Did Richard Nixon see Russia-Ukraine war coming? Decades-old letter to Bill Clinton shows

Richard Nixon appears to have predicted the raging war between Russia and Ukraine almost three decades ago, a newly declassified letter has revealed. According to the Wall Street Journal, the 37th US President penned a missive a month before his died in April 1994. 

In the note addressed to Bill Clinton, he informed the then-president about what he saw during his two-week tour to Russia and Ukraine, warning that an intense conflict is brewing between the two nations. The seven-page letter, dated 21, 1994, detailed how Moscow could soon fall into the hands of an authoritarian leader, much like current president Vladimir Putin. 

Nixon, who was 81 at the time and the first US president to visit the Russian capital, told Clinton that Russia's democracy under then-President Boris Yeltsin was in jeopardy. “As one of Yeltsin’s first supporters in this country and as one who continues to admire him for his leadership in the past, I have reluctantly concluded that his situation has rapidly deteriorated since the elections in December, and that the days of his unquestioned leadership of Russia are numbered,” he wrote.

“His drinking bouts are longer and his periods of depression are more frequent. Most troublesome, he can no longer deliver on his commitments to you and other Western leaders in an increasingly anti-American environment in the Duma and in the country," the erstwhile American president added. 

Clinton remembers Nixon's advice, years later

He also warned that the ties between Russia and Ukraine could get dangerously severed and the situation in the latter was “highly explosive.” “If it is allowed to get out of control, it will make Bosnia look like a PTA garden party," he told Clinton. Furthermore, he advised him to maintain a strong relationship with Yeltsin and his successors.

The letter, which was declassified by the Clinton presidential library, stuck with the 42nd US president. In 2013, Clinton recalled Nixon's prophecy and wished that he could call him and ask "what he thought about this issue or that problem, particularly if it involved Russia."