 Good morning and welcome. My name is Lise Grande. I'm the head of the United States Institute of Peace. Congress established us in 1984 as a public, nonpartisan, independent institute that's dedicated to helping prevent, mitigate, and resolve violent conflict abroad. We'd like to describe ourselves as the part of the government and the interagency that does conflict prevention. Our purpose today is to mark the second anniversary of Russia's brutal, full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the 10th anniversary of Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea. It's an honor for us to co-host this special event with the Atlantic Council. Joining us today are several former U.S. ambassadors to Ukraine. We have Ambassador John Herbst, Ambassador Steve Pfeiffer, John Teft, alongside Ambassador Bill Taylor, who is USIP's vice president for Europe, and Ambassador Masha Yavanovich. When Russian troops invaded Ukraine on the 24th of February in 2022, most people expected that Ukraine would fall to Russian troops in a matter of days. Ukraine, against all odds, still stands. This is because Ukrainians reject Russia's attempt to occupy them and are determined to defend their territory and protect their democracy. It's also the case because your many friends, because countries all around the world who are committed to freedom and the international rule of law are standing with Ukraine. We've stood with you for two years. We're going to keep standing with you, and we are determined to provide as much support as we possibly can. Two years on, while ally powers are grappling with war fatigue and some question whether they can continue their essential aid, some question. Ukraine continues to fight for its sovereignty and cultural heritage against one of the most aggressive countries in the world. As we think about the path forward and the many challenges that Ukraine and all of us are facing in trying to secure sustainable peace and security today is an opportunity of responsibility to remember and honor those who have fallen defending freedom. It's now my privilege to welcome to the stage Denis Stenek, the Deputy Chief of Mission for the Embassy of Ukraine. Thank you so much, Liz, and thank you, everyone, for being here. It's a really circle of friends, and I can feel that. And thank you for everything you do for Ukraine. You've been doing this terrible two years of full-scale aggression. For every word you say, for every message you bring here and elsewhere to help Ukraine fight for our common future. Cooperation and determination, these are my answers to the questions of ending the war and bringing peace closer. The less determined we are, the further putting encroaches on our boundaries. The Russia-Ukraine war has been going on for 10 years, as you know. Exactly 10 years ago, so-called little green man flooded Ukrainian peninsula. And unfortunately, the lack of robust international response has led us to what we have today. 200 rounds of talks between Russia and Ukraine took us nowhere between 2014 and 2022. All 20 ceasefire regimes were broken by Russia. So while we were seeking peace, putting was preparing for a major attack that shattered millions of Ukrainians two years ago. 220,000 Russian troops invaded Ukraine from nine directions, from the east, from south, and from the north. Most countries, as Lisa said, wouldn't believe that Ukraine would withstand. But we did. Under more than 3,000 guided moms since February 2022, more than 7,500 missiles, more than 3,700 Shahead drones. They were cost huge destruction, huge casualties. So many people died. So many people became victims of Russian war crimes, whether it's torture, it's rapes, it's using civilians as a human shield. Basically, whatever comes up to your mind about the war crime was there and is still there what Russians do to Ukrainians. Putin has made it clear that the only language he can speak is the language of force. And thanks to Ukrainian resilience, we were able to withstand in this genocidal war. But it is obvious that we would not have been able to do that without international support, without you. And I want to express my sincere gratitude to all Americans, to all of you, to all our partners around the world for standing with Ukraine in those difficult times. And not to allow Russians have that deadly advantage over Ukrainians. Thank you for all who understand that giving Ukraine weapons is not to escalate, but to deter the aggression. It's so important to keep that in mind. We've been feeling for so long that sense that, well, we don't want to escalate the situation on the ground. Not to provoke Putin to do even more harm. It doesn't work. And we have proven that with the necessary assistance, we can't show the results. We liberated 50% of Ukrainian territories occupied by Russians since 2022. We cleared the Black Sea from Russian military presence. We destroyed one third of Russian Black Sea fleet. It's a lot. We secured the grain corridor. And at the same time, we remain committed to conduct vital internal reforms in Ukraine to ensure the GDP grows, to ensure rebuilding the Ukrainian economy. And that's during the wartime. And at the same time, the total enemy losses far exceed the Ukrainian losses in times. But the difference is that we value every single Ukrainian life lost. Putin doesn't. And that is why he openly said that he is ready to send more and more Russian troops to die in Ukraine. And on the other hand, we can see that the lack of necessary resources leads to new territorial gains by Russia. And the example of Abdiyevka is evident, unfortunately. Ukraine is open to political settlement. Let me be clear. And that is why the president of Ukraine proposed the peace formula. And we are working on the first peace formula summit because it is the only realistic plan to restore Ukraine's territorial integrity and to ensure the just and lasting peace. However, as we talk about peace, we must be ready to win it. And in case with Russia, to win it by force. This year is crucial. Not only we, but Putin can feel the momentum. And robust steps must be taken. I'm talking about increased sanctions against Russia. Confiscation of Russian assets and diverting them to rebuild Ukraine's economy. Preparing grounds when putting faces, justice in front of the international tribunal. But this list will never be full without Ukraine being able to fight for its future, for our future, for the global order that has been undermined so much already and can be ultimately ruined at any time. That is why the new supplemental for Ukraine is so vital. We need more missiles, long-range missiles, air defense, munitions. In order to be able to rebuke the Russian troops, that exceed us in numbers. Putin has said that the Russian border doesn't end anywhere. And Ukraine is a test for Russia. If Ukraine loses, Russia will turn its, and already are, Ukrainian resources against you, against the West, have no doubt in that. So it's Putin either defeated or the whole international system collapses. There is simply no middle ground, I'm afraid. So the international alliances must be strengthened, no doubt. More investments must be made into our own security. That's for sure. But all this may be too late if Ukraine doesn't receive the necessary tools now, this particular moment. And if Russia is not stopped in Ukraine, the cost of restoring the order in the world will be much higher. And eventually, unfortunately, every household around the world will be affected by the Russian aggression. So let me finish by saying that we might have to answer one simple question today. What world we all want to live in today? Whether it is the Putin's world or the world we've been working for so many decades to ensure peace and stability, working for our kids and our future generations. I thank you for your support. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Denise, thank you very much for that. Lise, thank you very much for opening, setting the stage. We have joining us here, John Herbst, as Lise mentioned. We are co-sponsoring with the Atlantic Council. John, thank you very much. Masha Ivanovich here on the stage, in the middle here, as she wanted to be. John Teft, Ambassador Teft, is joining us. And Steve Piper is joining us as well, online. And these are not the only ambassadors here. We have a couple of other ambassadors in the room. I see Bill Courtney, and I see Bob Bradkey. There are probably others that somebody. I said, Bill Courtney, yes, got it. Who can miss Bill Courtney? This is a solemn time. I mean, let's be clear, two years of this fight. And as both Lise and Denise just said, this has been a hard time. It's a hard time. John, you're just back, back yesterday. It's just off the plane yesterday afternoon. I'm gonna ask you just to lead us off, talk about what you heard over the past week, but also talk about your careful observer of what's going on here in Washington. Denise just said, just pointed out the importance of this supplemental. Okay, what are your thoughts? I'll start with what's going on in Washington for a very simple reason. I believe strongly since, say, week three of Moscow's big invasion of Ukraine, that as long as American support for Ukraine did not diminish, Ukraine would ultimately win this war. Of course, if U.S. support for Ukraine were stronger, the war's end would come sooner. I've had my disagreements with the administration about their reluctance to send longer range or rather more advanced weapons to Ukraine. And I think that's a problem which has kept our policy to be merely an adequate response to the great challenge of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which is a threat, a serious direct threat to American core interests. But the inadequacy of an overall adequate policy is far better than the problem we face now coming from the quasi-isolationist right wing of the Republican Party. This is a relatively small group, some of whom no more than six or 10 really want to kill you carrying eight U.S. aid to Ukraine. Of course, they have no clue about American interests. And then there's another 30 or so who agree with them pretty much for whom this is not a high priority. But in a Republican House, which only has a two seat majority, six to 10 people can do a great deal of damage, something which Kevin McCarthy experienced, and Mike Johnson does not want to. So the House has, excuse me, the Senate has passed an aid package we all know of, which would give Ukraine $60.1 billion of assistance, absolutely essential assistance to maintain its ability to fight and stop a Russian victory. And that package has been held up since roughly the end of September, five months. I suspect this package of some kind will pass, perhaps a little bit less than the $60 billion, not a terrible result if it does get passed because while Speaker Johnson has claimed, and I don't think we should dismiss this as malarkey, that he understands that America has a great interest in getting the aid to Ukraine, he also has a personal interest in retaining his job, and is a pretty good bet if he would have put the bill on the floor, he would lose his job because of that group of determined, let's use a polite word, folks who don't understand America's national interest, the determination to make sure that doesn't happen. The good news here is that there's a second way to get that bill on the floor. It's called a discharge petition, and it requires a majority of people in the House to sign. And the Democrats, and those who vote with the Democrats, represent a very sizable minority, but there's still a few votes short. But there are at least 20, 30 Republicans in the House who really believe this is important, and I suspect that it would be possible to get five, six, seven of them, maybe even more if necessary, to sign that discharge petition. My understanding is that the speaker is right now trying to come up with a magic formula to enable him to put the bill on the floor without getting him kicked out of the speakership. I'm not sure that's a possible task, and I suspect at some point in the not too distant future that will be recognized. At which point he has a decision to make, either to put the bill on the floor and risk his job, or to see a discharge petition which will take more time, play out, and get that bill to the floor, which would then be approved by a substantial majority. It would be similar to the vote you had in the Senate. We had about 70% in favor. And that would also make him a lame duck, so his position would not be any more tenable than if the, again, the folks who don't understand American interest were to push him out of the speakership. That makes the optimistic this will happen. It doesn't make me optimistic about the timing for it to happen. I've been saying, not incorrectly, but not precisely correctly, since the middle of December, it would take at a minimum of two more months to get this bill passed. I'm saying the same thing now, because things have changed. But I think you're talking about six, eight weeks at a minimum, and maybe more. Now, this then brings us back to the situation on the ground in Ukraine. It is not a good situation. We all know that the Russians finally took the town of Avdivka, the almost completely destroyed town of Avdivka, and a town which has as much military significance as Bakhmut, which the Russians took, I forget, in May or June of last year. They paid an extraordinary cost and personnel and equipment for that, but nonetheless, it's a step forward, and they're celebrating almost like the victory of Stalingrad in World War II, because they don't have much else to celebrate. There's a great deal of talk that this is the first of many gains for the Russians to achieve, because in fact, as a result of the short-sightedness, or worse, of again, the folks in the house who don't have a clue, Ukraine has a shortage of ammunition. And that is one of the two principal military reasons, perhaps the greater, but we can argue about that, for the fall of Avdivka. The second reason was the timidity of the administration in sending more advanced weapons to Ukraine, specifically in this case, F-16s. Had we made the right decision, say 18 months ago, to send, say, scores of the hundreds of F-16s that we have in storage to Ukraine, so they had them on the battlefield in, say, August or September of last year, the Ukrainian counter-offensive would have been more remarkable on ground, and Avdivka would have been solid in Ukrainian hands. Because the Russians have substantial air dominance, over Eastern Ukraine. And with that air dominance, they were sending glide bombs at Ukrainian positions after Avdivka, they had to retreat. So here's a clear example of bipartisan incompetence in the United States contributing to a bad result in Ukraine and a blow against our interests. Of course, again, if Ukraine were to lose this war, we would have to face Russia further to the West at much greater cost. American leadership would be in the gutter, some more polite words than the one I had in mind, as a result of this failure of leadership. I think I've probably said enough. John, you've done well. But notice I was bipartisan in my course. You were bipartisan in your criticism. That's exactly right. And you talked about what's going on here. Oh, excuse me, Bill, I forgot to mention one more thing. A lot of folks in Ukraine, well-informed, well-intentioned, and more people outside of Ukraine who don't know that much but have a need to opine, think that Moscow is going to make serious gains in the months to come. I can't rule that out. I'm not a profit. I'm not a former military guy. Although I talked to lots of former military guys. We have a really great network of ex-generals. I don't think that's true. I believe that Moscow can make small gains in the coming months even without this ammunition problem resolved, which reminds me of things I need to add, Bill, I'm sorry, because Russia is distant from strategic objectives, even if you consider something like a minor strategic objective, and Ukraine has the ability to limit their advance. And what I've just said is heightened by the fact, or made more likely by the fact, of the one really good thing that happened at the Munich Security Conference. Actually, there were two really good things that happened at the Munich Security Conference. The first and more important was that a real statesman, the president of Czech Republic, General Pavel, commented at Munich that there are hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition on the international market for purchase. And if the West was so good as to purchase and deliver to Ukraine, which can be done in weeks, things would be notably better for the short-term. Canada has volunteered to buy it. So this is something which could be short-term help, but let's watch this space. The other good thing in Munich, reiterated in Kyiv, was the prime minister of Denmark, another stateswoman, a Maggie Thatcher, I've got the guts as well as the brains to do things, has offered Ukraine weapons in the service of the armed forces of Denmark, because the Danes are not at war right now, Ukraine is, and Ukraine is fighting Denmark's, the West and the American War. And then of course she then went to Kyiv to Zelensky to nail this down. Would that we had such strong leadership in the great powers of the alliance? Thank you, John. Thank you very much. So Ambassador Piper, you served in Kyiv early on. You have also, when you came back, when you were in Washington, you had something to do with with some of the nuclear decisions that the United States and Ukraine made. The W.A.G. permission mentioned this question about escalation, which by implication has a nuclear component. Steve, do you wanna make a couple of comments about both the previous efforts and how they are playing out today, on the nuclear issue and how they're playing out today? Yeah, well, I think we've seen actually going back to February of 2022, is Moscow has tried to play the nuclear card. Three days after the major invasion was launched in February of 2022, Vladimir Putin said we have put our nuclear forces on a special alert status. The Pentagon, which of course watches these things very carefully, said we have seen no change in the Russian nuclear posture and a couple of Russian analysts said, well, they've added a few more people to some headquarters units. Now, let me be clear, Vladimir Putin doesn't want a nuclear war, but he wants to use the nuclear card to unnerve Ukraine's friends in the West. And I think Mr. Putin is the one to listen to. There are lots of, for example, Russian television pundits who talk about nuclear war in ways that I would consider borderline insane. My favorite one is the one who goes out and says, well, we should drop a nuclear weapon on Paris and a nuclear weapon on London and this thing will be finished. And I never ask what happens to Moscow an hour later. But pay attention to Putin. And I think if you look at Putin, his nuclear rhetoric hit a peak in September of 2022, just when he claimed that Russia had annexed Heirson, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhoblasts, and he tried to say, these are Russian territory. We will defend them with all means that are disposal. And my sense is from talking to people or former U.S. officials that in September of 2022, they saw risk then. Putin, I think, was trying to do two things. He was trying to dissuade the Ukrainians from launching counter-offensives back into Heirson and Kharkiv, and he was trying to dissuade the West from continuing to provide weapons to Ukraine. Well, what he saw is Ukraine kept on fighting. I think for Ukrainians, and I think John can confirm this from his trip just there, Ukrainians view this war as existential. If they lose, their vision of Ukraine as a normal European democracy is gone. And so nuclear weapons didn't change that calculation. They continued to fight on. Likewise, I think the West stumbled a bit for the first couple of days, but then the West came up with a pretty consistent reaction in Washington at NATO headquarters in London, Berlin, that if Russian were to use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine, there would be catastrophic consequences for Russia, period. Now, I also think that in the couple of weeks afterwards, the Russians or the Kremlin concluded the threat wasn't working with Ukraine. It wasn't working with the United States and Europe, and it was provoking a very different reaction in China and India and places that were in important direction. They're saying, nuclear weapons, what are you talking about? If you then go and look in October and November of 2022, there's an organized effort by the Kremlin to ratchet down the nuclear rhetoric. So Mr. Putin goes to this Baldy discussion club at the end of October of 2022. He's asked, well, what about the nuclear threats? And he says, that's not part of Russian doctrine. That's just the West trying to tarnish our good image. A week later, the Russian foreign ministry puts out a statement on preventing nuclear war, which says about 95% of what we would want it to say. And then Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, goes to Baldy for the G20 summit and agrees to language saying nuclear threats, nuclear use are inadmissible and unacceptable. So I think the Russians recognize that their threat wasn't working and that it was in fact playing badly with audiences is important to the Kremlin, so they ratchet it down. Now you still got the crazies, but Putin I think has been much more sober. Now, looking at the impact of that threat, I think going back to February of 2022, the Biden administration has said they have two goals, to support Ukraine and to avoid a direct NATO Russian military clash. Those are the right two goals, but where I would be critical of the administration is in balancing the goals, they have been overly cautious. They have deferred to Russian red lines that aren't really there. And the result has been, I think in the end the administration tends to come to the right decision, but as John mentioned, it takes them a long time. And had decisions been taken more quickly, had weapons been provided to the Ukrainians more quickly, the situation on the battlefield might be very different today than it is in reality. Steve, thank you. Exactly what we needed on the discussion of the nuclear and of the possibility now reduced, even as Bill Burns has said recently, reduced concern about this escalation. Ambassador Tev, John, you were there in the run up to the first invasion of Crimea. And so you saw that kind of, that concern rising, no one saw that coming. I certainly didn't see that coming. Be interested in your thoughts of what you were seeing there in Kiev. And then you went to Moscow. You turned out that your next post was the ambassador to Moscow after that. So you saw that aspect too. Can you talk a little bit about both of those periods in your tour? Thanks very much, Bill. I'm glad to be with you today. If only via Zoom. I've been in the process for a while, writing a memoir. And I've been able to get a number of documents from that period declassified. And so we all forget stuff, especially diplomats. We have too many things going in our mind at the same time. But some of those documents have helped remind me. And I guess I would characterize my last year in Kiev, 2013. And I was there until July and then Jeff Piot took my place. We saw a lot of things starting to develop. And I would highlight three key points. One was the Yanukovych regime was already really starting to crumble. The greed levels, the corruption had gotten to the point where everybody knew who the quote, the family, as they call them. And this wasn't just the sons of Yanukovych. This was the group surrounding and many of them now living in exile in Russia with Yanukovych. They were in the process of getting, literally we heard stories where they would print Rivna and then cash it at the markets and then carry suitcases full of dollars down to the Gulf to the bank. I mean, it was that obvious. And what happened was that not only did this erode any support that Yanukovych had, I remember I think 19% was the support he had in the last poll before I left in July of 2013. But it even started eroding the people in the party of the regions and the people who were the supporters of Yanukovych. The second big thing, of course, was the growth and the empower and influence of civil society. And this was something that has grown over a long time. All of the ambassadors who were there on the stage and worked hard on this. This was a key part of American policy to support the development of civil society. Even if we couldn't influence some of the political developments at the top, we could support those people who sought democracy, who sought a European future, who wanted to build a country that was very Western-like, a country that they thought was the country they wanted to live in and they wanted their kids to live in. The third big part of this, of course, is the European future. And throughout most of my time in Kiev, we had a development, we had a negotiation with the European Union over an association agreement. And that association agreement gradually grew and grew in importance because the people of Ukraine saw that as not only opening up the future and access to Europe, being part of Europe and not just part of a Soviet empire, but it also, I think many people felt, provided a guarantee that the European Union, supported by the United States, would be able to insist on rule of law and fight corruption and all of the things that they saw the Yanukovych regime practicing at the time. Now, we all know the story in November of that year. Putin pressured and bribed Mr. Yanukovych to give up the European Union association agreement and civil society people went to the streets, went to the Maidan and I think everybody knows the history of that. I was back in Washington at that point. I'd been told that I was being considered to go to Moscow. I hadn't yet and got the final word, but I followed things pretty carefully, particularly when Putin invaded Crimea and the war really started, but also started the subversion, for want of a better term, in the Donbass. And I got to Moscow in September of 2014. And of course, by this time, you had lots of people in Russia thrilled that Putin had reclaimed Crimea. Nationalism was going strong, St. George Ribbons were on everybody, the cars flying flags, it was a very nationalistic moment in Russia. Putin got a huge bump on popularity during that period. But as I worked my, or engaged in my initial contacts there, one of the things that really struck me was how little the political elite, and I'm defining this, not just people who were in the government, but people who are in the society, people who are part of the Russian, part of the Putin group, whether it being business or whatever, they didn't understand Ukraine at all. It was just striking over and over again, people would argue that, well, all those people in Donetsk, they all speak Russian, and so they must want Russia. Well, I'd been in the fortunate situation where between, I think, April of 2013 and the end of June, I was in Harrison, Mikolayev, Donetsk, Luhansk, and I had talked to a lot of people. And so I kept finding myself in these conversations private, most of them were private, saying, well, what you're saying just isn't true. I had to find a way diplomatically to kind of get the point across that they were just not consistent. My bottom line here, and I'll stop with this, is that I could see even then what we all have seen so much over the last two years, this illusion about Ukraine, this sense, this unwillingness to understand that these are an independent people who did not want to be a part of Russia. They did not want to be a part of a Russian empire. And it was very obvious back then. Anyway, I'll stop at that point, but I guess I saw a lot of the seeds of what was happening. Of course, the war was already going on in Donetsk by the time thousands had already been killed. And we had a situation where the Minsk agreements were being negotiated, the Germans and the French, working with the Ukrainians and the Russians and the Normandy group, but it didn't really go anywhere. And I mean, I have to say, I was very skeptical of that from the very beginning and it became pretty obvious when Toria Nuland and Celes Wallander came out for talks with Vyacheslav Sarkov, Putin's point man on Ukraine. It was clear that the Russians were kind of feeling us out, trying to figure out where our bottom lines were on these things, but really we're not in any mood for any kind of compromise. And we of course respected the Germans and the French so we didn't get deeply engaged and it didn't get engaged in the negotiations, but we tried to keep track of what was going and it was pretty clear that there wasn't much compromise. Nobody at that time, my last point, expected Putin to do what he did in February of 2022. But history has shown us how brutal and that invasion is and how much it totally lacked understanding of what was going on in Ukraine. And he's paying for it, Ton, you're exactly right. And he's paying for that misunderstanding. Yeah, I think this is, I've always said when I give speeches that this was a strategic mistake of the first order. And I think today, what we Americans, I was encouraged by what John said. I wish we'd passed the bill, supplemental bill earlier, but we can't make a strategic mistake at this point and not give assistance to Ukraine. Absolutely right. I'd like to make one position, I was just, so much of this modification. Steve, please. Sorry. Just modification to what John just said. I don't think Putin's decision in February of 2022 is a strategic mistake. It was a strategic blunder. It was worse. All right. And if you look at Russia today, it's been a military loss in terms of license equipment. It's been an economic loss. It's been a geopolitical loss. Yesterday, Sweden got the last vote needed to join NATO. So, you know, Mr. Putin's action of other things has energized NATO and enlarged NATO. Absolutely right, Steve. Thank you. Masa, I'm gonna give, before we open this up, let's assume that we don't make this mistake, that we do provide these funds, that the Congress figures out a way to get a vote on the House floor. When that happens, as we all know, it will pass, as it did in the Senate, 70 to 29, as John said, in the Senate, it will pass in a similar fashion on the House floor. So, let's assume that, let's assume further that over the next year or so, there's progress on the Ukrainian's part. And talk about winning the war, winning the peace. You've been eloquent in identifying what the Ukrainians really want in this piece. In the end, after this war, after the victory, as they say, what does this look like? What are they after? How can they achieve that? How can we help them achieve that? Yeah, so winning the peace in Ukraine, I think the title of this conference is the 10-year war, but it's actually been much longer. It's been since independence. And we are now reckoning with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the imperfect peace, shall we say, that ensued after that, not only in Ukraine, but throughout the former Soviet Union, and moving forward. And I think the Ukrainian people have spoken many, many times through multiple elections, through two revolutions, and through this war that started in 2014 and is continuing now with the total war, Russia's total war on Ukraine that started in 22. And what the Ukrainian people have said is that they want to live in freedom. They want to be a part of the West. They share Western values of democracy and rule of law. In fact, the Revolution of Dignity was all about living according to the rule of law, something that, again, coming back to what John Teft had noted, the Russians didn't understand Ukraine. And I think, in part, they didn't understand that the Ukrainians are a separate, a distinct people, a distinct culture, that they have a distinct language, that there is a distinct geographic space that is Ukrainian. And now they are perhaps beginning to understand that there is a Ukraine. There are Ukrainian people. And the Ukrainian people know what they want. And that, you know, on the one hand, I think the Russians didn't understand that from the beginning or Putin didn't understand that from the beginning. On the other hand, I think they sensed it. They sensed that the change is happening in Ukraine since 1991, that got a boost in 2004, that got a bigger boost in 2014. That was propelling Ukraine in an important direction forward. It was leaving Russia behind. And that was profoundly threatening, I think, to Russia. So how does Ukraine win the peace? I think with more of the same. And I think that winning the peace, it started in 1991, but it continues today. And it's part of all of the things that we've been talking about. The three areas. One is, of course, security, moving forward with Ukraine's relationships with other countries in the West and particularly NATO countries, and particularly making that relationship with NATO as close as possible. And I think many of the people in this room would say, ultimately, NATO membership. We've got a NATO summit coming up in July of this year. The administration has an opportunity to make history. Let's hope that it does so. And I think that on the economic side, again, this is something that needs to start now. We are seeing the Ukrainian people constantly rebuild. They are rebuilding faster than Russia is destroying. When you look, for example, at the energy network, which is still, I mean, it is unbelievable considering the attacks on Ukraine. The Ukrainians are managing to keep that electrical grid running and many other things as well. So the rebuilding continues. And one of the things that I find particularly amazing about the Ukrainian economy is that not only is it operating, it's innovating. So you have DEA, which is light years ahead of anything we have in the US, where you can basically do anything online, including getting assistance to rebuild your house or your apartment if it was struck by a Russian missile. So that is ongoing. Obviously there are plans for the bigger reconstruction. That is ongoing as well, working with Western partners. Lots of big issues. How is that plan put together? To what extent is it determined by central authorities? To what extent are local leaders empowered to make decisions? What part of the economy, what sectors of the economy does the government boost and invest in? Lots of big issues. And they are being addressed now so that Ukraine is ready when that peace treaty is finally signed. So that is important. And I would say there's a lot of historical precedents. I mean, FDR started thinking about what the peace would look like after World War II in 1942. So we need to be ready all of us together. And then the other piece of reconstruction, of course, importantly, is how does it get paid for? So part of it is gonna be, obviously, bilateral partners, especially coming from Europe and the EU. Part of it is gonna be institutional, like the World Bank, like the IMF. And part of it, I think, is going to be coming from Russian funds. Importantly, I think there are steps forward with regard to the $300 billion of frozen Russian money out there. And hopefully our Congress moves forward on our part of it. And that also unlocks other countries moving forward. But I think there's also that other word of reparations. I think an important part of the peace is going to be holding Russia accountable. That's certainly true for war crimes issues, but it's also true with regard to the rebuilding of Ukraine and the immense destruction that they have caused. And then finally, on the values piece, on the political piece, on what kind of a country is Ukraine going to be in this new era? And again, the Ukrainian people have spoken. It is very clear they are not fighting this war to recreate the old system, to make the oligarchs rich again. They're not. They're fighting for their family, their freedom, their future, and they want it to be a better future. And so I'm betting on the Ukrainian people on that. I would just end with one other note, which is that there's a lot of people, as John eloquently indicated, not a lot of people, not the majority of Americans or even of our elected leaders that throw up all sorts of arguments about why should we, the United States, support Ukraine and support Ukraine militarily. And I would just note that the Ukrainians have been brave. They have been courageous. They have been principled. They have been resilient. They know why they're fighting, just like we knew why we were fighting in 1776. We knew why we were fighting. And just like the Ukrainians, there was, for us, there was no hope that we were gonna win. We were taking on the mighty British Empire, this ragtag group of colonists, no hope. And yet, we were determined. We wanted to live in freedom. We didn't want a king. We didn't want to be part of an empire. Does this sound familiar to you? And with the help of the French and other countries, we won. And I think history can repeat itself. Masha, well done. Well done. Masha, I killed it. Well said, well said all. I would like now, with that kind of opening, you've got your, you've got the ability now to ask any of these questions, any of these people questions, and former ambassadors, on issues that they've raised. And I am going to ask Ellie to bring the mic right here. Let us know who you are. If you've got a specific question for a specific person, please let us know, please. Sure, Doug Brooks with FGI Solutions, we're actually doing investment and logistics and procurement inside Ukraine already. But my question is really on what happens if the Russian Empire fails. And so we have a large reconstruction development effort going on in Ukraine, and then all of a sudden you have all these new republics and we can't ignore those. This could be like a massive, massive period of essentially reconstruction and development. And I'm just kind of curious, how would we handle that? There's an interesting question. And I'm gonna ask Ambassador Teft to be able to take it on. But I will remind us that there were people who were concerned in 1991, early in 1991, about what would happen, oh my goodness, what would happen if the Soviet Union would disappear or break up? Well, it turns out they did and the sky didn't fall. We were able to manage that. But it's a very fair question. John, do you want to take a shot at that? Sure, I'll take a start at least and others will have their own views. I know there's a lot of people out there. I've been on panels with people who think the Russian Federation will fall apart that Chechnya and other places will start pulling away. I've also read a lot of things by Russians who are opposed to Putin, who are opposed to the war and who just don't think this is going to happen. And the main argument there is that all of the people in these regions have a vested interest in staying part of a federation, even if it's in much more economic peril than it is right now, perhaps. So if I had to bet, and I wouldn't put much money on this, I'm not a betting kind of guy, I would say that it would not, at least in the short term. But as we've seen in this war and we've seen in the last 30 years, it's pretty hard to predict specific events like this. I remember being on the Soviet desk when Yeltsin went out in the woods in Belarus and with Kravchuk and they basically got rid of the Soviet Union in a day. There was nobody that I knew of in the intelligence community or in the analytical community, academic community who had any idea that that was really gonna happen that quickly. Everybody knew the Soviet Union was gonna come to an end, but it surprised us. So I don't have a lot of confidence in saying that if I had to bet, I wouldn't see that it falling apart. Last point is though, that several have mentioned the problems in Russia and while Putin has got things stable now, spending a huge amount of money on the war, which has also driven the Russian economy, the long-term trends economically, demographically have only gotten worse as a result of this strategic decision to invade Ukraine. And I think a lot of people know about that, the more I read about this, the more convinced I am that Russia will have its nuclear weapons, but it will not have an economy, it will not have a demography. Think of all of the, there's places now that don't have men or women able to work because they just don't have them, so many have died in the war. It's a folly in many ways for the long-term for Russia. Thanks, John. Thanks, John. Steve John, must say anything else to add on that thing. Great. Ah, Toby, Priscilla, Priscilla and then Bob and then Priscilla. Another chief of mission here, you are, you are, you and are. Another chief of mission, so introduce yourself. Yes, I am. And you are? I am Priscilla Clark. Yes, you do, you are. I am Senior Advisor here at US Institute of Peace, but I'm in the Asia Center. So I'm going to give you an Asian perspective on this. However, I must say, in the late 1980s, John Herp, Steve Piper and I had a front row seat in the Embassy in Moscow for the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union. And so we have a long sweep of history in our minds here. I'm now Asia-oriented. I was the chief of mission in Burma 20 years ago. And so I'm watching Russia in a way from an Asian perspective. And I think what you're missing when you talk about future influences on Russia is what's coming in from the East. The Chinese are in the process of repopulating Siberia. There are millions of Chinese there now. They've built industries and another one of Putin's strategic blunders may have been the alliances made with Xi Jinping because Xi Jinping has much larger ambitions vis-a-vis Russia than whatever's going on in Ukraine. And I think that we need to look more carefully at what's coming at them from Asia. They don't understand. I've had this conversation from time to time with Russians and they don't understand. But I see what is happening with Chinese influence in Asia and it is moving ever, ever westward. And I think we have to, it's not just Xi Jinping, it's the Chinese. So I think we have to watch that. Brazil, thank you. That's what I have. That's a great caution and it's a great observation. If there's, John, you want a comment on that? Yeah. Part of Putin's strategic incompetence is focusing on Ukraine and the West as a problem as opposed to China. We all hear about China loves to play the long game and I'm not going to dispute that. Part of the Chinese long game is being played out along its border with Russia. Right now we hear about this historically unprecedented friendship between China and Russia. We read about it in the papers. The Russians talk about it all the time and the Chinese also to a lesser extent but still talk about it. Yet even in this unprecedented period of warm relations, Chinese academics, Chinese media and even a third secretary at the Chinese embassy in Islamabad talk about, for example, Vladivostok as a Chinese city. The Chinese irredentist claims vis-à-vis not just Russia but also Kazakhstan, I'm not Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan are not being hidden. I've actually written about this going back three more years ago. This is where at some point, this will be a little bit provocative today, you will find a natural US-Russian partnership after Moscow gives up. I know you don't like that. See, I'm now knowing some of my Ukrainian friends. Once Russia gives up its imperial ambitions in Ukraine, it will then begin to understand as a problem in China. And just as we have defended our interests and our principles, although not strongly enough to stop the Russians in Ukraine, we would have a similar interest in doing the same, keeping Russia territorially intact, at least the Far East, so that Russia, actually, that China cannot make a gain. Of course, there's no doubt China is the greater long-term danger to the United States because they have a real economy, which the Russians have still not managed to create. Last point, the Russian position is driven 99% by Putin. There are Russian experts who understand this, but they can't talk about it because this is a e-day fix for Putin every bit as much as the United States as his principal adversary. John, thank you. Thank you very much. Bob Bradkey and then Toby. I should say Ambassador Bob Bradkey, sorry. Yes, I'm Bob Bradkey. I'm a former colleague of everybody on this panel from the State Department. I want to come back a little bit to what John was saying about Russia and what's going on in Russia, the kind of medium-term future. We've just launched a new round of sanctions against Russia related to Navalny's death. The press has been full of reporting that the sanctions really haven't put Russia under any pressure. The Russian economy is doing reasonably well. I'm curious to get a sense from any or all of you as to what pressure there is on Putin. The economy is doing okay if the sanctions aren't working. If he's got control of dissidents and people who want to have a different policy, if he's under no pressure, how does that change this equation? Because it seems to me that he's not coming under any kind of pressure. So Bob, thank you. John Tiff, do you want to start that? You want to start a response to that? And then others, Steve, Marsha, John? I have one small point. Yeah, it's a very good question. I think it may make a couple of points. First of all, I have never thought that Putin would be necessarily pressured to give up his views. And while I agree with John, at some point, the idea of empire, they're gonna have to tailor this back because Russian needs to start focusing on modernizing its country and not looking forward to the 21st century and not looking back to the 19th century as their model. I think that as long as Putin's around, it's gonna be hard to do that. And he's going to push back against anybody who would make that argument. I suspect over time, the political elites are going to, or the economic elites, the oligarchs and others, will eventually push back. Although I read this morning that a metals oligarch out in Chelyabinsk had his assets nationalized yesterday after Putin criticized him last week. Putin's also taking assets from Western, that belong to Western companies and giving them to other members in effect creating new economic elites depending on him. So he's working on these things to try to maintain his support among the elites. I think everybody on this panel knows that in the end, what changes in Russia is the, when political leadership changes come, it usually comes at the hands of the elites. Right now, nobody's got their head above water for obvious reasons. I think that still doesn't undercut the argument that I was trying to make and others have made it much more eloquently than me, that this is a long-term disaster for Russia. And I just gave a speech for a fellow who works at the American Enterprise Institute, Eberstadt, who's done some demographic work that's just absolutely fascinating to see how this country is falling apart. The life expectancy of a 15-year-old in Russia is now less than the life expectancy of a 15-year-old in Yemen. I mean, it's just staggering some of the statistics and things that they have discovered. So it's the long-term that they're doing and this doesn't, nobody can even factor in the loss of all of these soldiers. I think Bill Burns used 315,000 as the number of casualties that Russia has suffered inside of Ukraine alone. And these are all, I mean, some of them are criminals from prison, but these are able-bodied men who they need for the future. And there was a demographic problem before. So I guess my sense is that, you know, Putin will do everything he can to not just keep the war going because he's invested his whole future, his legacy in this, but he will be as ruthless as he has to be to try to stifle any opposition and to try to show the world that the people of Russia still support him. But if you want to look into that, I think the best guy writing now is Andrey Kolesnikov for Carnegie. He has some brilliant pieces analyzing what's going on inside of Russia, the attitudes of people toward the war and toward the future. I'll stop there. John, thank you. The other comments, John? Yeah, I think that there's a widely believed misconception about the state of the Russian economy. Bob, you mentioned the economy's doing okay. I heard Jack Keen, former general, say the same thing this morning on TV. That's all based on the use of official Russian economic statistics, which I think is, and amazingly, the World Bank and the IMF use those Russian economic statistics to come up with growth rates of two or 3% for last year. Why anyone wants to believe official Russian statistics, especially when Putin's trying to demonstrate sanctions have no impact is beyond me. There's a professor at Yale, Jeff Sonnenfeld, who's written extensively about this. We all remember, Ben-Bob, you were doing economics in the embassy in the mid-80s, when the CIA expectations were based upon, again, official Soviet statistics. Well, we know how well that turned out. So I would take those with not a grain of salt, but a whole shaker. If I could just add one thing. You know, the question of, is there pressure on Putin? And I think it's just really hard for us to know. I don't think we have, John was mentioning that the Belovetsky Accords kind of came out of nowhere for us. I mean, I think it's just hard for us to know what's going on in the inner sanctum, but when I look from far, far, far away, where the, I mean, I think we would probably all agree that if there were free and fair elections in Russia, Putin would probably win. But he's also stacking the deck. He's making sure that Navalny not only goes to the furthest away prison in the Arctic Circle, he's making sure he's dead. He's taking anybody that might have a prayer of getting some votes, like, help me out, Nadezhda. Nadezhda. Nadezhda. And taking him off the ballot. And I think we're probably gonna see other, you know, not to mention all the other repressive measures we're seeing in Russia, but focused around the March elections as well. And that, to me, I mean, it's certainly a sign of authoritarianism, but it is not a sign of strength. And so he must be feeling some pressure. Thank you, Marsha. So, Toby, here. I got Steve Munster. Sorry, sorry, Steve, Steve. Sorry. Just two points on the economic side. Just a second to what John and John have said. I mean, even if you accept Russian state statistics, remember last year, Russia massively increased its defense spending. So the extent that the economy is seen as growing a little bit or stagnant, that's because of defense spending. It's not making the life of the average Russian economically any better. The second point is, to get back to what's already been said is the importance of the West making clear that its commitment to provide Ukraine with the weapons and the ammunition and the wherewithal to continue the fight. How important that will be, because I think if you're in the Russian public or the Russian elite, and even in the inner circle, at some point, you have to ask yourselves, how long can you continue this fight and continue to see your husbands, your sons, your brothers coming home in body bags from Ukraine because of one man, Vladimir Putin, and his obsession with Ukraine. So I think the Western commitment is very important and that may ultimately have some impact on both how the Russian elite and the Russian public view this war. Thank you, Steve. Thank you. Toby. I was in the government during the Clinton administration. Sorry, Toby Gotti. I was in the Clinton administration and the White House then head of INR for three years. What I recall very strongly in that early period was a distrust of Ukraine at that time. It has corrupt as not a reliable partner and believe it or not, the reliable partner was going to be Russia. Obviously a lot has changed, but this is a very important point because it's the way we treated the country, the way we saw it, the expectations we had and the ability to work with it. So I think it's really, we had a big learning curve and you guys have done a fantastic job in educating the rest of us about Ukraine, but you know that anyone who was a Russian major had very little to do with Ukraine in any way. And I see some people shaking their heads, but I just, you know, from the jokes to the literature to everything else. And so it was really important when Ukraine became, was able to stand on its own. We had a big, you know, our education didn't permit it. I know John Tech, you would know a lot of this from the declassification, which none of us have been doing very much, but there was really a focus on Russia, almost exclusively in terms of economics and whatever. And we spent two years helping Russia with its economy. And by the third or fourth year, we ran out of steam. Does that sound familiar? And so when we talk about Ukraine and Russia's problems, I think we ought to talk about the United States, which you've done as a problem. My questions are two. The first is your discussion of Russia has been almost exclusively Putin's Russia. So my question is, what are the Russians who are the other Russia? How do you view them? Do they have any role, the exiles, or any of the groups to play? Because they still do talk to Ukrainians. They don't advertise it, but they do. Is there anything that can be done here to build that lower level of trust or... Trust, that's the wrong word. Just talk. Just talk. Just would be fine. And can we... In Europe, there's a whole discussion about decolonization, which for us is kind of a crazy word, but they mean the decolonization of the Russian empire. And we ought to listen a little bit to that. My second question, and Asha, this is to you. I like 1776. I'm a big fan of Hamilton and all this stuff. But for most Americans, I wonder if the real analogy, and for the Europeans, this is for sure the analogy, is in 1936, the Sudetenland and everything like that. And I really think that we should be talking in terms of what happened after that. Because 1776 is, maybe for the Supreme Court, it's really important, but for the rest of us, it was a long time ago. Toby, thank you. This is very useful. Two good questions. John, do you want to do the kind of people-to-people question that Toby asked, and Masha, do you want to do the 1776 one? And this, I'm afraid, will be the last question. But John and Masha and several people will be here to answer other questions after we wrap this up. But John Teft. I think that the people-to-people issue is something that, you know, not just in Russia, but in Ukraine and other places, we State Department diplomats and the people who work with us, we work really hard on this. Even in Russia, when I was there from 2014 to 2017, my wife, Mariela, and I traveled as much as we possibly could. Embassy officers traveled as much as they could. We tried to reach out to not just local people, but everywhere we went, we would have lunch or dinner with Russians who had been on grants coming to the United States, either educational or the Billington grants, the Open World grants. And it was a good chance to kind of reconnect with them. I don't think that Lynn Tracy, our current ambassador, is able to really travel and do that much right now. But I do know from talking to her that she and her staff are working to the extent they can. It's a very limited staff, as I think everybody knows, to try to maintain some of those people-to-people ties. And I know that there's a lot of people in this country in academic institutions and others where we're staying in touch with Russians who are in exile, who have fled the country for obvious reasons. And I think we need to continue to do that. As I look back, and this will resonate with most of the others on the panel, one of the great things that the United States did in Eastern and Central Europe since 1991 was to invest money. We could have invested more in different grants and the people-to-people kinds of programs. It built, I think, an understanding of our own country but kind of the relationships, often not official but private of relationships. And that certainly, when the moment comes, we're gonna have to, I know we're investing some money now, but we need to continue to do that because it's building from the bottom up, as it were, to try to regain some of the ground that's been lost during the last two years in particular. John, thank you. Thank you. Marsha, 776, 1936? So I think there are probably other points of history or years that we could look to to make different points about this war. And I completely agree with you that 1936 is a very apt analogy. I mean, this is an existential war for Ukraine. I mean, if Russia keeps on, it will be a very sad time for Ukraine. But I think that what we all recognize is that this is not only an attack on Ukraine, it is an attack on the West, it is an attack on the US, on NATO, and it is an attack on the international system. And as Denise said at the outset, what kind of a world do we wanna be living in? And if we don't step up now, we are gonna have to deal with the Russian threat and Russian actions later on. And it will be perhaps not at a time of our choosing, not at a time that is advantageous to us, and it will perhaps involve American boots on the ground. And I think that is a very dangerous proposition, not only for us, but for the world. So I completely agree with you on the 1936. Marsha, a great closing statement. Thank you very much for that. Let me also thank Ambassador Teft and Steve Piper, John Herps, John in particular for the cooperation and co-sponsoring this. Please join me in thanking all of these folks here and stick around for real time.