Jesse Watters Blames Bill Clinton for Russian Invasion: ‘If He Had Just Let the Ukrainians Keep the Nukes’

Jesse Watters blamed former President Bill Clinton for Russian actions against Ukraine Monday, when he noted that the country would be more secure if it were still armed with nuclear weapons.

Cohosts of The Five discussed the ratcheting up of tensions in eastern Europe, as Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the deployment of “peacekeeping” forces into two breakaway regions of Ukraine. Putin recognized recognized those regions – Donetsk and Luhansk – as independent. Russia’s incursion is a violation of Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty.

U.S. government officials have warned for weeks that Putin is seeking a pretext to enter the country, which was once an important part the Soviet Union.

Ukraine is a conventional weapons state which surrendered its large arsenal of nuclear weapons to Russia in 1994 following the breakup of the Soviet Union and its independence. The historic disarmament came as Ukraine was politically unstable.

Clinton, in his second full year as president, helped broker a deal to send the weapons stockpile to Russia — wrapping up a saga that had created global tension.

Watters commented on Ukraine’s status as a state free of nukes on Monday amid a broader conversation about Putin’s apparent desire to annex more, if not all, of Ukraine’s territory.

The Fox News host demanded that President Joe Biden “come out without a mask and explain why Ukraine impacts this country.” He then blamed Clinton for the fact that Ukrainians are seemingly staring down the threat of a war:

Right now, the American people are not ready for this. Oil’s going to go up. Inflation will get worse. Democrats in the media are going to blame Russia. Do you know what’s going to happen? They just need another excuse, and that’s fine. But that’s not where we are. How did we get here? Bill Clinton forced the Ukrainians in the early 90s to give their nukes back to Russia. If he had just let the Ukrainians keep the nukes, Russia wouldn’t have gone in.

Watters concluded, “You don’t invade a nuclear power. He forced the nukes back to Russia, and now they’re sitting ducks for Putin.

As the Washington Post reported in 1994, Clinton brokered an agreement between the U.S., Russia and Ukraine “aimed at eliminating Ukraine’s nuclear arms in exchange for a broad range of political and economic benefits.”

The report noted:

The agreement, to be signed by the three leaders in Moscow on Friday, puts in place a process under which 1,800 warheads left in Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union would be dismantled and the highly enriched uranium within them processed into nuclear fuel for civilian use. Some details of the agreement are to remain secret. The elimination of nuclear weapons in Ukraine has been one of the most important policy goals of the past and current administrations in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse.

Clinton said at the time, “I have sought to ensure that the breakup of the Soviet Union does not result in the birth of new nuclear states which could raise the chances for nuclear accident, nuclear terrorism and nuclear proliferation.”

Watch above, via Fox News.