Madeleine Albright, just weeks before her death on Wednesday at the age of 84, predicted Russian President Vladimir Putin was “making a historic mistake” with what was then his planned military invasion of Ukraine.
“Should he invade, it will be a historic error,” Albright, the first woman to serve as U.S. secretary of state, warned in her final column for The New York Times published on Feb. 23.
“Instead of paving Russia’s path to greatness, invading Ukraine would ensure Mr. Putin’s infamy by leaving his country diplomatically isolated, economically crippled and strategically vulnerable in the face of a stronger, more united Western alliance,” she wrote.
Russian forces invaded Ukraine the following day.
Amid fierce Ukrainian resistance, up to 15,000 Russian troops are reported to have been killed to date. NATO allies have firmly denounced Putin’s aggression and economic sanctions imposed by the West are choking Russia’s economy.
Albright wrote of meeting Putin in 2000, when the then-acting Russian president “spoke unemotionally” about “his determination to resurrect Russia’s economy.”
In notes she recorded at the time, Albright described Putin as “small and pale” and “so cold as to be almost reptilian.” He “claimed to understand why the Berlin Wall had to fall but had not expected the whole Soviet Union to collapse,” she added. “Putin is embarrassed by what happened to his country and determined to restore its greatness.”