USSR's top leaders were still alive in 2014 when Putin used it as a pretext for the invasion of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea and talked about it in several interv

USSR's top leaders were still alive in 2014 when Putin used it as a pretext for the invasion of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea and talked about it in several interviews: * Shevardnadze, the minister of foreign affairs denied this and said that he did not discuss anything like that with anyone during his tenure.[1] * Yazov, the minister of defense said that he doesn't know anything about it either.[2] * Gorbachev, the general secretary of the communist party, called it "a myth" and said that you won't find anything in writing because there was no such agreement, and that had they had an agreement, they would've written it down.[2] Other figures, like Kozyrev, the first post-USSR Russian minister of foreign affairs, have used even harsher words, calling the story "simply nonsense", and people who keep repeating this fabrication "chumps and useful idiots".[3] [1] https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/interview-with-eduard-shevardnadze-we-couldn-t-believe-that-the-warsaw-pact-could-be-dissolved-a-663595.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/interview-with-e... [2] https://twitter.com/splendid_pete/status/1650735533826375680 https://twitter.com/splendid_pete/status/1650735533826375680 [3] https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/russias-ex-foreign-minister-on-his-totalitarian-country/ https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/russias-ex-foreign-ministe...