 Good afternoon. Oh, hold on. The Hill. Hi. I'm trying to say it's my work. Can folks hear me OK? Yes. OK, great. Hi, I'm Andrew Weiss. I'm Vice President Studies here at Carnegie. It's a real pleasure to kick off the first of two panels this afternoon dedicated to the fifth anniversary of the war in Dumbos and to sort of take a look ahead at the new political realities in Ukraine that have been created by the dramatic election of Vladimir Zelensky. Our first session is with Ambassador Kurt Volker, who is the special representative for Ukraine negotiations at the State Department. I think it is no exaggeration to say that in this very polarized and problematic political environment, Ambassador Volker has done an exemplary job both presenting a clear policy vision of US policy towards Ukraine, of unifying the Western world in the support of Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression, and to be a very practical and effective negotiator for a possible path forward against what are obviously very challenging circumstances and no shortage of complications. But it really is a tribute to you, your professionalism, and your experience that you've been able to do all of these things and basically walk between a bunch of raindrops simultaneously. Ambassador Volker probably doesn't need much introduction to this crowd, but served as US ambassador to NATO at the end of the aughts. He is currently executive director of the McCain Institute, so he is doing this out of his good of his heart in addition to continuing his role leading the McCain Institute, served at various capacities at the State Department, including as principal deputy assistant secretary in the European Bureau, and is acting senior director at the NSC under President George W. Bush. It's a real privilege to welcome here, Ambassador Volker, maybe if you could start us off a little bit by describing your recent trip to Ukraine. You were at the inauguration, and you met with President Zelensky. And if you could maybe give us a little sense of what you saw in Kiev and what the road ahead looks like. OK, great. Welcome to Carnegie. Thank you so much. Thank you. Pleasure to be here. Thank you all for coming. So many friends in the audience. I feel like I hardly need to say anything because we've been saying it all to each other over so much time anyway, but we'll try to summarize it all again. And let me start not with the inauguration last week, which I did go to, but at the end of February. The end of February, February 28, we had a US guided missile destroyer visit to Port of Odessa. And I don't know how many of you have seen a US guided missile destroyer. It was my first time. They're really big boats. And they have a lot of stuff on them. So it was very impressive to see this in the Port of Odessa. The Ukrainians were thrilled. This was one of the steps that we had taken in response to Russia's closure of the Kurch Strait, the attack on the Ukrainian Navy, the imprisonment of the Ukrainian sailors, is we wanted to step up more of a naval presence in the Black Sea, demonstrate our interest in freedom of navigation, be part of a more persistent NATO naval presence through many countries that would be there. So I went for the destroyer visit, along with our ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sunland, and some very senior EU officials. So we're giving a message not only about military presence in the Black Sea area, but also economic support and development support. And then we went to Kiev. And that evening, I had a meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky at his campaign headquarters. And I was very struck then, the first time I had met him. And I had only read press reports up until that point and a few messages from the embassy. He was very substantive. His public role as a candidate was that he didn't want to get pinned down on substance and be very vague about what his policies would be if elected. But in private, he was actually quite substantive, very knowledgeable, very detailed. And he also gave a very clear commitment to wanting to reform Ukraine. Nothing has really changed. It's still a corrupt system. It's still in need of massive reform. And this is what the people want. And he's prepared to deliver that. So it was a very forward-leaning presentation by him. And he had with him a couple of people who were relatively well-known reformers in Ukraine who were sitting as part of the meeting. And I think he did that on purpose to demonstrate that they are with him and that he is serious about what he's saying. So that was the first meeting. And of course, we finished up the presidential election campaign. And he ends up with 73% of the votes in the second round. So overwhelming mandate from the public. A second point to make is that these elections were very free and fair. They were very well-run. There was not violence. And there was a peaceful transfer of power. So before we go deeper into talking about the new team, let's also say that President Poroshenko has done Ukraine several good turns. He did more on reform during his tenure as president than had happened in the previous 20 years in Ukraine. And while running to win re-election and losing, he then stepped down gracefully and has facilitated a transfer of power. Now he's going to run and try to keep a seat in the parliament and be part of the oil opposition. He would not expect them to be best of friends. But I think he's done his part in a democratic system, which I think is very positive as well. Now then you have President Zelensky and his inauguration. And I just want to stress as well that the US engagement in here has been important. Secretary of State Pompeo called both candidates in the second round on the Friday before the election. That's President Poroshenko and candidate Zelensky. Then when Zelensky won the election, President Trump called him on the night of the election to congratulate him. And then Zelensky advanced the date of, well, advance. He called an early date for inauguration. And that was the 20th of May. And we managed to put together a US presidential delegation to go there for the inauguration on really about three days notice. And that was led by Secretary of Energy Rick Perry. I was there as part of that delegation. Again, our ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sunland. We were joined by Senator Ron Johnson and Alex Vimman from the National Security Council and our charge in Kiev, Joe Pennington. We were there for the inauguration. We saw the speech, which I hope all of you have had some exposure to, quite a speech, quite interesting, entertaining, and dramatic and substantial. And that led, for instance, to the dismissal of parliament that day, a demand that certain legislation be passed, the prime minister resigning on a 12-hour period. And we had a bilateral meeting with President Zelensky after the inauguration that lasted about an hour. And again, he was on. He was really demonstrating a commitment to wanting to reform everything, recognizing that that is what people now expect of him. And with him were some, again, very well-known reformers. There is the current Ukrainian ambassador to NATO, Vadim Pristayko, who is serving as his de facto diplomatic advisor. And there is Alexander Daniliyuk, who just yesterday was formally appointed to be the chair of the National Security and Defense Council. Also with him were Lena Zerkal, who is the deputy foreign minister, also very well-respected and known, committed to Western orientation of Ukraine. And it looks like she will just be staying at her job rather than taking on a new one, but nonetheless, clearly a close part of the team, which is very, all of this is very encouraging. You will have also seen the news that he appointed after our visit Andrei Bogdan as his chief of presidential administration. Bogdan is famous as being the lawyer representing Igor Kolomoisky, thank you. Kolomoisky, including in Kolomoisky's lawsuit against the state of Ukraine in seeking damages for Ukraine's nationalization of Privatbank. So this is big news, whatever you make of it, that he is appointed to be chief of presidential administration. We were hearing rumors of this while we were in Kiev and we talked about it as a US presidential delegation and thought that is not our place to talk about people, but rather to talk about principles and policies. And the principles are a serious commitment to reform and to thorough growing efforts to fight corruption and some bold ideas on how to go about doing that. And that our best advice that we could give to the president is to be credible, to recognize that not only did he win a major victory, but that people now have expectations of him and he can either enhance those credentials or he can cause people to question those credentials through appointments that he makes and through actions that he takes. So he's gonna have to think about that very carefully. We can't do his thinking for him and he does face a complex political system, but we did put down a marker on that. Now that complex political system is that he has no votes in the parliament at the moment for himself or for his agenda. And that is why he needed to call early elections immediately and try to capitalize on his personal popularity and turn that into a political movement, political candidates, and then votes in the parliament. Without doing that, he won't be able to get anything done. And so that's his top priority. He also needs to have people that are experienced in navigating a notoriously corrupt and back room political system with a handful of oligarchs that have disproportion of power in the country. And having someone who understands that system can be an asset as long as that person sees himself as working for the president and representing the interests of the Ukrainian people at this stage. And frankly, the proof will be in the pudding. We have to see how it goes. But it's better to have someone who knows what he's doing on your side than a novice. But at the same time, you wanna make sure that they're really on your side. That's kind of an overview of the steps in the recent days. I'll just add a couple other things. We were invited, the presidential delegation, we were invited by President Trump to meet with him last week after being in Ukraine to give him an update. And I had a further meeting with others with Secretary Pompeo yesterday. And I do feel that there is a very clear and strong US understanding that this is a moment that matters. We need to be reaching out and engaging as much as possible. Future of Ukraine is going over the next several years is going to be determined in this few month period ahead of us through these elections in the government that forms. And everyone else will be competing for relationships and position and how does Ukraine develop from here? It's very important that the US and the West people are engaged at this time. Hey, well that's a very succinct and I think very helpful way to set a baseline for a few more questions from me. The scale of Zelensky's victory was stunning. And I hard pressed to come up with a comparable landslide that isn't rigged. And since you mentioned and emphasized this was a free and fair election, I think that's a very important point that is impressive anywhere in the world, not just in a post-communist country. It's clear that 73% mandate though is based on a popular anger and frustration with the status quo. Do you believe that Zelensky has a big enough sledgehammer and the political will to dismantle the status quo, which has been, for decades, Ukraine's biggest liability, arguably more than its relationship with its much bigger neighbor? Well, not yet is the answer. He has built a lot of political capital by attracting 73% of the voters behind him. And so that does give him a moral authority and a political capacity to push. But that's not the only thing that matters. Political organization matters, money matters, old relationships and corrupt relationships matter. And there are plenty of forces outside of government that will be either seeking to oppose him or seeking to strike a deal with him, corrupt him in a way, say, well, only if. And he, I think, by going to early elections is trying to continue to build that political capital, that ability to get things done. Because as I said, without getting votes in the parliament that are his or supporting his agenda, it's gonna be very difficult to do. I'd like to, at this point, just jump in with one specific issue that I've talked about several times and I think it's important. And that is the need to change the system in Ukraine. Just we've always talked about anti-corruption. We've talked about anti-corruption core. We talked about a special prosecutor and all those things. And those are all good. I'm not saying that we should not be pushing these things. But I think we also need to think a bit bigger and say that corruption in many ways is not the problem. Corruption is the symptom. And the problem is that you have five or six people who own a disproportionate share of the economy and through that have disproportionate control over political parties, over the Rada, over the courts, over the media. And it creates a fundamentally corrupt system overall. One that has control over governance in Ukraine, control over the judiciary and squeezes out and discourages any potential foreign investment in the westernization of Ukraine. So that has got to be changed. And I think a way to go about that would be through EU-compliant, EU-coordinated antitrust legislation that would require these people to divest of assets. And if they did so, and did so willingly, they would be able to keep their money that they get in return, pay a one-time tax and get an amnesty for prosecution related to those assets in the past. And if they did not, the government could sell those assets off anyway, take a bigger tax and not give them any immunity from prosecution. And it would be a way to try to repair the damage that this system has reaped upon Ukraine up to this point. Again, not easy, will require a lot of effort from the president and others in Ukraine as well as support from the US and the EU and the IMF, the World Bank. But I think something dramatic like that would need to happen as a way to really change the system. How much do you think Ukraine's fatigue is going to be a factor going forward? After 2014, obviously the eyes of the world were all on Ukraine, huge expectations for the incoming government under Poroshenko, sense of drama based on the war, which will come to in a second, but a real unified international response that the United States and Germany basically led. That is not an evidence nearly as much today as it was five years ago. Some of that is just the world has moved on, the situation seems less dire, and there was less urgency just because Ukraine has consolidated its status, something that you should not, no one should have taken granted in 2014 or 2015. So it's huge accomplishments, huge reforms that Poroshenko pushed through with certain caveats about what else didn't get done. But now the sense of policy urgency is there, policy clearly is more amorphous, like what's the agenda? If you were to pulse your top four or five European counterparts, they may not all totally agree with you on what the immediate priorities should be, or am I mistaken in that? Well, so first off I think on the fatigue point, I'd say there had been some Ukraine fatigue because things seem to be stuck. So from, I'd say maybe about, trying to do the math here, but 2016 onward, nothing seemed to be changing, either internally or in the relationship with Russia. There was process, there was churn, but everything seemed stuck. I don't think that's the case right now. I think with this election, with a new president, with a change of power, and the genuine popular wave that was behind it, I think that fatigue is suspended. Now people say, oh, this is interesting, what's going to happen now? And there is a lot of new stuff going on. I'd say there's more new, we're already today, the 29th, in the last nine days there's been more new stuff going on with Ukraine than in the past two years. So I think that is significant. When it comes to fatigue in a different sense though, I do worry about one thing, which is that people are getting used to Russia's occupation and continued fighting. And this is a problem that people shouldn't forget that every day Ukrainians in the Donbas are really suffering under difficult humanitarian circumstances. They've been a massive displacement of the population from there and Russia continues to lead the military forces, to pay for the contract forces, provide the intelligence, support the civil administrations, and they are literally killing the Ukrainians every week. And that's something we shouldn't get tired of. On the what needs to happen, I'd say, yeah, you're probably right, you talk to five different people and you'll get five different top priorities, but you'll probably get the same five priorities overall, just maybe a little bit of difference of emphasis between the European Union or Canaveral or ourselves or those in Ukraine, people have some differences of emphasis, but people pretty much see the same picture. Can you talk a little about this in a regnum? I noticed in your comments yesterday when you did your press availability that a lot is sort of in suspended animation, pending the Rada elections at the end of July. There are reports in the news overnight of a very rocky transition of power and the new head of the Ukrainian equivalent of the National Security Council walked around his offices with his cell phone and put it on Facebook. All the computers are gone? Yeah, saying they've taken the servers and the monitors and this is not the way it's supposed to go. What is happening inside the governing apparatus? Is this a kind of, you know, people wanna take their ball and sort of walk off the field and leave Zelensky to fail or is it, you know, is there something, are people gonna rise above the petty rivalry that the campaign brought? Well, I think it's option three, which is everybody is worried about being prosecuted. So in a situation where everyone is guilty of something, the choice of whom to prosecute is a political decision. And so everyone is now worried about getting prosecuted so they're just trying to get rid of whatever information might be around that might facilitate that. And on the one hand, it might be true and fair and on the other hand, it might be politically targeted and either way, people are gonna be concerned about it. And if I could offer a piece of advice, if you look at what happened in Georgia in 2012, it was a huge mistake for the Georgian dream to spend two years or three years going after the national movement because it wasted a lot of time in Georgia. And now if you look at where Georgia is and what the Georgian dream is the government has done, they're doing very, very well but it took them years to get to this point. And I think Ukraine doesn't have the time to waste. So let's talk about the conflict. Zelensky, as a candidate, notoriously vague, and unspecific about his policy agenda, but created an expectation that he's the man to end the war, as he said. We didn't start this, but we're the ones who can end it. And then put the focus on, we won't give up territory, but somehow this will be resolved. Are the expectations there being set too high? Well, remember that this is someone running for president. And so what do people in Ukraine want? They want the war to be over. So you're gonna say, I'm gonna end the war. Unfortunately it's not within his power to do. It's in Russia's power to do that and Russia has done the opposite since he's gotten elected. They've actually turned up the pressure on Ukraine rather than turned it down. But it's, of course, natural for him to say that's what he wants to do. It's also helpful for him, I think, in terms of the dynamic of dealing with Russia and how that is perceived internationally. It's very important for Ukraine to position itself as saying, we're ready. We would like to negotiate. We would like to see an end to this. We're going to do our share. We support the Minsk agreements. We wanna implement the Minsk agreements if we can ever get access to the territory. That's the right position for Ukraine to adopt as well. And it does turn the spotlight back on Russia, which remarkably, and I don't know if you saw the press conference, there was a press conference between Pompeo and Lavrov in Sochi after Pompeo's meetings there. And when the issue of Ukraine came up, Lavrov addressed it and said, well, we hope with the election of President Zelensky that Ukraine will now get serious about dealing with his internal problem. Which is a complete denial of any responsibility to the point that it's insulting. And that's Russia's position, is that they deny any involvement in Eastern Ukraine. They say it's all these other, it's an internal Ukrainian matter and Ukraine needs to negotiate with the two peoples' republics that Russia created and sustains. That's just not a serious position. Can you talk a little bit about the dynamic going forward with the possibility of a presidential meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin at the end of next month in Osaka. If I'm not mistaken, there was a linkage that was established that meetings like that should not be held pending release of the sailors who were seized at the end of November. The administration's been a bit fuzzy about whether that was the linkage and whether the linkage was changing. Is there a focus at the presidential level that would be helpful to unsticking what looks effectively like, as you say, a situation where the Russians continue to put more and more pressure? They've made this very inflammatory announcement about handing out passports and Donbass. What should we be expecting from a presidential level encounter next month if it happens? Yeah, if it happens, which we're still not 100% clear on. So to go back to December, remember there was a plan to have a Trump and Putin meeting in Argentina. And it was canceled because within the week prior to that, Russia had attacked the Ukrainian Navy and taken the ships and imprisoned the sailors, took them back to Russia. And so the meeting was called off. And I think that was a very good step. I think it was the right thing to do. And we have continued since then to insist that the sailors be released, including as recently as yesterday. So we continue to push this. Russia has, again, they lost a court case on this recently. They are in complete contravention of international law. There is no basis on which to continue the detention of these sailors, and yet they do it anyway. And they've announced that they've extended the pre-trial detention of the sailors to put it on the other side of the parliamentary elections in Ukraine now, which is just a despicable way to act. Now that is where we are. In addition to that, and you saw Secretary Pompeo visit President Putin and meet with Lavrov in Sochi, we have in addition to Ukraine, several other issues in very bad shape with Russia too. We have arms control and nuclear issues. We have Venezuela. We have Syria. We have North Korea. We have our general diplomatic standoff with them, including over intelligence. We have military deployments. We have obviously not only the Donbas but also Russia's claimed annexation of Crimea. So there is a long list of issues with Russia that are not good. And as a general proposition, I think there's probably a proposition in Bill and you here at Carnegie would agree with, you would like our leaders to be able to meet and talk and see if we can cool it off a little bit, find something that we can do constructively. And that is not saying that we don't care about Ukraine or other issues. It's just saying we ought to try to be able to manage this major disagreement among two big countries. Still not clear, we're gonna be able to do it. But that's where we are. Now, whether that means that they would meet without the sailors being released, it would be yes if that meeting happens in Japan because Russia has clearly said they're not gonna release the sailors. And that's a tough one, but it may be that for the greater good of trying to create some kind of stability in an otherwise very fractious US-Russia relationship you need to have at least some meetings. So let me ask you two more questions and then I'll open things up to the folks here, many of whom, as you noted, are known friends and admirers of yours. There is a perception I've heard and it may be overstated, but I think it's worth addressing that the West did not want Mr. Zelensky to win and that this was a sort of unwelcome upstart who didn't stand for anything and who didn't have the same sort of identity as the defender of Ukraine that his predecessor had. Is that a challenge going forward for the West? Is there a sort of bad blood or misgivings in the Zelensky camp about how we viewed his arrival, which obviously came out of nowhere on some of them? Well, when you say the West, I assume you're talking about Europe because I think there was an effort, a miracle met with Poroshenko during the election campaign, yet a visit to Brussels during the election campaign. And so I think there is a little bit of frustration in the Zelensky team that Europe did try to show engagement with Poroshenko. Not deep frustration because we were joking a little bit, but there's only one Europe and you're gonna have to deal with Europe. US did not do that. I was very pleased with this. In fact, President Poroshenko was complaining to us that we weren't doing enough to support him and our response was consistently, we don't pick people. We stand for the principles and the policies and whoever's going to lead Ukraine, we will work with them and we wanna see a Ukraine that is reforming and strengthening democracy, it's fighting corruption and we support Ukraine's Western orientation and whoever the voters choose, we will support whoever wins based on our support for those principles. And I think that has positioned us so well post-election. And I think it's always the right stance to take. We should not be trying to pick people on elections. But not agree more. And I think the other point is that the imperative to support Ukraine and to push a reform agenda, regardless of how you feel about our Russia policy, that that is a prerequisite. And I think there is broad unity between the United States and our European partners about that. One issue that has cropped up, which I think is unfortunate in the last couple of weeks, is a sense that the very polarized and overheated US political climate is starting to bleed into Ukraine policy potentially. At least there is an effort to bring the 2020 presidential campaign into Ukraine, US presidential campaign with people like the President's lawyer, Mr. Giuliani, seeking evidence and other things that he claims will be potentially important to bring the light about Ukraine's involvement in the 2016 situation in the United States and Russian interference, as well as questions about former Vice President Biden. How does it feel to you is it possible to kind of draw a ring fence around our support for Ukraine and this important moment of transition and try to keep the politics out? Or is that getting hard? No, it's actually not. So I wouldn't use the phrase bleeding into the relationship because that's really not right. I mean, the actual relationship with Ukraine and with the new presidential team, that's one thing. What is happening is it's getting into the media and into the atmospherics around Ukraine in our domestic politics. And so the way I would say it is that I think President Trump in the wake of the Mueller investigation having been concluded and there not being any accusation of collusion is now going on the offensive and saying, well, the only collusion was people trying to feed Hillary Clinton's campaign information to damage me, President Trump. And so that's, he's now pushing that that is all domestic political narrative. And what I would say is that Zelensky, having just been elected, had nothing to do with anything happening in 2016 in Ukraine. He's got no stake in this, it doesn't really matter there. Other people in Ukraine are trying to use the US domestic politics as a vehicle for their own engagement, either in fighting their domestic enemies inside Ukraine or trying to feel like they've got some special relationship with people in the United States. They may try to do that, but I don't think that affects US policy and I don't think it affects what Zelensky is going to be trying to do in Ukraine. All right, well, we've got time for a couple of questions. If folks could do me a couple of favors. One, wait for the microphone. Two, introduce yourself. Three, keep it brief and it needs to end with a question mark. So let me start over there, please, in the middle. Hi, thank you so much for your interesting comments on Ukraine. I'm Amy, by the way, I'm from Foreign Policy Magazine. I was just wondering if you could comment on whether President Trump has any plans to have a phone call with Zelensky or any meetings or kind of sideline meetings over the next three months. Yeah, this was the topic that we discussed with President Trump when we came back. We do not have a decision yet on exactly how this is going to work, but it is very much on the mind of the administration that we need to be continuing engagement, including at the President's level. How we do that, I can't answer today, but it is up there. All the way on the back. Good afternoon. My name is Asgolt Krushelnitsky. I'm from the Ukrainian newspaper Cave Post. Dr. Volker mentioned that the former Ukrainian president, Poroshenko, had been complaining or upset that there wasn't enough support for him from the U.S. Can you say what sort of support he hoped to receive from the U.S. in his election bid? No, I think it's just an attitudinal thing. Obviously he's running for reelection. He wanted to be reelected. He wanted people to come out and support his reelection. And we did not do that as a matter of national policy, U.S. policy. As I said, we are not going to be endorsing any candidate. So we are endorsing principles. And I certainly do give him credit, a lot of credit, for the reforms that were enacted while he was president and the way that he has conducted himself in the transition of power. Overall, this has been a very peaceful and a very successful democratic transition, which I think is what needs to become the norm in countries in what had been the Soviet Union and what is now a very dynamic part of Central Eastern Europe. One last question from Sandy Bershpau. Sandy Bershpau, Atlantic Council. Thank you, Kurt, for doing this. A question about dialogue with the Russians, yours. It sort of dried up over the last year. I know, have you had any indications of any renewed interest on the Russian part? Certainly the public statements would not suggest that Chesnokov, Lavrov, Thoreau, saying it's up to the Ukrainians. It's all their fault, et cetera. So as you know, because we've talked about this, but we had some exchanges at the beginning of the year with sort of just to see are they ready to talk? I've exchanged some notes with them. I had a follow-up discussion with the Russian ambassador here and the Russians were very clear that they were not prepared to engage before the presidential election was over. And so now that that is behind us and we have a new president, I intend to reconnect. I haven't heard anything from the Russian side, but that's okay. I'll take the initiative and say, well, I'm prepared to connect to see whether they think it would be productive to meet now. We haven't had any communication from the Russian side. We have ever seen actions by the Russian side. And that is, for instance, the passports, the lack of a congratulatory phone call to Zelensky, a lack of a Easter ceasefire that they just kind of plowed on this year rather than taking a break. So we're not optimistic that they are ready to engage now. It may be after the parliamentary elections take place. It may not be. I'm concerned that I think Russia feels that it is happy with the situation as it is. That they can sustain this for a very long time and it gives them some pressure and some leverage over Kiev and they're prepared to continue with it. And our perspective on this is that whether or not we make progress in bringing peace in the Donbas, which is what we want, we nonetheless have to make sure that Ukraine is succeeding and sustainable as a reforming democracy and market economy and a part of the U.S. community. And that part has gone well. If you consider where we were a couple of years ago, there were questions over whether the Trump administration would continue with sanctions, whether we would continue the Obama administration's arms embargo on Ukraine, whether we would recognize Russia's claim by annexation of Crimea. And the opposite has been the case. We have increased sanctions. We have lifted the arms embargo. The Pompeo Declaration is clear about U.S. non-recognition of Russia's claim by annexation of Crimea. And we've done this in very, very close coordination with our European allies so that the Russians are not getting any daylight in this position here. And Ukraine has, I think, benefited from this. If you look at it from the perspective of Russia's principle goal, which appears to be to reassert dominance over Ukraine, that Ukraine would be a part of the Russian sphere of influence, it has produced the opposite, that Ukraine has a stronger sense of national identity, more Russia skeptic, more pro-Western, more pro-NATO, more pro-EU than ever before. And that is especially true in the younger generation. And I think if you are facing conscription and some of them are getting killed or wounded on the front line, I think that's probably very clarifying for people. Okay. Well, Ambassador Volcker, I think we'll leave it there. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you, Kurt. Thank you. That was great. Appreciate it. Okay. So, folks, please stick around. We have another group that's going to join us up now. We'll move to the second part of our conversation. Don't forget your glasses. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. All right, thank you so much. Okay. No, I'll sit in the middle. That's fine. Okay. No, it's fine. Okay. Okay. So why don't we get started? I appreciate folks. Okay. So we are very fortunate to have a second group of experts to follow on Ambassador Volcker's comments. We're going to dig into some of the issues that Ambassador Volcker touched on and his remarks in some greater detail. From left to right, at the very far left is Ambassador Petrus Vaitikunas who has played a really important role in the history of Lithuania, was one of the original signatories of the Lithuanian Declaration of Independence in 1991, then served as foreign minister of Lithuania from 2006 to 2008, and then as Lithuania's ambassador to Ukraine until 2014. After 2014 he became an embedded advisor to the Secretary of Ukraine's version of the NSC, the National Security and Defense, which he held until last week. To my left is this professor, Aksana Cheval of Tufts University, is an associate professor at Tufts, where she focuses on post-communist countries, transitions, and the like. She is originally from Ukraine and holds a PhD from Harvard. To my right is Marek Minkyshak, who is the head of the Russian Department at the Institute of Eastern Studies in Warsaw, Poland, and at far and last but not least is Charlie Kupchin. Charlie is a professor at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the Council on Formulations until January 2017. He was the senior director and special assistant to President Obama on the NSC staff in charge of European affairs, which includes a very intensive period working on resolution of the conflict in Ukraine. We're gonna start this conversation with a couple of sort of broad questions to the four of them, and then very much expect this to be a sort of two-way exchange and I'll open things up very quickly and hopefully people can start coming in with your own thoughts and reactions. Let me start with you, Ambassador. You've just come from Kyiv. Can you talk a little bit about what the atmosphere is like in Kyiv, what the transition has been like, and what your expectations are going forward for President Zelensky? Does he have a vision for governing? Does he have a team that he can put in place that can translate that vision into reality? Yes. A couple of us, how we see the situation in Ukraine after the new presidential elections. First of all, I would like to stress that everybody in Ukraine understands, and many in Europe, that our strategies towards Russia, Russia fast, I name the strategies, Russia fast, failed miserably, and we all, America and Europe, and Eastern Europe needs a new strategy, new paradigms, and reliable paradigms for future relations with Russia. And this new paradigms, my understanding, name is not Russia fast, but Ukraine fast. We have to create conditions under which Ukraine could achieve the success and to demonstrate success for Russian people. That would be very important and reliable step forward. What Ukrainians are waiting from the United States and Europe? First of all, a very clear message, that election is over, that enemy is at the gate, enemy is in the east, and two major players, Zelensky and Poroshenko, must stop fighting with each other and concentrate efforts on common tasks, common tasks defending country. And my personal advice to Mr. Zelensky would be, Zelensky would be not press to President Putin, because Kremlin wants to entrap him in such situation, and to concentrate on reforms, concentrate on fulfilling foreign policy, main goals and issues. EU and NATO, through my understanding, giving Ukraine a new perspective and perspective of NATO membership, namely membership action plan, would be very useful and decrease the conflict with Russia possibility. How the situation, I would like to say some, that's how volunteers and veterans, veterans of war see the red lines for President Zelensky. First of all, it's separate negotiations with the Russian Federation, and separate negotiations with so-called administration of Lugansk and Donetsk regions, so-called Medvedchuk plan, peace plan. In brief, such plan would be to allow President Putin to leave Donbass without paying for aggression, and to forget about Crimea's occupation and annexation. It would be completely unacceptable, not on that. I can guarantee not only for volunteers and veterans and radicals of Ukraine, but also for us, for Lithuania, definitely. Next red line, as I stress, to me is autonomy of Donbass, and federalization of Ukraine under the Russian Kremlin's conditions. Amnesty. Amnesty itself is not a pure red line for Zelensky. Amnesty is possible, but only after capitulation. Capitulation of all the fit men and gun men and terrorists in Donbass. Exchange Crimea in Donbass, so-called trade to territory, also is one of red lines for President Zelensky. Revenge and return to power Yanukovych peoples. And also this very strange idea, as concerns, referendum on negotiation format with the Russian Federation, unacceptable, completely unacceptable, for a very important part of uranium. Returning private bank to oligarch, or compensation for this. Maybe that would be nice. What I would like to stress in general is that in general settlement of any conflict, any conflict is not an end point, end goal for President Putin. His instrument is to create around Russia unsuccessful countries, to create conflict, to create uncertainties. And this approach of Western people approach using win-win strategy will not work with President Putin. You simply have to press President Putin by sanctions, responding to each provocation in an asymmetric way, responding with sanctions. And to my understanding that depotinization, depotinization of Russia is inevitable, I don't know in what terms. But we should be ready for this. So, Aksana, could you talk a little bit about the expectations gap in Ukrainian society where we have such huge public support for President Zelensky and the views that he embodied as a candidate. And then as Ambassador Volker was saying, there's another reality which is a system of state capture and cynicism that presumably will continue to be pushing against any meaningful change. Can you talk a little bit about how if Ukrainian society wants peace and how, you know, we've talked a little bit privately, the public polls, public opinion polls seem to suggest peace is a top priority for the Ukrainian electorate. What do you think is realistic to expect from Zelensky on the conflict? There's two questions here, one specific to the conflict and one about this kind of gap of expectations. Broder issue and then come back to conflict. So it is true that Zelensky wanted with this mandate, as Ambassador Volker was saying, kind of cleaning house and come back in corruption. And I think it's very telling that he was able to attract kind of the vote that he did across this historical East-West quote unquote divide. But it's also important to keep in mind that people filled his candidacy was very different expectations. In other words, you know, there were people essentially who used to vote for Poroshenko, kind of broadly speaking, sort of the western half of Ukraine, right, where people basically hoped or believed that he would more or less continue the same policies kind of foreign policy in particular, but would not be as corrupt as Poroshenko, right? And that's kind of the hope of that part of the electorate. Now, another part of the electorate kind of more in the central and the east of the country which historically has voted, you know, in the past, say Yanukovych parties, right? They, you know, in addition to caring about corruption, which all Ukrainians do, actually had the expectations that he would turn kind of more towards Russia, right? Perhaps, like, you know, at least in that direction to a greater extent than Poroshenko did and would be, you know, not as maybe categorical on some of these cultural issues, be it, you know, language policy or memory politics and so forth. So clearly, right, he cannot fulfill possibly the expectations of these, you know, of all of these people, right? So, but whenever he starts making concrete decisions, right, this is when he will inevitably begin losing support, right? And the question sort of is, right, if his support diminishes, you know, would he be able to do whatever his agenda is, right? And I think, you know, also the question is what is realistic, right? So for the realistic part, I'll talk a little bit more about Donbass specifically since this is what, you know, we are here for the anniversary of the start of the conflict, right? And his, one of his key campaign promises exactly that, that he would be able to solve, you know, conflict in the bus. And that has brought public support. People favor compromises. I mean, again, depending how the question is asked, there is a small minority that would favor any compromise on any terms, kind of like, you know, what Bessie Walker was saying, I mean, I think that's true. I think you could have compromise tomorrow, right? If you agree to Russia's terms, essentially, it would be, you know, some sort of, you know, Ukraine formally committing to some kind of non-aligned status and these regions coming back to Ukraine, I mean, the LNR and DNR, right? With a bit of power over the decisions of the central government and then Ukraine putting the bill also for reconstruction, right? And sort of Crimea being taken of the agenda and sanctions lifted like that kind of thing, right? So that's clearly not the type of peace deal that would have brought support, you know, among voters in Ukraine. Now, what exactly the voters would support, I think that sort of becomes a lot less clear because people have been asked about specific in some polling as recently as December, so just a few months ago, about concrete steps that were in the Minsk agreement, such as, say, amnesty, such as these regions having some sort of autonomous status as opposed to just decentralization as opposed to just being similar to other regions in Ukraine, and there is much less support for these concrete measures. So I think whenever Zelensky finds himself kind of having to stick his guns, so to say, like make a stake and commit specific policy measures, he's going to find himself, I think, in a potentially, you know, certainly will not have 73% support that will to this now. So with specific settlement, I mean, no, Charlie will come back to it so we can, you know, talk a little bit more about it. But I see that the problems that were preventing the settlement and implementation of the Minsk agreements under Poroshenko remain there under President Zelensky. Ambassador Volke already mentioned one problem of this place, Russia itself, if its position is that it's simply not party to this conflict, that it's purely Ukrainian affair, right? Ukrainian problem, right? And they're just there. I don't know, like, they have some tourists there or whatever, right? Like, I mean, that's clearly, right, if they're not willing to compromise in some substantive way, that makes the whole solution more difficult. But there are these kind of three concrete areas of the Minsk agreements. And on each of which, there are essentially issues that have not been resolved that prove to be very difficult to resolve. And I personally don't see at least as of today that Zelensky would be able to really make progress on this. This has to do with holding elections in these territories, with kind of achieving the extent of security and sort of ceasefire that would allow for democratic pre-and fair elections to take place and sort of what constitutes the security, right? And what has to come first, some kind of political measures or security measures. And then finally, this kind of end goal, this constitutional settlement and what status would these regions have, like say, even when they indeed are integrated, right? Kind of this final step. And on all of these issues that have been problems, for the elections in particular, there have been outstanding disputes as to say which parties would be allowed to run, would all Ukrainian parties be allowed to run, or on the certain parties, say maybe excluding nationalist, you know, far-right parties, who would be able to vote. People say who lived in 2014. People who have maybe moved there since then, right? People who now live elsewhere in Ukraine, like how that would be conducted. Who would most importantly administer and counter the votes, right? Ukrainians have long held a view that it's, you know, that separate authorities themselves cannot be trusted with running pre-and fair elections. If it is some kind of international community, say, OEC and so forth, it presupposes certain level of, you know, peace and stability that has not been achieved. So here we come again to this kind of broader issue of security. Again, Minsk Agreement provides a ceasefire for withdrawal of heavy weapons for creating the situation where there is enough stability and security, physical security that elections could take place. That has been difficult to achieve. Again, I know Charlie will talk about it. So these things are there, right? And again, from what Zelensky said so far, right? That has not been, he hasn't really proposed anything country, right? He does have this window of opportunity. He does have this popular support. What he can do single-handedly, and this is something that maybe, you know, I would sort of say there is some hope here that at least some progress could be made. He certainly could change some of the administrative regulations that were adopted by Ukraine that regulates things, say, such as access of the people from LNR and DNR Ukrainian citizens who live there to say educational opportunities within Ukraine. It's a facility to travel, right? Be, say, getting their documents, because one of the issues I'll say some words about this Russian passportization in a moment, but one of the real serious problems there is that, say, when there are new births or marriages or deaths and so forth at this part of the country, it's very difficult and sometimes impossible for people to get any kind of Ukrainian documents, right? Certifying their, say, marital status of the birth of the child, right? And that is something that, you know, you certainly, you know, Ukrainian government, you know, new government could think creatively and sort of be more people-friendly. And Zelensky said himself in the campaign that he wants to reach out to these people, that he considers them, you know, Ukrainian citizens, that, yes, there is Russian propaganda there, but he kind of sort of sees himself reaching to that part of the population to make them sort of feel more part of Ukraine, right? So that would be something that he could do. Now, again, going back to the Russian, the obstacles that Russia poses, in addition to sort of this long-standing view, which I totally agree with Ambassador Volcker, is a big obstacle to the settlement. If Russia just sort of takes this position, like, that's, you know, nothing to do with us, like, you know, this is internal Ukrainian conflict and, you know, don't ask us to kind of, you know, do anything, that's really not constructive. But I think they have sort of escalated or aggravated the problem with this new decree on the passportization, essentially extending Russian citizenship to people who live in the LNR and DNR, right, the Netsk and Luhansk occupied territories, because what now basically happens, that since some unknown number of people, by media accounts, it seems, starting with the government, local government officials who are getting the Russian passports, right, Minsk agreement provides, Minsk agreements provide, that representatives from these parts of the country would be appointed as judges, as prosecutors, in consultation with the local councils that are to be elected under these elections that still hasn't taken place. And they would also compose a local militia, right, local security services, right. Now, if that was difficult to begin with, because of course, a lot of narrative in Ukraine is that there are many sort of terrorist quote-unquote, right, people who committed human rights abuses for separatists and so forth, now they're also going to have Russian passports, right, so to have this kind of group of people to be then given some officially, you know, by the Ukrainian side positions of authority within, you know, again, if we can imagine ourselves reaching some kind of conference settlement, I think that makes the settlement all the moment, all the more difficult, right. And the fact that Russia did it, within two days of, you know, three days after Zelensky got elected, I think it goes to show that at least so far they have not extended, you know, the goodwill. And maybe I really try and pressure, you know, as several colleagues already mentioned, kind of the same experience of Zelensky, maybe kind of, you know, trying to see how far they can get, how far they can push him. And I think this passportization degree served that kind of point, you know, escalating and, you know, cornering Ukraine in some way. So maybe I'll end here. Okay, okay. So, Mark, could you talk a little bit about, so I hear where the dishonest language is this idea that Zelensky is an experienced, ambassador said, you know, he's going to be trapped by the Russians. Can you talk about the risks and the dangers that Zelensky actually may represent? And the, you know, the public perception of him is, you know, he has some oligarch friends, he may, you know, represent a more potentially flexible position than the stalwart candidate that he opposed to the elections. But I'm curious if you think there's another side of the coin, and if you could just sort of focus on that piece. Yes, thank you. I think for Russians, Zelensky is both some opportunity and a challenge. Russians were somehow prepared, at least for some time, for Zelensky's victory. Probably what was unexpected is the level of this victory. So the landslide he got. It is bad signal for Moscow, because it means that Zelensky has a big mandate. But on the other hand, it's part of paradoxically a good news because it created, it has created a huge pressure on him in terms of hopes he raised, probably exaggerated, because he basically is very difficult to deliver on those hopes, which I agree tends to be conflicting sometimes. So the basic Russian approach before the elections was to delay wait and see and to delay anything, any decisions, any serious actions to the before before to the elections. And now they will try to do their best to weaken Zelensky and trying to trap him. And what is what is the the idea here as we try as we understand it? First, why Zelensky can be an opportunity from saying from Moscow? Well, Zelensky is perceived in Moscow as a very different person than Poroshenko. A person who is represent a secular Russian speaking Ukraine with much more pragmatic or rather even positive approach towards Russian Russians, not necessarily the Russian the Russian leadership. Also Zelensky prioritized peace with Russia, peace over Donbas conflict. And by indicating that there is an issue of referendum, possibly, it's a clear signal that well, while there will be a very difficult negotiation process probably, and if there will be a deal, we will have to wait Ukrainians will have to sacrifice something for this deal to have this peace with so badly need. So a test creates a window of opportunity for the Russians to push their own agenda. So basically to have some elements of their demands to be met by Ukrainian side. And the part of it, for example, is to, to some extent, to get into a Russian narrative about the conflict. So the Russian narrative, obviously, as I said before, is that as a civil war. And the other side, I mean, the other conflicting sides is our Donbas people and Donbas leadership. And Russia is not an aggressor. It's not a party to the conflict. It's a peace broker, basically, which is obviously a bizarre distortion of reality. But indication that which, which was coming from the Iran Zelensky camp is that probable getting into a direct negotiations with with Donbas will be used by Russians to support this narrative and actually to to make to make to some extent the the key of dependent on the on the separatist, which are, of course, politically controlled by Moscow. So it is the part of the trap. Another problem is the potential issue of autonomy, a certain degree of autonomy for Donbas. The Russians would be extremely happy if they there could be this kind of autonomy towards Donbas, which will create a window of opportunity for Russia to actually to use Donbas to influence whole Ukraine. So Donbas seen as formally reintegrating with Ukraine, meaning that the political parties and the people of Donbas could vote in overall European elections, rising the level of support for pro Russian forces or Russia pragmatic forces and also moving the burden economic burden of Donbas support from Russia to Ukraine, with possibly partly to the West, because obviously there is there is an issue of money, Russian money coming to Donbas. Basically, Russian would be eager to save on that. And of course, the issue of sanctions, some elements of solution of at least formally a solution of the Donbas by that way would create a strong incentive to relax sanctions towards Russia. First of all, by the EU, which is the most probable, the the more hardest part is the US sanctions, because there are some much less flexibility in that. But still, there is there is an incentive here. But on the other hand, there are some challenges, serious challenges for Russia with Zelensky. And part of them are the same, actually, which are the base of some hopes. So because Zelensky is representing this secular Russian speaking Ukraine, it has he has a much more possibility to unify the country. And actually to bring people from the southeast of Ukraine to be positively engaged and recognized as as true patriots of Ukraine, which is against the Russian interest, because Russian interest is to have weak and divided Ukraine, where people are frustrated and the West and the Ukrainians are mutually there is a mutual mutual fatigue of between the West and Ukraine. And another issue is that his popularity in the southeast may eventually make him popular in Donbas and even in Russia, especially if it will be successful, at least to some extent in fighting corruption and reforming the country. So fighting corruption reforming the country by Zelensky, which seemed to be at least a strong commitment on his part, is a is a is a danger is a danger for Russia, because it to first of all, it ruins the whole narrative of Russian propaganda about Ukraine as a failed state as a corrupt country as a as a country when we're reveling so called the revolution bring actually nothing to the people, which is used also by Russian propaganda domestically in Russia. So Russia is very much afraid of a situation of successful Ukraine, successful reforms. And if Zelensky will be able to deliver on that, that it will create a powerful example also for at least part of the Russian society, which were really, really fascinated. Many Russians watched Ukrainian politics, Ukrainian debates and watch all the Ukrainian election process with fascination, because they lack this in their own country. They lack proper politics. And in Ukraine, it was real democracy at work. And this is potentially dangerous for the Kremlin. And therefore, they will get they will try to get into Zelensky into a trap. So suggesting with a small carrot, while we may think about releasing sailors in the future, maybe in stages, we can possibly offer you some, some cheaper, cheaper gas deliveries, because you are not buying our gas. But on the other hand, giving the big sticks. So passportization, sanctions on oil products, delivery to Ukraine and all this negative messages and statements by Russia. When Zelensky has prioritized peace, the Russian will try to get him trapped in on that. So to present him with a dilemma, whether to satisfy partially, at least hopes of the people to end conflict. But at the price of serious concessions to the Russians, which would embrace some of Moscow's interests, or to fail to deliver actually to the people making him even more making them the people of Ukraine even more frustrated that actually we can't we can't change anything in this very dangerous situation. So this is a kind of dilemma Russians would like to put him in. So so Charlie has a former negotiator working on this conflict. Do you hear the elements of stalemate and, you know, immovable, unbridgeable divides? Or do you see more possibilities coming out of Zelensky's inauguration and the fact that this, you know, conflict has in many ways put both Russia and Ukraine in an unwelcome, you know, undesirable end state? I see more possibilities and opportunities than downsides. But only because the previous situation was solidified to put it mildly. The dialogue as we heard from Kurt was non existent. They're the the polarization of the Russian side and the Ukrainian side seemed to be irreversible. There really was no movement. And I would say the the early data points are not are not terribly encouraging because the Russians could have come out of the box by offering some kind of sign of a willingness to to at least reopen the conversation. Instead, they do passport thing. The Ukrainian sailors don't don't seem to be any closer to getting out than they were months ago. I didn't know this until I think it was was Kurt that was speaking, who said that the new head of the presidential administration is Kolomoisky's lawyer. That is not to me an encouraging sign that a an oligarch's lawyer is now basically the chief of staff of the Ukrainian government. So I'm seeing worrying things. But that having been said, I do I do believe that there is a window of opportunity here that the international community should should take advantage of for a couple of different reasons. One is that I think both parties would prefer to end the conflict. And I say it that based on my own assessment that on balance Russia would like to get out of Donbass. I wouldn't say that about Crimea. I wouldn't say it about Abkhazia. I wouldn't say it about South Asetia. But I do think that if there is one not that can be cracked in the long list of places where the West and Russia are at odds, it's it's Donbass. And as a consequence, I think that that the US ought to ought to try to take advantage of of the new administration in Kiev to really kind of jump in and try to try to push this. I would also recommend that the United States work more closely with its European allies. During the Obama administration, there was the Normandy format, which the Germans and the French led on and then there was the US effort, which was really side by side with the European effort, but not integrated with it. That doesn't make any sense to me. And I got the sense just from listening to Kurt that that hasn't changed. He is still dealing with Serkov one to one as Toria Nuland and I were, rather than meeting with the, you know, in our times it would have been the German National Security Advisor, Christoph Hoysgen and the French National Security Advisor, Jacques Odieber. So that would be another recommendation. Let's let's gang up and lean into this in a in a in a collective way. The final point I'd make is that, and this is another reason that I believe that it is worth leaning into to this issue while the the situation is still fluid, is that I don't think that the Russians and the Ukrainians are that far apart on the details. When we were in the weeds on the Minsk process, I would say that we were 90 percent of the way to a deal if you if you simply look at the specific provisions. That is to say, how would the elections take place? Who would vote? What's the role of the Central Election Commission? What's the role of the local election commissions? How is special status going to work? How's amnesty going to work? What comes first? I mean, there was a real meeting of the minds and the biggest problem that's that we all tripped over was the sequencing, with the Russians saying political steps first, then we pull back. The Ukrainians saying first the Russians pull back, and then we move forward on the political provisions of the Minsk agreements. And Poroshenko would say, how could I possibly move forward on these political provisions for which I need Rada support if Ukrainians are dying on the contact line, which they were? And that's a very legitimate argument. And we couldn't get to the point where there was an agreement about how you would get close enough to the start line that the implementation of Minsk would begin. So my recommendation as a way to start is to go back and take off the shelf, the very substantial consensus that had emerged on most parts of Minsk, and find a way of trying to jumpstart the conversation with confidence building measures. And I think the way to start would be to go back where we were in the second half of 2016, which is finding a way to create specific, delimited, demilitarized zones along the line of contact, let's say 10 kilometers, 20 kilometers on each side, from which the separatist forces would pull back, the Ukrainian forces would pull back, heavy weapons would be put into depots, if it works on this 10 kilometers, then extend it to 20 kilometers. But there has to be a way of creating quiet on the line. If there isn't quiet on the line, Zelensky is not going to have any political room for maneuver. So I would start with finding some way to get at least a limited disengagement. Once that starts build on it, once there is quiet on the line, start running fast on nailing down the Minsk agreements and hang out there the real prospect of an end or at least a diminution of sanctions. That's where our main leverage comes from. And incidentally, I, therefore, had some misgivings about congressional legislation. I like the fact that it hemmed in Trump. I don't like the fact that it means that whether it's Trump talking to Putin or Voker talking to Serkov, he can't say if you do X, Y, and Z we'll drop the sanctions because he doesn't know that Congress is going to play along with that. So I'm glad you brought up the Trump element of this conversation. It's, you know, not a state secret that he has not prioritized Ukraine in the context of his goals for a new U.S.-Russian relationship. And at times he's sort of acted as if, and I can't remember the exact wording, but something happened. I think it was the phrase he used for why Russia got kicked out of the G8. You know, he's tended to not see how damaging Russia's behavior in Ukraine was for the entire post- Cold War security order in Europe. How much do you believe that this lack of credibility to be pretty pointed about on the U.S. side? I think Kurt has done an incredible job of unifying the government, but then there's this level above him where I've got questions about the level of commitment to Ukraine and to pushing forward a peace plan that will both be credible to pass the congressional smell test that you're talking about, but also solidify the United States and our allies. Do you feel that you have to suspend a lot of disbelief to get what you were describing accomplished, or do you think just the temptation for this president, I mean, I'm not going to put him on the couch, to show that he could get something big done with the Russians and that somehow would validate his original vision of getting along with Russia as a good thing? I mean, I think that Trump cuts both ways in the sense that it's possible that he can have a conversation with Putin that is an icebreaker in which he gets Putin to instruct Sarkoff to get back in the game and to cut a deal. But I also think that there has to be a bad cop. Is that Pompeo? Is it Bolton? Is it Merkel? Is it Macron? For whatever reason, this issue has lost its urgency, right? I think that the Normandy format is also in remission and that nobody is really driving this train anymore. And I think that's a problem because I think in some ways Donbas is the key to putting the US relationship with Russia on a better footing. It is in some ways at the core. And part because I don't think we're going to make progress elsewhere, and part because in Syria, they won. We lost. We don't have good cards to play, especially since the president has announced that we're pulling out of Syria. And I also think that if there is one really strong ace that the United States had since the invasion of Ukraine, it is transatlantic unity. If you had told me that Trump would be elected president, that he would say, I love Putin, let's get rid of this silly confrontation, that you would have Orban in Hungary, that the League would win in Italy, that America would be on the way out. I would have said game over. Sanctions are cooked. This transatlantic unity on Ukraine is dead. It's still there, part because Congress has hemmed in Trump. But I would try to kind of reanimate a transatlantic push on Donbas, because I think unless we crack that nut, the relationship with Russia is going to remain very bad for a very long time. So why don't we open things up and again, same ground rules before folks could identify themselves, wait for the mic, keep it brief, and end with a question. I'll start with Wayne. Hi, Wayne Mary, the American Foreign Policy Council. I'd like to invite any member of the panel who cares to to address the issue that Andy raised in the first half, which to use his expression was the bleeding of American politics into the bilateral relationship, which I thought was a very diplomatic way of saying things that people I know in Kiev use much stronger language to describe, sort of a whiskey tango foxtrot, that in the last couple of weeks they have seen accusations coming out of the White House about their new president and Soros and former ambassador Yovanovitch and so on and so forth, that they have found quite shocking and wondering what does this mean because they had previously thought that Washington was essentially unified in its support of Ukraine. And now they're seeing Ukraine being dragged in to the next American political campaign and they're worried about that. They were shocked when Ambassador Yovanovitch was withdrawn. And I might note that Bashu's friend and colleague of mine, this caused great distress within the American diplomatic service. So I thought Andy, you raised a very legitimate question and I think it's one that the panelists in the second half should at least have an opportunity to respond to and I hope a few of them will. So Aksana, maybe I'll make you the first voice on this because you have a foot in both worlds. And you've lived through our 2016 National Nightmare and now you're seeing some of these issues come to Ukraine. I'm sort of curious how it feels. Well, I think one thing as I would mention that Zelensky himself said that he does want to stay out of it. I think this is the thing. Like I think he's been dragged into it. But I think they do want to stay out of it. And exactly because it is a new team, they may be able to, right? I mean, this whole thing was with Lutsenko, right? Like this so-called Black, whatever it was called, the registry ledger, right? So now that said, you know, in Ukrainian politics sometimes it's very Byzantine, kind of, right, in this way. So it is not impossible that there might be some figures either close to him or, you know, competing with him that might try to sort of play their own game right with this. I mean, I can't speculate as to like who that might be and what exactly that might do. But I mean, like, I think staying out of it would probably be the best thing as far as, you know, for the, and it seems that that's what he intends on doing, right? So kind of just thinking, I think I haven't really kind of thought about this question prior to my own theory. I mean, I've followed it in the news, but not like. So, Mara, can you talk a little bit about the way this is, OSVU does a lot of work on Ukraine. And you've been really extremely successful as an institution in understanding the Byzantine nature of Ukrainian politics. Can you talk a little bit about how easy or hard it is to imagine people inside the very complicated political game inside Kiev being drawn into the US domestic political battle? Does this look and smell to you like something that is a Ukrainian-led effort or it's a US, you know, political circles or just trying wherever they can to find people that can, you know, document that there was some, you know, misdeeds on the part of the Ukrainian government? Well, I think that, well, in general, it is not unique to any country, especially democratic country, that domestic politics heavily influencing or even dictate the foreign policy moves. It is also not unique that there are people sometimes in the country that they will try to play things out and they use certain ideas, concepts or save certain information or disinformation basically for their personal political interests or whatever. And I think that that is one of these cases. I do believe that without prejudging about how it will develop that it is, in fact, a concerning development in a sense that it may poison to some extent the relationship between the US and Ukraine if it will be really pressed on. And there is a challenge here, I guess. But on the other hand, I do very much believe and I fully agree with Oksana that there is a very strong intention on the part of the Ukrainian new government to avoid that. And I think there is very couldn't way to do that because it is potentially toxic and it's potentially dangerous. So the best to do in that respect is to basically stay out of this very dirty game, dirty political game, which is heavily connected with the strong domestic very partisan politics. It is, I truly believe that there are some strategic interests which are really very important here and that Ukraine is a very important country and we have to do our best in a concerted way to send a strong signal of support for Ukrainian resilience vis-à-vis Russian aggressive moves and to make it also very proper signaling to Russia that it shouldn't hope that this kind of development would damage, actually, and change US or other Western policies towards Ukraine. Please, have fun. As Pablo Mierdemskiy, I'm director of the Polish Institute of International Affairs. I have two brief questions to all panellists. Zelensky tried to communicate directly with the Russian public over the head of Putin, saying that we are not at war with the Russians. We are at war with the Kremlin, generally. So my questions are, should we as a West, a collective West, should we also try to communicate with Russian public directly and what kind of message we should send? Charlie, do you want to go first, please? You know, I think it's worth trying, but we'll probably fail. And I would base that on two observations. One is that I was struck by the degree to which Putin is able to change and manipulate the public mind on a dime. You know, one day, if you're sort of watching Russian Channel One, it's all about the Nazis in Ukraine and the atrocities that are occurring in Donbass. And then the next day, he's changed the narrative and it's a weather report in Damascus because Russian aircraft are now flying sorties to support the loyal ally, Bashar al-Assad. And his control of Russian thinking, of Russian media is very impressive. The second reason that I think it's probably futile is that, you know, when I have been in Russia and I tend not to go very often precisely because of this, one resides in an alternative reality. And it's not just people on the streets, it's also Russian elites. And so you get into a, I remember, you know, I did a Russia Today interview the last time I was in Moscow, which I would not do again. And, you know, I'm having this conversation with the anchor and you say, well, I said, well, what about Russian troops in Donbass? Is that not a problem? What troops? Well, what about, why are you supporting, why is your state supporting a government that gasses its own people in Syria? But it wasn't the regime that gassed people, it was the opposition using chemical weapons provided by the United States. I mean, what do you do when you can't have a basic conversation with the public foreign policy community because you have no set of shared facts? So I'm skeptical that we can go in. Mark? Yep, I would like to, well, I share with Professor Recepcion the assessment that it's extremely difficult to influence the Russian public opinion in general. And there's the public opinion is to large extents formed by the massive propaganda of the Kremlin. And it's really massive. I mean, during the election campaign in Ukraine, especially during the proper election, they were massive Russian propaganda on negative propaganda on Ukraine. Every day, basically, there are, on the Russian public TV, there are TV political shows on Ukraine, only on Ukraine. And they are extremely toxic in their messages. For example, that's very curiosity that the Russian public TV has actually made a life coverage of the debate between Poroshenko and Zelensky. But the trick was that they showed picture but they turned off a sound. And the sound was the Russian experts in a studio commenting live actually in criticizing Ukrainians. This is an indication, in my perception, that the Kremlin fears, that the Kremlin fears potential influence of both the Ukrainian debate and Zelensky messages also directly coming to Russia. But also, it fears that potentially we can do also certain messaging directly to the people. And precisely because of that, we should try to do that. That is my response. Ambassador, a couple of words on that. I also am in favor of this idea to send different messages to Kremlin and to Russian people. Because if we manage to do this, we cut off President Putin and Kremlin a little bit from people. And that is our interest. Baksana? Just very brief, a couple of points. First of all, I think Zelensky would have a better chance of getting to the Russian people than for the Americans. Because he actually, like the jokes that he makes, kind of the problems that he speaks to that very much resonates with the Russian people. And I would agree with Mark saying that in a way it kind of poses, he poses potentially a danger to Putin. Because if you can show this outside, they're kind of coming from really outside. And then actually addressing some of the things that's like Russian society as well. Corruption and accountability, all of these things. Like that would be, so if anything, I think that potentially has more of a possibility. Now, as far as sort of how influential this counter propaganda is, I mean in political science scholarship, there is a lot of research and people are debating. Whereas for a lot of media actually influences people's beliefs or people consume media and their choices are influenced by things they already believe. In other words, that relationship and then there is a tunnel for scholarship. So even if one, I guess before one where to spend some effort in the hope to sort of change in minds in Russia, I mean that's probably something to look at to what extent that would be effective. And just the last thing I want to mention that one thing also Zelensky, if he said he wants to do, he wants to conduct the sort of counter propaganda for lack of better word on these occupied territories. Because he says one of the bigger problem and sort of one of the roots, something that sustains and then responds to it is the people in the LNR and DNR in Ukraine who are actually propaganda. And he actually wants Ukrainian TV, like in Russian broadcasting to these territories. So to kind of get the message to the Ukrainian people there. Now one thing that he didn't really address and I don't know if he knows the answer to this, like why, I mean it's got the thesis. I mean this is something for Russian government, I think maybe not, didn't try hard enough but certainly tried and I think the Russians consciously like block it with various technology and so forth. But at least that sort of getting to the people, I think it's not only getting to the Russian people, it's also getting to people in Ukraine who are influenced by this Russian propaganda that's part of his agenda. Okay, well we'd like to end on a positive note. So I think that is as close as we're gonna get. Thank you all, Ambassador Kedavanis, Akhsena Chevelle, Mark Mankesha, Charlie Kepchin and thank you all for joining us. Thank you.