joe Biden and senior director for Europe at the National Security Council \u2013 believed she was speaking with aides to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week when she sat down for a phone interview<\/a> with who turned out to be the Russian prankster duo known as Vovan and Lexus.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had some conversations even before the war started about, what if Ukraine comes out and just says to Russia, \u2018Fine, you know, we won\u2019t go into NATO, you know, if that stops the war, if that stops the invasion\u2019 \u2013 which at that point it may well have done,\u201d Sloat said. \u201cThere is certainly a question, three years on now, you know, would that have been better to do before the war started, would that have been better to do [at the] Istanbul talks<\/a>? It certainly would have prevented the destruction and loss of life.\u201d<\/p>\n However, Biden officials chose not to address Russia\u2019s main concerns regarding Ukraine and NATO \u2013 with disastrous results.<\/p>\n Sloat explained that she \u201cwas uncomfortable with the idea of the US pushing Ukraine\u201d against pursuing NATO membership, \u201cand sort of implicitly giving Russia some sort of sphere of influence or veto power on that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think [then-President Joe] Biden felt like it was his place to tell Ukraine what to do then, to tell Ukraine not to pursue NATO,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n