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Author : Armen Oganesyan
Editor-in-Chief of International Affairs
THE TITLE needs a question mark. Indeed,
did the Big Three halt a step away from global
cooperation? How many mines were laid under
the alliance and partnership and when? Natalia
Narochnitskaia once said that "Yalta and
counter-Yalta were born together."
Reports from the battlefields were heard and
discussed yet each of the participants was even
more worried about the post-war future.
France, weakened by the war and occupation
and the coming routing of Germany, created a
great geopolitical hole on the continent, leaving the Big Three with the responsibility for the fu-
ture of Europe. The war-scarred continent expected novel approaches; there was a shared real-
ization that the world should and would change.
In less than a week, the Soviet Union launched the Vistula-Oder offensive against the German
Group A and pushed 500 km into the enemy territory. The Germans and Allies were shocked.
Earlier a German tank offensive to the depth of 90 km had created a critical situation for the
Allies in the Ardennes. British and American generals begged Churchill to ask Stalin to take
measures. The results of the "measures taken" stunned all. The Allies had never expected such
result of the military operation which affected, to a great extent, the atmosphere in Yalta.
This operation no matter how brilliant could not change all. Churchill knew only too well how
the burden of warfare was distributed among the Allies.
Churchill's attitude to Russia was mixed to say the least. Here we are now in the Livadia Palace,
the summer house of the Russian royal family. There was time when Churchill had said a lot of
warm words about the Russian army and Nicholas II as the army leader.
It seems that the British premier knew about the critical nature of land tilling in Russia and that
amid militant atheism Russians retained much of their religious feelings.
In spring 1945, the cannonade in Europe was heard in Yalta. Churchill and Roosevelt pursued
different aims. Roosevelt wanted the Soviet Union to join the war against Japan as soon as pos-
sible while Churchill needed free hands in Greece and the Mediterranean.
It has become a cliche (used here as well) to talk about the Yalta Conference as a symbol of
global governance which allows Great Powers impose their will on smaller peoples. We should
not forget that at all times Great Powers assumed responsibility for the fates of smaller nations
or even regions. Suffice it to mention three partitions of Poland in the eighteenth century, the
recent division of Yugoslavia or what is called Euro-Atlantic or Brussels discipline... Yalta-45
was no exception in this respect very much in line with the course of history.
The Soviet Union, United States and United Kingdom: A Step
Away From Global Cooperation