 Good afternoon. I'm David Schmidt, and I'd like to welcome our viewing audience to today, today's panel discussion voices from Ukraine reflections on war. Nearly three weeks ago, we had a panel panel discussion on Russian and Ukraine politics of resentment. There we have scholarly and professional insights into Russia's war with Ukraine. Our objective was to understand the situation from diverse perspectives. The feedback we received was that as helpful as that panel was, it's also important to listen to various perspectives from people deeply knowledgeable of the actual situation. Ideally, to hear from people who are from Ukraine, or who have spent significant time there. This feedback led to today's panel program, which brings to the discussion informed perspectives from people who know Ukraine, like the backs of their hands. Our objective today is to gain greater empathy, as well as understanding of the concerns, the insights and the hopes of people from Ukraine, as they themselves strive to understand the complex developments of this terrible war. Let me first introduce the people who are facilitating this. I'm David Schmidt. I'm the moderator of this session. Kicking it off. I'm the director of the Patrick J. Wade Center for Applied Ethics, and I'm an associate professor of business ethics in the Dolan Business School. Joining me is Catherine Nats, who is the moderator of the Q&A portion of this program at the end of our panel. She is professor of economics, also in the Dolan School of Business. I'd like now to introduce our four panelists. We were able to pick up a fourth panelist right at the last minute and I'm delighted. I will introduce them now in the order in which they will be speaking on the panel. My name is Catherine Chapilo, who is a full bright scholar from Ukraine. She is currently at the University of Maryland College Park. Formerly, Yana worked with the American Council's program in Ukraine, which was managing the academic integrity project that Kathy and I were involved with. Gregorchuk, deputy business ombudsman in Kiev, also has extensive government relations and public policy and professional experience. He's an attorney. And he was our last minute addition and we're delighted to have him join us. Natalia Goshlik, also a full bright full bright visiting professor from Ukraine. She is at the University of California in Berkeley. She's an associate professor at the Vassil-Stefanik pre-carpathian national university in Ukraine. And coming back to join us again from the last panel is Conrad Turner. He is retired. He served as the minister counselor of the Foreign Service of the United States of America. And we had met him when he was just finishing up his tour in Ukraine. He was the sponsor and the mover behind the academic integrity project that I've mentioned. So we have four informed, deeply committed and involved persons who can speak to this. I would also note, I hope our audience is noted, we have people here all the way from California to the western region of Ukraine. So geographically, we are diverse. I would like to now turn over to Yana, who will begin with her opening comments for the panel discussion. Yana, you have the floor. Thank you, David. Thank you, colleagues for inviting us today. I'm very grateful to Fairfield University for giving us a platform to voice our ideas and thoughts. As David mentioned correctly, I've been working, I had been working at American Councils for seven years. And I would rather tell you about academic integrity successes that we managed to receive during those seven years. I would rather share with you my experience, my pleasure of working with Catherine, Nancy and David Schmidt as they were visiting Ukraine for more than, I think, five times. I would rather share our successes that we've developed with universities in Ukraine as we were working on a higher education reform. But unfortunately, I am here to tell you that my team, people that I've been working with for my, during my seven years of career with American Council, my team is now all over Ukraine and abroad, because of the war. That was started by Russian back in 2014, not almost nine, nine, nine years ago, but escalated on February 24, 2022. We've been living since that time. Day and night, praying that our dear friends with our relatives, that our colleagues, our neighbors, people we've met and we've never met before are safe and alive. They are not safe, and they cannot be safe anywhere. Some of my colleagues are now in Poland because they had to flee the country to save their lives. One of my colleagues is now in her son with her mother under occupation. She's afraid. She's a tremendous brave young girl, young woman. She's a great professional. In Ukraine, she stands with Ukraine, but she and her mom are trying to do their best to survive under the Russian occupation of her son. Another colleague of mine serves in the army. He joined the army voluntarily to fight for Ukraine, instead of reforming higher education in Ukraine. So many of my colleagues and friends have been reaching out and I've been reaching out to them to make sure that they are safe. But the issue here is that even though they can be safe right now, we cannot be sure that they are safe in two minutes. One of my colleagues is in Kiev right now in the suburbs of Kiev with her family, and they refuse to leave their hometown. They want to stay in Kiev. But they are under the constant shillings from Russians hiding in the bomb shelters as we speak right now, as we have a pleasure of warm water, of electricity, of the internet, of our coffee, of grocery stores being open, of pharmacies being open, of yesterday's Oscar that nominated and announced the best movies, the best actresses and actors. These are the pleasures of the world in the 21st century that now my people in Ukraine cannot enjoy. I've been living in Ukraine for my whole life. My parents are there right now, my brother is there right now. They had two sirens today, so that was a good day, a calm day. We're hoping for the night to become as well, because it's the most scariest, I would say, periods of the time. But as people been asking us, I think a lot, why the war started and what has put in his mind. I think it's important to say that we've been living on, we've been experiencing a very long history of Russian occupation. In the world, Russia, even the name of the country, Russian Federation was actually stolen and established in 1721. Before that, they were calling themselves Moscow Empire. That's what the country name was and still is. Russia, the word that they used to call them some right now, Kievan Rus was actually established by Ukrainians with the capital in Kiev. Kiev was founded in 482. Moscow was founded in 1147, so almost 600 years after Kiev. In 1721, Sir Peter the Great, as they call him, he renamed the state, he called it Russian Empire, to appropriate the name and to appropriate the history. And they've been doing that ever since. The legend of Crimea, being part of Russia, historical part of Russia, is also a myth and lies, because in 1944, almost 200,000 Crimean Tatars were deported from Crimea in just three days. So many of them died, they were reported to be deported to Uzbekistan. And the Crimean Russian people were sent to live in Crimea. And I not only know that from the history. I also know that, because a friend of mine, who is from Crimea, she's from Yalta, her grandmother, who is now almost 90. She was the Russian who was sent to live in Crimea. She was the Russian who now lives in the house that used to belong to Crimean Tatars. And my friend right now is in Italy. Her parents had to flee Crimea after Russia occupied it in 2014, because they were never saved there, they could not continue their education, they have a young son. They had used to have business there, so they had to flee. But what I'm saying here is that Russian Federation, or I would better say Moscow Federation's been appropriating the history of this region for a very long time. And I would like us to remember that as we will be talking about and having this conversation next. To get back to the history of Ukraine and Russia. And what is happening right now I've been hearing that this is the genocide of Ukrainian people. And we've looked through the genocide created by Russians created by Stalin by Soviet Empire in 1932 33. Part of my family on my father's side died during the Holodomor. He had three lands, because my great-grandparent. He was considered to be rich. He had three cows. He had three cows, and four horses. So Soviets took the cowhorses and took the cows, took their land, and they were forced to flee and look for a place to stay and for a place to live and to survive. And on my mother's side, they were from Poland, and I learned that when I was 14, because my grandmother, who was half Polish never told that before. She was so afraid to tell that because her father was sent to Siberia, just because he was Poland Polish. And when Soviet Union was created and when Soviets occupied Ukrainian lands in 1917. They not only forced Ukrainian people to move. They were deported and sent all over the region. They also were forcing out Polish people. It was not safe to be Polish. It was not safe to speak Polish, the same as it was not safe to speak Ukrainian. So here I am, with no idea where my great-grandfather was buried, with no idea where so many of my relatives on my mother's side are. And here I am, living with the thought for 34 days already that I was the one to call my parents, wake them up at 5.30 in the morning to tell them that the war started. I was the one to wake up my friends in Ukraine to tell them that the war started. And I was the one to make sure that they have time, that they have anything at all, that they have news, because they were asleep. And we in the United States, we were awake. So what I'm saying here, and I'm begging here to our audience here and all over the country is to be awake and to stay awake. Because peace, if we want to live in peace, we need to have the strength to fight for it. We need to stay awake because the world right now is facing one of the most horrible, I think, per pages in our history. And if we want to have peace, I urge you to start to stand with Ukraine and to listen to what we have to say, to listen to what our government has to say. And to believe in good and to believe in what we in Ukraine strongly believe in, to believe in Ukraine and that it's going to win. Thank you. And David. Yano, thank you very much for your heartfelt and vivid remarks. I would like to remind our viewers that as you're listening to our speakers, I know you're bound to be having questions, or some thoughts coming to you, please note them to us in the q amp a facility of this program. Post your thoughts in the q amp a, and Kathy my colleague will be collecting them and be sharing them with this with the speakers at the end of our program. I would like now to transition to our second speaker, Yaroslav, who is has professional and journalistic and legal experience policy making experience brings a very seasoned perspective to this topic. I would like to turn the panel over to you. Yaroslav and for you to share us your thoughts, please. Thank you. Thank you very much. David. Thank you to the man in which you started. I wish I could share with you success we have here in Ukraine in institutional creativity building up multi stakeholder specialized ombudsman institution, specifically designed to enable businesses to resolve their grievances with in relations with public authorities in the pretrial manner. And we've been actually pretty good in doing that since May 2015 when we've been established thanks to the joint effort of the government of Ukraine that appointed myself to this role. And the European Bank for reconstruction and development OECD and five large local business associations, which proves that in the conditions of Slavic post Soviet jurisdiction if you create institutions that possess sufficient operational leverage, you can achieve even better results on the operational level than the traditional courts can bring. And that in the environment where traditionally we've been criticized for the proper observance to the rule of law. Yes, the subject that brought us all together is totally different. It's the ongoing war that has been brutally started by the Russian Federation against Ukraine. And what I would like to bring also to Yanis prior comprehensive historical journey back into the historical preconditions that makes our nations different. I would like to emphasize on the two things that are key for me to describe the object when I'm thinking about the Putin's objective while pursuing this. And second, why it actually happened. When it comes to the first thing, again, the quick personal story that I might say is that my father is originally from Transcarpathia, mother from Cherkasy, they are all now not with us anymore. They are from the northern part of Ukraine, from Chernihiv area, which is now being heavily bombarded. In our family, we speak Ukrainian, we identify ourselves as Ukrainians. The way I being here on the ground, when I'm attempting to interpret intellectually, or even get a sense through my feelings, through my soul, what is the objective of the war. Ultimately, for Putin to convince me that the man in which I identify myself and my family doesn't make any sense. That I do not exist. That Ukrainians do not exist. That such a nation is some sort of a subset of a greater allegedly greater Russian nation. And this imperialistic component, which was being forged in Russia for many years, is the underlying non-tangible element that explains even the level of atrocities and this hatred that we observe all over the country. When we are bombarded, when there are some shell bombing, children killed, paternity houses destroyed, schools, universities, theaters for goodness sake. And now about the reason why it might have happened. There are some universal recipes that this world developed in order to help this void or considerably decrease the likelihood of such scenarios happening. And that's yet another journey into where Ukrainians are different from Russians. Both apparently appeared as a pretty much similar, mentally very, very similar, language speaking, sharing the same Russian language in certain parts after the breakup of the former Soviet Union. But where Ukrainians proved that they are inherently different as a nation and prove themselves as a nation from Russians is the tradition of democracy. Right now, regardless of all criticism that we are exposed to, allegations of corruption, problems with the role of law, etc. The current Ukrainian president, since the Ukrainians independence is the sixth incumbent. Six. We had Krautschuk, Kuchma, Yushchenko, Yanukovych, Poroshenko, and now probably as a slap into Putin's face, a former comic Volodymyr Zelensky, who proves to be the one who is doing a very good job. And that proves that regardless of I'm just taking the last political cycle in the Ukrainian in Ukraine. Yes, I have to finish. But the Ukrainian political history is that despite of all the internal hatred Poroshenko passed the power to the newly incumbent in Russia, the same guy runs for 22 years. And the last thing that I would like to emphasize, and I'm hopeful we will be able to attend to this as well, is that what is happening is that it shows that the breakup of the former Soviet Union proved when we are referring to Budapest Memorando, how infantile the approach was to attending the and building up security infrastructure. The current event basically proves that it's absent. And they need the current situation calls for two things, a very serious guarantees of the Ukrainian sovereignty, maybe with neutrality, but with that. So fully legally binding obligation of the part of the main nations to work out guaranteeing democracy around the world, first of all, United Nations and United Kingdom. Second, we need a very tangible help now, because otherwise we will not survive in the medium term weapons sophisticated and much, much more air missile planes, etc. crucial thing and sorry if I overtook a bit of my time. You're fine on your time. And I know that you have you've shared a message which I'm confident is raising some very important thoughts and questions that we will come back to you with in our discussion we will be talking with you more. Let me now turn to Natalia. I've introduced her to you as the visiting Fulbright professor out there and sunny California. I want you to know that Natalia is a is a very impressive scholar and writer. Kathy and I worked with her in a writing workshop on academic integrity and she clearly was one of the very thoughtful members of that group so I'm very pleased that she can be with us today to share her thoughts. Natalia I'd like to turn the floor over to you, if I may, please. Thank you so much, dear David thank you so much. Thank you for organizing this panel and thank you all for coming and and thank you for your interest in the topic and interest to Ukraine. So, I, as you know, I am a visiting professor right now at University of California here in Berkeley. I actually came to work here last October. I came to work on social media and sustainability and to identify and to research the way the construction of eco identity of Americans is going on, especially with the focus on social media. These are my, this is my focus of interest, primarily focus of interest. Right now I'm using media and social media for another purpose. I'm using it for raising the awareness about Ukraine. So far I've had about 10 interviews with local media here in Berkeley and I'm so grateful to this community for the interest in the current situation. So what do we have right now let's have a closer look, because we know that more than one month, one month has passed, and we can like step back, look back and see the whole picture of it, or at least try to see. So Russia invaded a free and independent Ukraine over a month ago. And Russia has committed atrocious war crimes that cannot be allowed to continue. Putin's regimes is intent on destroying Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. And that is the worst thing that's happening, because right now I am as a Ukrainian person as a Ukrainian, and all Ukrainian people in Ukraine and all over the world. We are saying that Putin's regime is destroying Ukrainians, not only Ukraine, but Ukrainian people in particular. What we see on the ground in Ukraine, we see that Putin, Russia's army, they have deliberately shelled civilian targets, they have shelled schools, hospitals, and they have murdered thousands of civilians. And I'm sure that there are, there isn't a Ukrainian right now in Ukraine, who has not had either friends or relatives who have suffered or unfortunately have been killed, as I am as well and the parents of my friends and people I know they have suffered and they have been killed in this war. Right now we have seen that Russians army has targeted cities like Mariupol, Kharkiv, Kiev, and more, and starving people of basic human needs like water, food, and worms. They have executed civilians, they have kidnapped thousands of civilians and unfortunately they have sent them to camps in Russia and unfortunately after sending them to camps in Russia, they are using them for creating their own media story and for creating the image of Ukraine as they see it in their own world view, distorted world view. So many Ukrainians, we see that so many Ukrainians have been forced to flee their homes and Russians army, they have sent millions of refugees into Poland, into Hungary into Europe and not only and we may sum up it all in one sentence. So Russian army has terrorized all of Ukraine, that is a country of over 14 million people, so that could be compared to the site of Texas or maybe California even. Terror and genocide are the key words we have to remember when we are talking about what Russia's army is doing. But as a Ukrainian and as a person who is in contact, like all the Ukrainians here, I would guess all over the world, we are staying in contact with our relatives and friends every hour, every 15 minutes and we are always, we feel responsibility of representing their perspective here. So I want us to look to have a closer look at what Ukrainians are doing on the ground in Ukraine. Ukrainians are forced to fight for their country, their state, because they are not going to surrender. And everyone is definitely about that, all the experts, all the military experts or all the political experts, everyone. That has been a surprise I guess, but right now that's something that everyone understands and that's the conscious choice of Ukrainians not to surrender but to fight. My colleagues from various fields, from the university, from the nonprofit organization that I've been working with recently, they have picked up a role in this work. Some are fighting at the frontline. Some have joined the territorial defense units, these are local defense units who are protecting the cities and towns and villages. And they are also helping the, those who are at the front lines as well. Some are volunteering and trying to collect money and all the necessary supplies starting from ballot proffests and helmets and food and so on. So whenever help is needed, whatever kind of help is needed, volunteers are there and they are helping. Some are working, like my sister is. They are doing their jobs. My sister is a part of the governmental public service sector. She is helping people to get their ID documents and she has, right now she has more work than ever with people coming from all over Ukraine and with the need of this governmental, of the help from the governmental institutions. She's in the western Ukraine and she feels this responsibility of representing a country. And she is staying in Ukraine to do her job because, and that is definitely also her conscious choice. Now, my colleagues are doing their jobs at universities. They are organizing international seminars and lectures. I will share you a story from besieged Kherson, where I also have colleagues and for, you know, that Kherson is right now has no connection. So it is surrounded by the Russian army and people in Kherson they are deprived of so many things. But people from Kherson State University, they have managed to organize a series of webinars with colleagues from Europe and US. So in besieged Kherson, not having enough or having some problems with food, medicine and so on, but fortunately enough having internet connection. They are doing their jobs, they are connecting colleagues and students and international professionals, and they are trying to raise their voices and to stay sane and stay active and proactive under the circumstances. Right now let's have a closer look at what Ukrainians in US and all over the world are doing. So, I guess that our task is to persuade more people all over the globe to do the same to choose an active role and act. Ukrainians ask that American people and people all over the globe continue to stand by Ukraine and work and act for Ukraine. What can we do, you may contact the representatives you may contact the White House and so express that you support Ukraine and that matters so much because no business as usual, no communication as usual. And finally, I want to say that Ukraine has became the greatest discovery of the 21st century, but not to live it on the level of information and just me as part of interest, together with the international Alice, like all of you right now because I think that I believe that and they know that you are our Alice, we have to help this fight for freedom and fight for democracy and we have to ask to support Ukraine with military resources and for the economic sanctions, this support combined with the Ukrainian army and people's courageous resistance will help Ukraine win and prevail this work. Thank you so much. Natalia, thank you very much for your message. It's vivid. And it gives us a lot to think about, and I'm sure we will discuss will turn now to our final panelist Conrad Turner, who we're happy to have back with us, not only because he has spent significant time in Ukraine as a diplomatic professional, but he has had global time, which I won't take time here to summarize but trust me that this this person has worked around the world and so brings a global perspective to our discussion as well. Conrad, you have the floor please. Thank you very much David. I'm looking at this map and realizing that I have been to all of the regional capitals, I think, except for Donetsk and Luhansk. When I was there, it was just after the, the Maidan Revolution and Russia had invaded Ukraine. In fact, Ukraine has been at war since then. This was 2013 2014. And the world wasn't quite sure what to do about it. And, frankly, we didn't, we didn't do enough. War has been raging in Donetsk and Luhansk and of course Crimea was was similarly taken. The word annex is is used as a euphemism, but it was stolen. And here we are today the whole country is is under siege, but Ukrainians are fighting very bravely, and very stubbornly and in the most positive sense you can imagine I will get to that in a minute. Listening to others talk I was reminded of a conversation I had with an ambassador a few years ago about a country, an unnamed country that that had European Union aspirations when we were debating what it was to be European in the European Union sense and the conclusion that at least that I came to was that you decide you are European and you decide that you believe in European values and you decide that you're you're at peace with your neighbors and that you want all the benefits of cooperation. And that was the that was the Ukraine I arrived at. And by the way that does not describe Russia, and we can all hope that one day that will change. But it's, it doesn't appear to be anywhere on the horizon. So, if you would, please imagine you're a an American diplomat who served in, I guess it must have been eight, eight or nine countries at the time. I've been in working with non governmental organizations all over the world, helping to build democratic institutions and seeing a lot of people fight very bravely and not succeeding in their various dictatorships. I arrived in Ukraine, and I arrived there and I realized I was looking at the real thing. This was a lot of people who were very eager to make this country work. And they had just cast off a corrupt president and young people and by young I mean everybody from age 20 something to 50 something had moved into had given up jobs and banking jobs and business, they were making good money. They gave up jobs to move into the government to make this new democratic experiment work. And, and above all, their goal was to get rid of corruption because that was that was the big, as I understood it the big problem that everybody was looking at they were angry about it, and they saw the European Union as as a way to escape the corruption that was frankly closely associated with Russia. With, with Moscow. So there's a lot of hard work, a lot of arguing, a lot of complaining, doing all the good things that you see in a good lively democracy. And I left having feeling like I had experienced, I had never experienced anything like this. The people we were working with knew what they wanted to do. I had meetings with education leaders who had clear ideas of what they were trying to achieve. And maybe we're looking for ideas on how to, how to, how to get there. I left. Sadly, I left some very good friends I came back a few years later, and I heard people still arguing, still complaining and yet I saw a country that had moved dramatically forward. Ukraine is European. I'm saying that as somebody who's in a European country right now, Ukraine is European Ukraine, Ukraine wants all the things that Western, quote unquote, Western Europe wants. And there's something else to Natalia alluded to it. Ukraine doesn't give up and won't give up and for people who are planning around events in Ukraine. Remember this Ukrainians will not give up. There's something there you could argue all along, but something about the Maidan Revolution solidified that sense of putting the past behind them. And that's not just putting the past of a corrupt government behind them, but putting back, putting stale historical lies behind them, and looking to the future. And frankly having a very clear sense of what democracy is. Sometimes I worry that in the West were too comfortable we were too happy with our TV and and or Netflix and our lives and so forth and we seem to be getting away from what it means to be in a democracy and a democracy is a commitment really. What you're seeing across Ukraine now and you're seeing with our panelists today. They may or may not be in Ukraine, but they are fighting for Ukraine. Given that Ukraine is not going to give up. I will love quote someone else I think it was Yana who said stay awake. Don't blink. Keep the pressure on. It's very tempting, especially as the Kremlin gets the propaganda machine back online which it will. It's very important to keep this pressure on it is good pressure. Yes, it's hard it's hard on the Russian people as it must be. We also need to keep the momentum away from Russian gas. And I would argue from fossil fuels in general. That's another old story that we really need to put behind us. But let me let me come back to the question of Kremlin propaganda. It's, I'm spending much of my time painting a house and to my chagrin spilling a lot of paint and propaganda Russian propaganda is kind of like paint. When it spills it's going to keep filling every little crevice until it until it dominates. And while it's tempting to listen very carefully to what Putin is saying and what his opinions are saying, what's coming across official propaganda challenges. It's far more important to stay the course. We cannot give in to where, frankly, Western democratic politics may take us, which is away from the subject return to normal. The desire to do business again, we can't let that happen this is a real opportunity to do the right thing for the United States and for Europe. Lastly, and at this point, I think it's not too early to talk about post war, Ukraine, Ukraine will have been through a lot. And yes, Ukraine is going to need help building rebuilding infrastructure rebuilding residential housing. We've seen the photos. They're real. That's what's happening there. People have lost their homes. We also need to think about the trauma that people are experiencing young people who may not be able to express it the same way others are children. Think about how we can address their traumas so that they can come out in a good place. Once we get past the conflict. And finally, two really important points. One is Russian money, Kremlin money, let's put it that way, like Kremlin propaganda tends to seep in wherever it can. It's really important to make sure that Ukraine is able to stand without corrupt money coming in. It's a very difficult fight, but everything we can possibly do to prevent that from happening is important. And lastly, and the education always somehow ends up being last in a list. I would like to put it first. And perhaps my scholarly colleagues would agree. We need to help Ukraine rebuild its schools, its university buildings, but also get its classrooms back functioning as best as possible. Thank you. Thank you very much Conrad. What I'd like we'd now heard from our four panelists, I'm going to take down the share screen. So it should be possible for all of our panelists now to be on the screen for our audience, because what we want to do now is to move into a discussion. And the way I'd like to start this discussion is I'd like to invite my panel panelists to see if they have anything they would like to add. Now that they've heard their fellow panelists, I know every time I'm on a panel discussion, as I listened to others, I'm thinking, oh, I wish I had said this, or I want to respond to that. So let me quickly move through the panelists in the order in which they spoke to see if there's anything that you would like to add to the group at this time and if you don't you can say I pass for now that would be fine. We'll do this for a little bit and then we will turn over to the broader Q&A. I've been watching as questions have been coming in and we will save time for them. So, Yana, having heard the whole panel. Is there anything else you would like to add or to ask of your fellow panelists at this point. Thank you, David. I actually wanted to add and thank Conrad for mentioning education as a person that's been working in education and been working with Conrad for a long time. I think education is a very important topic to talk about here. It's not only do we need to rebuild our schools and to rebuild our universities, some of them are totally destroyed as like summa campus or Harkiv campus and I believe David and Catherine, you visited Harkiv campus, and you were given lectures there. So not only do we need to rebuild and support Ukrainian education system. I think what we also need to do in the United States is to include Ukraine as a topic of discussion in academia because for a very long time. All the information was gathered around Russian studies and there is nothing wrong with Russian studies. But the irony here is that all the academics that we've been researching Russia for a very long time are now silenced because they cannot get in peace in what is happening right now and they cannot explain what is happening right now. There's nothing to be enrouted in what they've been working on for a long time, but what we also see is the lack of Ukrainian experts in the field. Who can speak about Ukrainian history, Ukrainian language, Ukrainian genocides, Ukrainian perspectives, Ukrainian successes and so more and so forth. Even though we are doing our best here to include that into the conversation. I'm just using this platform, as I know that so many people are listening to us right now so many people from Academy. Please think about that and please make sure that when you cite somebody you can cite Ukrainian when you work on some topic, you can think about it from the Ukrainian perspective or include it. For instance, this is important, because we are trying to get back to rebuild, but also to give voices to Ukrainian scientists all over the world. And some of them cannot speak for themselves as we know, at least five scientists were killed during this last month. And I guess we are here responsible not only for ourselves but for people who are not with us anymore. So education is not only about reading and writing education is about gathering people, creating the common platform, and I think this is the time to do that around the globe. So thank you for mentioning that and thank you David. Thank you Yana. Thank you so much. Yara saw, do you have anything now that you want to add having heard your colleagues on the panel. I just maybe following up on where picking up where I left it off. Yes. I'm asking the military element of this situation and how important it is. It poses challenges to the manner in which here in Ukraine we perceive the efficiency of the Western democracy. It makes when incumbent listen and capable to promptly respond to public opinions and the overwhelming public opinion in the Western world is to give tangible help to Ukraine. If some of those 29 meek Jack jet fighters will not arrive, or a good air defense system will not arrive. Dear colleagues with all respect, we might not necessarily reach the point when we will have a privilege to talk about education. And not underestimate the significance of this military component in this tangible help. And again, because of the failure of of Budapest memorandum, the big lessons for Ukraine, our negotiators, I'm hopeful will do everything possible in order to incorporate necessary covenants. In order, as I said, again, to make this safe for us Ukrainians to continue living in this country, so that the new arrangement shall be reached. The failure of Budapest memorandum, and you know who signatories are. This is not only Russia, who has unilaterally breached it by first invading Crimea. And after that, being bold enough to quote on CNN with their main spokesperson that Ukraine attempts to breach the neutrality that has been proclaimed from the outset. My question of course is of course who has done it first. But the breach of the failure of Budapest memorandum imposes a big moral and political obligation on the Western world to help Ukraine tangibly and actually preserve the democratic values to stop this plug from spreading elsewhere in the center of Western Eastern Europe. Don't let the Western politicians reach that state of play when the article five of NATO would have to be tested in practice. No one knows in between us how this is going to happen in reality. Thanks for joining to us, Yaroslav. Thank you for your insights on that. Let me turn to Natalia and having heard everyone. Would you like to add anything at this point. Just a very short message. Thank you David. On the ground in Ukraine, everything is very clear. So there is good, and there is evil. There is black, and there is white. It's like a fairy tale. Miracles happen. Yeah, but in real life, people make miracle happens. We become Santa Claus. We bring presents. So people make miracles. So here right now I want to come back to the words to the quote that they heard from retired General McAfee and who said that to prevail to win this war. In Ukraine needs game changing technology. So I want to emphasize this and to make this miracle happen. We need help this game changing technology. So once we get this, that will be a game changing situation for the whole world. Thanks. Thank you Natalia Conrad. Any last thoughts before we turn over to the broader discussion. Yeah, at the at the risk of sounding like a broken record. It's really important that Ukraine get what it's what it needs to to fight this fight. It's it's unfortunate, but it's the truth. If we can't provide planes. We need to. We cannot be guilty of a failure of imagination. I would just put it that way. Get them what they need. They know how to use it. They will use it well. Thank you so much. If you will indulge me just for a second I would like to just say that I was struck how each and every one of you was so eager to share with us the positive things about Ukraine. The good news, the successes of Ukraine. But that's not what we're here to talk about we came here to talk about the problem. But I would like to acknowledge that. I appreciate all Americans as we have watched this war unfold, and we have witnessed the heroic, the word stubborn was used. The resolute and unwavering response of the Ukrainians to this. Goliath like threat. I mean we as a country stand in awe and deep respect. For this nation that we're learning so much about. And I think this conversation has just been at least a small contribution to that mutual learning and conversation that needs to happen. Kathy I know that you've been tracking the questions as they come in from our audience. I have a few notes I could still refer to but I'd like to, you know, as far as picking up on the conversation just now, I'll hold them in reserve if we need them. Let me turn to you, and have you facilitate some conversation around our virtual input. And thanks so much to all of our panelists for their really forthright and and moving at times presentations. I think we need to have both of those perspectives to as Yaroslav said, you know, sort of trying to intellectually put your heads around what's happening, and to also emotionally feel what it means to, to be at war. So I appreciate both of those, those perspectives. I'll just say one quick thing before I have identified a couple of strands of questions from our, our Q&A board and so I'll come come back to those in just a minute but I remember the first, the second trip that David and I took to Ukraine. We went towards the eastern edge of the country and we traveled not only to Harkiv but also to Sumi incredible hospitality we received there I think it was there that in Sumi that I learned about Ukrainian tradition that at mealtime, when you have guests, every bit of the table needs to be covered with plates, because there needs to be enough food so that none of the table shows as your guests are selecting from amongst a variety of delicious things to eat and and and just being so humbled by that show of hospitality as we were meeting people and working together. But I think one of the things that someone mentioned to me and it could have been Yana. As we were in that, in that, in that part of the country very close to the fighting at the time. This was 2016 or 2017 that we were traveling there. And just just hearing that sort of if you think Putin is done, you're not paying attention. If you think this annexation of Crimea and now invading these Eastern oblasts in our country, you think he's done you're not paying attention and that really stuck with me in terms of the way that I have viewed this most recent developments, and then and then war. So, following up on two strains and I want to start with sort of what's happening now and how we got here and then I think what a lot of folks in the, in the q amp a are asking for which is what's going to happen. And I don't think any of us can answer that but but I would, I would definitely ask for your reflections. So let's start with the role of Ukraine in in potentially joining NATO, NATO and it's come and and Ukraine's commitment to neutrality. I think it could be that there are others out there who don't know much about this Budapest memorandum memorandum. So, you're so if you could just give us a quick minute on what the memorandum was intended to guarantee, and then how, how Ukraine's move towards the West was seen as a real provocation by Putin. It's the factually in international document that was signed in early 90s to document Ukrainian abandonment of the third largest nuclear weapon arsenal that we had at that time. The Ukrainian politicians at that time were learned to believe that this very tangible step, which is again to abandon in the circumstances when we were made to believe that we are not rich enough to sustain that weapon and that to this large extent it is true maybe on the economic side. You know, after the breakup of the former Soviet Union, Ukraine was not on the from the geopolitical standpoint in the need to maintain such a large arsenal but in exchange we see just effectively a non binding generic statement from the countries who are signatories of Budapest memorandum as simply stating that they would do everything possible in their good phase. I'm not just part of raising but I'm trying to be substantial here rather than absolute in terms to preserve the Ukrainian territorial integrity and so and sovereignty. And those signatories included United States, France, the United Kingdom, maybe of course Russian Federation. And by the way, the answer is one of the questions that I saw in the Q&A why the Budapest memorandum is no longer discussed because one of the signatories has abruptly breached it. That was a complete failure at the part of the way in which international negotiations are supposed to be held. You can criticize professionalism of the quite a juvenile political elites in the newly created Ukraine because the Soviet Union just broke up. And similarly criticized how genuine and sincere were those signatories who were counter-signing the document because effectively as a lawyer I can say that Ukrainian position to refer to Budapest memorandum was the ground to actually demand tangible military support now from the actual US or UK army on the ground it's not completely meaningless. Thank you so much. That's really helpful I think. Again, I don't think a lot of us in the United States know much about that memorandum and so don't understand the significance of it. If I were just to paraphrase myself, the memorandum again was never meant to become and never became an international treaty in the normal sense. Thank you. Super, super. I'd like to turn to to Yana for a quick minute and ask a question that relates to this. I think, you know, again someone in the in the question Q&A asked isn't the commitment to neutrality to forgo membership in NATO counterintuitive for a people in nation who view themselves as European and pro-western. Yana, how do you see that, especially as we think about the move of so many refugees into other parts of Europe. Yana, how is this commitment to some sort of neutrality was it ever really, I think, a part of the way Ukrainians thought about their relationship to Russia. Okay, if they were phrasing it this way, because yes, you are absolutely right. We were never neutral in terms of if we want to be a part of Russia, we were very outspoken about that we were never agreeing to be a part of the Soviet Union, we now say that we were occupied and by Soviets in 2017, and then in 1945, the western part of Ukraine was occupied by Soviet Union, and NATO and our desires to work with European Union and be a part of the European Union is a part of our constitution. And this is something that a lot of Ukrainians, most of the Ukrainians agree on, but I think that to keep an eye on the ball, and not to talk about what's going to happen when we win, because we will win. All these conversations about neutrality about whether we should be a part of NATO or should not be a part of NATO. These questions lose their sense if we don't get what we ask for, if we don't get enough supplies of missile defense, enough of planes, because just today, the mayor of Mariupol, the country of 500,000 people, confirmed that at least 210 kids died. Just yesterday, we had a number of 139 kids all over Ukraine who died. And today, we have 349. At least 5000 people in Mariupol died, and that was confirmed by the mayor today. 90% of the city is destroyed right now and there is hundreds, 170,000 people still under constant shallows from Russia. So if we don't get those missiles, if we don't get those airplanes, we are not going to have a luxury of talking about Ukraine being a neutral, or Ukraine being a part of NATO, or Ukraine being a part of European Union, because people die every day as we try to philosophize, as we try to entertain ourselves with the comfort of discussing what is going to happen next 10 years or in next five years. There is a good chance that if the world doesn't act right now, if they do not put their money where their promises are, do not put their planes where they stand with Ukraine, philosophies stands right now. We will not have these 10 years, we will not have this luxury of discussing what is going to happen next. So I think in terms of Ukrainians being very clear that we are a part of European community, that Ukrainians are being very clear that we are not going to be a part of Russia. This is, as Natalia said, black and white, but everything that is going to happen next depends a lot on what the world responds towards that place. So I'm just trying to make sure that we are thinking about the facts that matter right now. And then, when we are lucky to have the luxury, we will be discussing all the results of the consequences that follow. Thank you so much, Yana. That is absolutely our hope that somehow this will end. And it will end quickly. But that brings me to, we're running close on time, we've got about four minutes left. And I'd like to bring Natalia back in and ask you to answer some hard questions. So what's going to happen is, I think, something that I'm seeing all through the Q&A. I know we all want to know that. But as a media expert and as someone who's really been following the media coverage of what's happening, are there any ideas about resolution? How might we get to some sort of negotiated way to close this awful chapter of war? So Natalia, if you would maybe take that on for a minute or two? Sorry to give you such a hard task. That's a hard question, but I will approach it from two perspectives. First of all, from the Ukrainian media discourse perspective, because in Ukrainian media and social media discourse, there is, again, this, I would say, this Ukrainian identity, modern Ukrainian identity unfolding, and it's very clear right now. And we are, and people are discussing here the questions of life and death. So life is prevailing, life is winning. So victory, that's the question of life that is discussed. And that's all. So far, people are thinking, so they are very cautious in thinking about what will happen after Russians will stop and leave the territory of Ukraine. Because their major questions is for Ukraine to live, yes, for Ukrainians to stay alive. So that is the question that is being discussed in Ukrainian media sphere. Definitely the European American experts, they have more resources to discuss and to go further into these questions. And they have their opinions about negotiating about the neutral status, about militarization and whatnot. But from my perspective of a Ukrainian, definitely on, I would say it's very important to emphasize this agency of Ukraine. So nothing can be discussed about the status without Ukraine, but without Ukraine, without Ukrainian people and Ukrainian governmental officials. We've got the position of a president right now and that may be like the starting point. We see that Ukrainian president right now is very close and he tries to keep these close connections with the Ukrainian people. And that's a very positive sign for the Ukrainian society at all. Because this might be this starting point for developing and building on further in future. So once Ukraine wins, we will use this resources, yes, for this communication channels that have been created so far, and this understanding, this identity that we have created so far. And we will use this as the basis for working on the modern Ukraine. And that answers the question. I think, I think that's, that's a great answer because I do believe what I've heard consistently from all of our panelists is the commitment of the Ukrainian people to democracy to their own autonomy and their, their willingness to be courageous. And that's in the face of such aggression. So, very much. I appreciate those, those answers and think we address some of the questions that came up in, in the, in the Q&A so I'll turn it back to David to close us out. I know that there's more that can be said, and we need to have more conversations I would invite our audience to please let the university know if you would like to see more panels. And if there are concerns you would like address Kathy and I are very easily reached at the university. I would like to thank all of our panelists for their time and their commitment to this. I came out of this with a very clear wake up call. You have called us to be awake. And being awake leads to action. I take seriously that you've identified education as just one of the elements of action. And I pledge that Fairfield University will do what it can. And on this note, I will adjourn our panel discussion, and I wish all of you well.