 Okay. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Carnegie Endowment. I'm Andrew Weiss. I'm Vice President for Studies, and I'm really delighted that so many folks have turned up today. This is, if I'm properly counting, the second event we've had during our week of events dedicated to the first anniversary of the Ukrainian Revolution. We will have more stuff. Yesterday, we had a live debate here hosted by NPR on the question of arming Ukraine in the next week. We'll have two more or three more events, depending on how you count, but I hope folks will also turn up for showing a movie by a prominent Ukrainian director, Sergey Loznyts, a documentary about what happened on Maidan, which will be on Wednesday evening, followed by a discussion with two correspondents who just returned from Donbass, Philip Shishkin of the Wall Street Journal, and Max Seddon of BuzzFeed. So keep an eye out for announcements of those events next week. Before we get started, if I could just ask folks to please turn your cell phones on mute because this event is being live broadcast, and I'd hate to have your novelty ringtone interrupt that broadcast. It is a great pleasure to have these three colleagues here and close friends. Their book is very important. I hope folks will take the opportunity to buy copies of the book in the back. I would only point out the first chapter will pretty much, if all you read is the first chapter, I think you will do yourselves a huge service. It's probably the most detailed explanation I've seen of how this conflict did not come out of nowhere, that this conflict has deep roots in the region, and that the tensions over Donbass go far back, far more than I realized, in terms of the history of both Ukraine, but also the history of the relationship that emerged in the post-Soviet 1991-1992 period. There's not much to say about Eugene Rumor that hasn't been said. He's the director of our Russia-Eurasia program here in Washington, D.C., very prolific writer and thinker on these issues, former national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia. Raj Menon, professor at City College in New York, in addition to many writings and books that he's published. I think this is the first time he's co-written a book with Eugene. But for me, Raj will always have a very special place in my heart in that his wife was my freshman Russian teacher and basically changed my entire life by getting me interested in this field. So I owe. No. I was terrible. And David Hoffman, of course, the longtime Washington Post, former foreign editor and author of The Oligarchs and The Dead Hand. So with that, gentlemen, please begin. Great. Well, thanks to everybody for coming. We're sorry about the snowstorm. We didn't arrange it. We had wondered whether we could have gotten Yuri Mikhailovich Luzhkov to come and seed the clouds and change the weather, but we were unsuccessful at that. So thanks for coming again a few days later. This is a terrific book, and I'm really happy here to be talking with the authors just so you can see the cover. It's very important. Please grab one if you haven't already. I was last invited to come talk about a book here three and a half years ago. It was 2011, early September, and Dmitry Trenin of Carnegie had just published a book called Post Imperium, and I led a discussion here with Dima about that book, and I was just the other day, pulled it off the shelf and looked again at some of the notes and some of our discussion. And it was a very optimistic time. Dmitry Miodvedev was president and nearing the end of his term, and I noted in introducing the book that Trenin had concluded from his study that Russia had gone through a four-dimensional crisis since the 1980s and had let go of communism, had abandoned central planning, had walked away from the Cold War confrontation, and lastly had given up the imperial state. And if you go back and look at that book, you'll see that Trenin makes the argument that among all the other things happening to Russia at the time, that it did not attempt to restore the empire. And he wrote, there are not many active military conflicts over the borders post-Soviet Russia. Most of the former republics, he said, are comfortable in their own skin. Well, it's three and a half years later, and things have changed pretty radically. And I just wanted to mention this as a starting point for a discussion today that I hope will help cast some light on what has happened in those past few years to change things, and where are we going? And I think that this book is just chock-a-block full of important history about where we've come from. But we're not going to give you a history lesson today. I hope that we'll build on this and ask both of the authors to help us look forward. Because there's a lot of uncertainty, I think especially in the West, about how to respond to this crisis. So we're going to divide up our presentation of the book into four relatively quick parts and then take questions. The four parts will be first, Gene will address the question of how did we get here. Then Raj will take on the topic of Ukraine. What has happened? What lies ahead? Then we'll switch back to Gene again to ask the same questions about Russia. And lastly, Raj will take a look at the West and the United States. Where do we go from here? And after that, we'll open it up for questions and hopefully have a really terrific discussion and we'll all leave certain about where we're going. So with that, let's open it up. Gene, how do we get here? Well, David, first of all, thank you. Thank you to all of you for coming here today. Thank you to Raj for inviting me to participate in this project. It's been really a delightful joint venture and I look forward to maybe another volume. Post-post-imperium or something along those lines. Well, there is a short answer that probably will not be sufficient to the question of what happened. And Dmitri Trinian is a friend, a valued colleague here at Carnegie and also a past co-author because he and I once wrote a book together for which Raj wrote a foreword some years ago. It was about Central Asia. But what happened really is that later that month, this September of 2011, Mr. Putin decided to reclaim the presidency of Russia into anybody who says that personalities don't matter in politics, I will say thank again. But there were also more long-term structural factors that I think we tend to overlook at times when it comes to thinking about trends that countries will follow and policies that their leaders will pursue. And, you know, I still believe that a lot of what Dmitri has said about Russia being in its post-imperial phase still is true that we're not looking at Russia rebuilding the old empire, but I believe that Russia is moving towards some new form of perhaps being a hegemonic state in the space that it defines to be vital for its own interests. And perhaps we analysts sometimes, oftentimes, don't appreciate the extent to which historical, structural, and geographic factors really matter in shaping policies and politics of countries that we're observing. And jumping to how did we end up here, I can say that not just in 2011, but I had a chance to visit Kiev in September of 2013, two months before the outbreak of the Maidan Revolution. And there was not a single person I talked to in Kiev, and I talked to a lot of people, as many as you could cram in two or three days in that city, nobody predicted what would happen in November of 2013 when then-president Yanukovych suddenly changed direction and decided not to sign the association agreement with the European Union. And there was nothing on the political landscape, nothing on the economic landscape, nothing on the security landscape of Russia and Ukraine to suggest at the time to us that the two countries would go to war. And what I think we were insufficiently appreciative of is the extent to which Mr. Putin himself took seriously the idea of Eurasian integration as a new form of Russian dominance in the post-Soviet space. So the events that led up to the crisis that began in November of 2013 are really something that I would compare to four large ships moving on their courses, which are destined to collide, but the collision point is somewhere over the horizon and they don't have the radar to see that collision point. So they're proceeding not blindly but not necessarily well-informed. And these four ships were Russia, the United States, Ukraine, and the European Union. For Russia, it was the pursuit of this Eurasian integration idea that Mr. Putin clearly took very seriously even if we didn't. For Ukraine, it was the path of trying to sit on two chairs at once, one the European Chair in pursuing a deal with the EU that would result in financial benefits and a hedge against Russian domination in the form of the association agreement and a free trade agreement with the European Union. For the EU, it was the course of pursuing essentially a new form of association with Ukraine that was intended to bind Ukraine more closely to the European Union and in effect install a barrier in relations between Ukraine and Russia. But without realizing the full consequences of what those negotiations would lead to and I should say that much of what the EU was doing at the time and I think really the European Union and its leaders were key players here, you know much of that was viewed as an expansion of EU norms and values into this in between space between Europe and Russia. But it was pursued by two critical leaders in the European Union, most actively the foreign minister of Poland, Radek Sikorsky and foreign minister of Sweden, Karl Bildt, who also I think as we show in the book had a clear geopolitical agenda and that was not lost on Russia and it was perceived in Russia not as an expansion of norms and values but rather as a geopolitical pursuit. And last but not least, the United States. The United States was going along with that pursuit but really not terribly engaged because frankly Ukraine was not high on a list of priorities because that list of priority was dominated by a succession of crises that we are familiar with to include still Afghanistan, to include Syria, to include the Arab Spring and on and on and on. So Ukraine just didn't come up high on the radar screen. So as a result of these sort of four ships colliding we see the explosion that nobody expected in November of 2013 and from that point on I think my view and Raj I believe agrees with me, I know he agrees with me because he signed on to the book, we see a series of improvisations by all parties and basically drawing a series of red lines that lead us to eventually the conflict in Novorossia in eastern Ukraine. So it really was kind of a procession of not very well-informed parties by everyone. That's a good way. So let's unpack these four ships in the night. Raj, why don't you help us understand ship Ukraine? Can you all hear me? I think that's just better. Good. Thank you for taking time from writing your own book. Thanks to you, Andrew, I think I said. And Gene, when this book was first put to us my instinct was to dismiss it out of hand as a lunatic idea and I found there was another lunatic that I could actually persuade to write it with me and it's been a pleasure to do that. Before I get to ship Ukraine let me just say a few words about some of the things that Gene said, I do agree with him and we see I think this part of the world through remarkably similar eyes. I have great regard for Dima Threnin, he's a very smart person. I have not called everything right in this part of the world. I've made my share of mistakes but I never thought that Russia at some point would not do what great powers tend to do which is to re-establish itself in its neighborhood. There is a trope now that is all an artifact of Vladimir Putin. Nothing could be further from the truth if you look at the foreign policy statements of Andrei Kozarev, for example. The sense that Russia was a declining power but that it had to establish itself in its own neighborhood, the sense that intrusions into the neighborhood were not welcomed, the ambivalence about NATO expansion, all of this was there. So when Russia began to become stronger, no one could have predicted that all of this would have happened, I was in Ukraine shortly before this crisis arose and I didn't see it nor did the Ukrainians but in broad historical perspective, what has happened does not surprise me. Ukraine is territorially about the size of France and population about the size of Italy. It is not like Kazakhstan or even Belarus. I think for Russians it is very, very hard, not for all Russians, very, very hard to come to terms with the fact that this country has become independent and is decided on its own trajectory and furthermore, whatever the intentions may be behind the deep and comprehensive free trade agreement and the association agreement, the Russians never have and never will see it as purely an economic transaction. Nor I suspect would we if this were happening in our neighborhood. Now to Ukraine. There are two problems. One is the immediate problem of how to stop the war and the other is the question of whether the Ukrainian economy will collapse. There's been a great amount of coverage about the war. I will talk about that in a second but let me say a word about the economy. This may be hyperbole but the governor of the Ukrainian state bank was quoted the other day as saying that this had been the worst year in Ukraine's history since 1945. Well I can remember some years in the 1990s that were not very good but I think she does sum up the situation rather well. The Khryivnia has lost more than half its value against the dollar in the last 12 months. Ukraine's foreign exchange reserves are enough to cover about one and a half months worth of exports. This year alone to creditors it owes about seven million dollars which is more than it has in the piggy bank. The economy shrunk by about 8 percent and there is severe trouble down the line because we will we say to the Ukrainians that if you reform your economy all good things will happen. But economic reforms such as what the IMF want and what we want and what indeed the Ukrainians will have to do are very popular. Very unpopular and very painful. They will hit very hard the most vulnerable sections of society. Take for example pension reform which every Ukrainian government has tried to delay for exactly this reason or removing subsidies on an array of goods but especially home heating oil and electricity and so on. So it's a very very tough road and you can design the most intelligence that are reforms possible but the question is is it politically feasible to make them work? Can you have enough political purchase to make them work? It's going to be tough for other reason. People have pointed to the wonderful IQ and brain power in youth that is now in Poroshenko's cabinet and indeed it's an impressive group. But there has been in Ukraine a system of political economy that took root. Now the Bethnuah as it were is always Yanukovych and God knows I have hold no brief on Mr. Yanukovych but this system entrenched itself at least as far back as the second term of Linovich Kuchma, a system of crony capitalism and corruption and oligarchical privilege if you will took root that is going to be very, very hard to undo because there's a lot of lot at stake for people who are very good at this and they're not going to surrender this very easily. So you can have a PhD from the University of Chicago or Harvard but when it comes to taking on people who do bare-knuckle politics it's not going to be very, very easy. So the first question is can Ukraine get enough help from the outside or are we rather better at talking about how much help we'll give rather than giving it? Second, under the best of circumstances can they push through the reforms they need to push through. Now the war, the first thing obviously to do is to stop it. This ceasefire is already unraveled. It's not just the Belceva but there is this impending push possibly through Mariupol. There's a tendency in crises like this to think and the reportage and analysis on Putin suggests this that he's got a master plan and he's figured everything out and we're kind of improvising and sort of like platypuses you know sort of not sure where we're going. I don't think he's figured it out himself. There's also the question of how much control precisely he has over the Donbas separatists. I'm not arguing that without his support they wouldn't survive but there may be a little bit of a tail wagging the dog phenomenon having built up a lot of political capital by doing this how quickly can he de-escalate. So the first thing that has to be done is to stop the war. I believe and I think Gene believes that a negotiation between the Europeans and Russia and Ukraine will not do the job. At some point the United States is going to have to come in and engage Russia. It's going to be hard to do because the degree of animus and venom now directed at Russia and I'm not saying there's not reason for that. It makes it I think very, very difficult for a political leader in this country to do that kind of engagement but absent of that I do not expect this to end quickly. I don't expect it to end quickly under the best of circumstances. Okay, that's pessimistic but we'll take it apart again later. First I want to hear ship Russia, Gene. Well ship Russia and to pick up on the point that Raj has made that I think it's an extremely important point that we believe there is no master plan and I think there is a problem here that Mr. Putin will have to address somehow because let's say he pushes to Mariupol and let's say he can freeze the conflict or let's say he you know we succeed in persuading him to freeze the conflict. What is he left with? Donbass is not really that much of a prize to want to hold on to. Many Russian observers have called Crimea you know a suitcase without a handle. I think Donbass after you know a devastating conflict without really the resources to rebuild this economy and provide the much, much needed assistance to the population is not a very attractive prize. What Mr. Putin needs is Kiev, he needs Ukraine, he needs Ukraine and Russia's orbit and the more he pushes into Ukraine the less likely, the less achievable the goal of bringing Ukraine politically back into Russia's orbit becomes. So it's not at all clear to me that there is a master plan here but I think we have to allow even though logically we have argued against it amongst ourselves we've said that a military occupation of Ukraine by the Russian military is not something the Russians really want. And of course it's a huge, huge military task and then of course after you win the war you have to win the peace and it becomes even more of a problem as we know from our own experience. So it's, logically it's not something that Mr. Putin probably wants but we can't rule it out because this piecemeal pursuit and desire to keep Ukraine boiling, to keep Ukraine off sort of the, you know, it's level of the level keel that could take them deeper and deeper into the country which could really be a major disaster for both Ukraine of course and for Russia too. Where does Russia go from here? Clearly I would say it's not only a major crisis for Ukraine but it's a major existential crisis for Russia. And I'm not talking about the economic figures that all of you know and I'm not going to repeat them. It's not just the economy, it's also about division of Russia that is likely to be dominant in Russia for Mr. Putin's term runs to 2018 and then he is eligible to run again and can be in office until 2024 for a long time. And it's an ideology that is taking place that basically has positioned Russia in opposition to the West as a separate cultural, as a separate geopolitical entity. It's hard to imagine but it appears that Russia is basically throwing out the legacy of the last 25 years and moving away from the period that we all came to know as the post-Cold War into something new. And that applies to Russian domestic politics, it applies to Russian foreign policy. And in foreign policy aside from all the uncertainty that's associated with the prospect and we can talk about that later of a new confrontation in Europe, other options facing Russia are not particularly attractive. Russia's term pivot to Asia is a work in progress but so far we have yet to see a major statement of Russian policy in Asia Pacific where frankly Russia doesn't hold that many cards. And the best they can hope for is to play second fiddle to China in that bilateral relationship. But beyond the bilateral relationship with China everything else really is in a sense there incognito because I get to see Russia play a role in Southeast Asia and if Russia intends to pursue a partnership with Japan that too is fraught with the obvious complication. So geopolitically it's a very complicated game and the neighborhood is not getting any better. There are challenges to the south and east so it requires you know a very different mobilization of national resources than what we've seen in Russia so far. Okay well. May I add just a quick word to this? Yeah. It'll be very quick. Just a word on the military situation. You may recall that Mr. Putin at some point not long ago was quoted as saying something such as I could be in key of tomorrow. That was actually an incomplete quote taken out of context but he can't be in key of tomorrow. There are all kinds of irresponsible things that are being done in the heat of the debate in this country. One is to tally up the number of Russian divisions, tally up the number of Ukrainian divisions and do a kind of balance of forces kind of calculation. A lot of Russian divisions are category three divisions. There are nowhere near half strength that would take extraordinary hard work to bring them up to snuff. Once you leave the current ceasefire line dare I say you very quickly move into Ukrainian majority areas. Your supply lines get extended. Recall that the Russian army in fact did not acquit itself all that well even in the war against Georgia. So but quite apart from that is it possible that there will be a thrust from Novozovsk to Mariupol and then to Crimea? Possibly. But if Mr. Putin does that it seems to me the consequences by the way this war has not only been a disaster for Ukraine has been a disaster for Russia as well in many ways. Its economy is now facing crippling sanctions. The double whammy of declining oil prices. But strategically speaking if Russia burns its bridges with the west which it's pretty much done by advancing further west and further south and setting about to as it were gobble up more of Ukraine. The Russian relationship with the west is essentially over and it will become a kind of second fiddle or satra of a junior caliber to the Chinese. It's very interesting that China has been very, very careful in terms of how much political capital they put behind Russia not very much. And you don't have to talk to Russian national security experts very long to realize that the last thing they want is to be left friendless facing only China. So it seems to me that Putin is not all together unaware of these kinds of things. Well, listening to the two of you I don't think the ships are getting any closer and nobody's radar is turned on. You described a very volatile situation a week Ukraine economically and also militarily a Russia where President Putin seems to have very few options but to continue to accelerate and deepen the crisis. So with all of this volatility Raj could you then put yourself in the shoes of a western and especially the United States policymaker. How do we respond to this? You don't want me making policy for the United States David. We care too much about this country for that. As I said I mean I think one of the things that the president has to overcome is the poisonous atmosphere that has been created through no fault of our own the Russians have a great deal to answer for in this respect. Which makes it very difficult for us to engage. One of the things that I would suggest that we do is to stop what I would say is megaphone diplomacy. This gratuitous sort of hyperventilating and catharsis that might make us feel good but it does not create the atmosphere for constructive negotiations. You may recall that when Angela Merkel and Francois Walland were trying to put together this deal our politicians were not particularly effective. Senator McCain had the supremely bad taste of insulting the chancellor in her own country by saying that what she was doing was nonsensical. So I think that if we are to engage with the Russians we have to start now laying the kind of groundwork because in these kinds of crises and we talk about this in the first chapter of the book there is an enormous amount of research that shows what happens during crises is that people don't look for new sources of information and reassess the situation. They double down into entrenched perceptions. They assume that the other person has a master plan and they're fiddling around. They assume that the other person sees them as they see themselves and there is an enormous amount of worst case scenario thinking. So under the best of circumstances it's going to be very difficult but I see no way out of this until Washington gets into the game and doesn't just operate from the sidelines. So arms to Ukraine, I mean you've given me a partial answer let's do it quietly and do what? Talk to Russia quietly. What else? Arms to Ukraine well I've written about this recently and I'm categorically against it. I think it is a foolish and dangerous policy because the fact of the matter is however much Ukraine may be the victim here, however much we may sympathize with the Ukrainians. Arming the Ukrainians on what is the Russian doorstep in a part of the world and in a country where they have much more interests, national security interests than we do and therefore much more of a reason to escalate and by virtue of distance and geography much can do so much more easily is I think a very, very reckless thing. If we sell arms to Ukraine there is no doubt in my mind that it will put us in a position of asking ourselves what we will do because that will not make enough difference to the Ukrainian Army's success because Mr. Putin will escalate. Do we then say well we tried our best and pull out? That is not what will happen. Given the history of this country everyone will start talking about especially in Washington the old trope credibility will be taken out. It doesn't even matter if we're banging our head against a wall or a head is hurting we have to keep banging our head against the wall because somebody might think that if we stop we're weak right. So I see this as a very dangerous plan. There is no thought being given to what it fails and what if it fails and if you supply arms to the Ukrainians that will destroy I think the possibility of any engagement with the Russians. So I think we have to engage them, we have to engage them privately and I think we have to recognize that in one form or the other there is going to be whether we like it or not and I would rather that it wasn't the case of preponderance of Russian influence in Eastern Ukraine. The question is what is the modality of that influence? Is it a frozen conflict? Is it annexation? Is it a settlement where federalization and decentralization right is coupled with some end to the war one can think of many possibilities but I think the idea that we can go back to the status quo that existed before the war began fortunately is not realistic. Well I want to get to questions but I'd like to ask one of my own first just to follow up from where you were we're going to come up on a campaign to elect a new American president. I assume that this confrontation in Ukraine is going to be a campaign issue and I think a lot of people are going to ask you know did we do anything wrong? Do we make some misjudgments in the last 25 years and especially in the last decade and you addressed this a little bit in your book especially in the introduction you write the larger lesson of the conflagration in Ukraine is that there is no longer a European security architecture that Russia and the West recognize and are prepared to consider as providing rules of the road however rough and ready. So Jean I just wonder could you address this question of did we air by not bringing Russia more tightly into security structure after the end of the Cold War and or should we it even ask ourselves whether we aired was this a crisis caused by President Putin? Do we do everything we could have? Well you know as you said when we had this conversation a couple of weeks ago that this book is just the first draft that there'll be a lot more written and there's a lot more to be written and researched about the history of the immediate post-Cold War era on balance it's a difficult question to answer on balance I think and this is not a self-congratulating statement on my part because actually I was not a supporter of NATO enlargement at the time but looking back I think the vision of Europe whole free at peace with itself and its neighbors was the right one and you know we hope that Russia would embrace it it wasn't always executed the way perhaps it should have been but on balance I think it was the right policy to pursue but without Russia it wasn't whole was it? Well but you have to remember what Russia was at the time and it wasn't only about Russia it was about the rest of Europe as well so in retrospect could we have just told what we called then Eastern Europe you have to wait at the door until Russia is ready I don't think it was right I don't think it was I don't think it would have been right I don't think it would have been the solution I think it would have created more problems than it solved what I think we have to realize now and this is a huge task and I don't believe it's going to be solved during the campaign if anything I fear the campaign is going to make the environment in which this conversation will take place worse and not better but perhaps the benefit will be that it will put squarely this issue on our agenda we have to think about a new security arrangement for Europe that's a big call it's a huge it's it's a huge chances I will not be in new Cold War chances I will not be Europe whole and free chances that it's going to be some sort of a hybrid arrangement realizing both our commitment to our values and the reality of Russia's geopolitical dominance of parts of Europe and the fact that even though the relationship projects you said will be destroyed will still need Russia at the table to solve a number of problems that both the Europeans and we have and will need to address so it's going to be very very challenging conversation about what to do about what not to do because what we don't do will matter as much as what will do inaction will matter and it's you know there's no other way other than to just sort of commit to that course without without preconceived notions and be open-minded about it you're making me very uncomfortable you've described this great volatility in the center of Europe and the European security structures have broken down and now we have to kind of come up with a new one in action it's not a possibility but we don't really know where we're going that's right and I think it's a very precarious situation that we're in because when we compare it to the Cold War we especially by the end of the Cold War we knew what the rules were they were pretty well established we don't have those anymore and I think that's a point that we make at the end of the book that what we do we better do carefully because it's fraught with unintended consequences that could be very dangerous Roger I want to quick word before we go to the question there has been about whether NATO expansion created this crisis I think that's an absurd question this crisis was created by a great many complicated reasons but I will say this both in the case of NATO expansion and in the case of the EU's Eastern policy of which the DCFTA Association agreement were part I think there was not a not an understanding that at some point there would be a Russian reaction and there was no plan to deal with that reaction certainly not on the Soviets part I was at the time not in favor of NATO expansion in our book we asked the question imagine that the Cold War had ended and the Soviet Union at quote won the Cold War and the Warsaw Pact extended into our hemisphere and decided to take on Mexico and Guatemala and Honduras and we were told you don't have to worry about a thing Cold War is over this alliance is now a new kind of alliance these countries have asked to join it this is all meant in the spirit of fraternal goodwill we would not have stood for it for a minute why would we expect the Russians to do anything different that is different from saying that this crisis has its its its own dynamics it seems to me I will say just one last thing I think Jean's point about the onset of the campaign in this country when we take leave of our senses for about a year and a half is very very pertinent because I think soon there will be the debate about who lost Ukraine notwithstanding the fact that it's not anyone's country that belongs to the Ukrainians it'll be very even more difficult it seems to me to do what I'm suggesting we do which is to try to engage somehow the Russians along with the Europeans okay you guys aren't making me very optimistic but now I'm sure we'll have some good questions I'll call on you we have microphones to help amplify your questions police direct them at which of the authors you'd like to ask keep them succinct so we can get everybody in and we'll get started right here with Wayne thank you Wayne Mary I'd like to challenge dr. Menon on his proposal that only an app direction here I'm frankly incredulous about that if only seen it from Moscow's point of view the malice that they direct toward us is at least as great as any malice that we direct toward them they see us today both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue is entirely adversarial towards them they don't see anything like the range of views about Russia let alone about Ukraine that exists in Europe they see our sanctions policy as motivated in their perception by a policy of containment and regime change it is quite clear that the major European governments would not favor the kind of thing you're proposing they have obviously asked us to sit on our hands and finally just looking at the president's administration if the president were to try to implement the kind of thing you have suggested I think he would likely face significant senior level resignations which would debilitate his foreign policy team I just don't see it I mean I would be interested in how you see that the Americans getting more engaged in this issue is going to make things better rather than worse so mr. Mary let's start with there's been a lot of technologies I'm kind of technologically challenged at the best of times so let's start mr. Mary with the places place where you and I agree there is no question that the vituperative rhetoric on their side the truculence the conspiracy theories all of that is going on I am not here to deny that you've said that the Europeans have asked us to sit on our hands well that hasn't gone very well has it it hasn't gone very well so if the status quo continues and there is no action on our part and whatever European diplomacy there is fails then it seems to me the situation becomes a much more dire as for people resigning from mr. Obama's administration they may resign because time is nearing and they're looking for private sector jobs but I can't imagine anyone resigning on principle because the president decides to engage Ukraine I frankly don't see it I think the much bigger problem is given as you correctly put it the atmosphere that the Russians have created by the war and by their rhetoric and sloganeering and given that we've now begun to respond in the same coin it the the atmosphere for us to do anything is is is extremely difficult so my concern would not be that people will resign my concern is not even that the Russians are engaged in sloganeering and bad behavior look you went in a crisis one talks to one's adversaries now one's friends one has no difficulty with one's friends so I would say to you that I don't see where your end game goes I mean sitting on our hands and just watching this it seems to me would be highly responsible there are certain things that the Europeans will not do without American cover and the Russians are shall I say status-conscious to this extent I don't think they'll take very seriously any process that doesn't involve us that does not mean I want to be very clear about this that we negotiate over the heads of the Ukrainians and try to tell them what to do it is their country they should be at the table negotiating but I would say without having a clear sense of exactly what we should do that that we ought to get involved I see no downside from it I don't think it's going to be a catastrophe for the president if he summons courage and does this there will be a huge amount of backlash from the from the opposing party resignations from the government I don't think so if people don't agree with the president's policies the honorable thing to do is to resign and the president can find other people who agree with this policy just a quick comment Wayne I think we argue fairly persuasively in the book that one of the reasons one of the only one of the reasons not the reason but one of the many reasons leading factors leading up to this crisis was the fact that the United States was not involved in in shaping policy between was not involved in a conversation between Ukraine and the European Union that's in part how we got here vacuums everywhere okay we'll keep coming to this right here in the front you've had your hand up since the beginning I'm Dr. Donner with the Franciscan Peace Center and I would like you to comment on the role of the oligarchs in both Ukraine and Russia in this whole mass well I'll start you know clearly actually very different roles that they play as far as we can tell because basically in Ukraine you've had a revolving door between government and private business which in itself is not bad of course but given the circumstances in Ukraine when you have the current president Parashenko who is not the wealthiest oligarch but still qualifies who has been through several governments and in the process of going through this revolving door accumulated substantial fortune and business interest both in Ukraine and reportedly Russia that sort of tells you something and I think the oligarchs based on reports that you see an open source continue to play an important role in shaping Ukrainian politics you hear reports you read reports occasionally about say this well-known Ukrainian oligarch Mitro Firtash who is currently under house arrest in Vienna convening meetings with fellow oligarchs making decisions separately about the course of Ukrainian politics shaping elections and so on in Russia there has been this sort of line of thinking that because of sanctions and because of other economic pressures on Russia the oligarchs will somehow rebel against mr. Putin and my reading of the tea leaves and I think it's not just my meeting of the tea leaves is that the oligarchs in Russia play a very different role and that they are subservient to the Kremlin and basically depend on mr. Putin for their continued success in business so now Russian elite so far appears to be a lot more consolidated and behind the president in pursuing this line at least we don't hear major of major defections they're not quite the king make makers that they appear to be Ukrainian politics I would agree with that the effect that the oligarchs have had on the direction of the Russian economy and on the scale of corruption in particular is told in a book that some of you or many of you may know by Karen de Wiesha she's not the only one to lay this out nothing more needs to be said about that they have in some sense hijacked the economy while being politically very quiescent their analogs exist in Ukraine mr. Poroshenko himself was a former oligarch the oligarchs are playing a role in Ukraine though that they are not playing in Russia which is that because of the inadequacy shall we say of the Ukrainian army a considerable part of the fighting in the east is being done by private militia's private armies that are funded by oligarchs and so one question for the future also is I'm looking down the line let's assume this all ends in a way that we can say it was a fair settlement will these militia be integrated back into the Ukrainian body politic or will the oligarchs who run them try to use them as private armies to carve out their own place under the sun in the political economy of Ukraine I'm not saying that will happen I don't know but it's certainly something that is that bears watching so there is a military role that the oligarchs are playing in Ukraine that is not present in Russia I would like to add that David Hoffman has written quite a bit about the oligarchs in Russia as well in my time they are defining defining work they didn't have armies to fight wars they had armies to defend themselves on the street but things have changed alright more questions we have a lot of people interested I'm moving from front to back a little bit I'll get to everybody let's Marvin Marvin Cabell at the Pulitzer Center the question I have and I hope you can help us understand a little bit more about this what is going on in the Donbass now and at the very beginning when the little green man first showed up were they there first or was there a local kind of insurrection that they were supporting did Putin have at that time a plan in his mind was he surprised in any way by what has developed there can he call this off tomorrow morning if he wished if you could help us through that in the case of the case of you must a very good question in the case of Crimea it's complicated the Russian role was direct and clear there is no question that what happened in Crimea would not have happened without a substantial role I want to make that clear on the other hand and we talk about this in the historical chapter of the book because Ukraine as a country now was in its long history ruled by so many different states and empires it is a country in which social and cultural tensions are refracted into politics so to be a little bit simplistic about it the tensions between shall we say the center and west of the country and the south and the east have manifested themselves at least since 1992 in 1992 the Ukrainian parliament passed a bill on independence it did so two years later in 94 the crime I'm sorry the crime it was a Korean or excuse me the Crimean parliament in 1994 in in the Donbass 1993 there was a minor strike it began over economic matters but very quickly got into the business of language politics and federalization and there was a whole lot of you and cry about autonomy and so on and so forth there the fact of the matter is that while the ethnic Russian population or right Ukrainians who identifies Russians are only 20 percent or so the Ukraine's population 80 percent of them are either in the Crimea or in the Donbass now what is happening in the Donbass it is a murky murky battlefield there are without question Russian regular Russian troops there I think one of the things that this has discredited Russia and this goes to mr. Mary's point this is constant denial that they're not there of course they're there we have photographs showing that they're there and these guys who are fighting as volunteers could not be operating sophisticated weaponry like counter battery weapons and anti-tank missiles and not to mention surface to air missiles that go awry without substantial help from from the Russian army there are irregulars there there are fighters from the North Caucasus there are criminal gangs one of the difficulties in understanding how the settlement comes about and I don't know the answer to this is it because you you've asked precisely the correct question is this a tap that mr. Putin can just turn off when he realizes that the price is right whatever that price is or is he so much implicated in this politically now that it becomes difficult for him to do so I wish I had an answer for you I simply do not know all right let's keep moving on I've got a question back over here hello gentlemen's thanks for your book and my name is Nikolay Varebyov I'm Ukrainian political and military journalist here I represent the Center for Ministering European Perspectives so I spent around two months on the ground and I'm really familiar with the situation was going on in battle zone so like two two remarks and then the question so the first is I think that and Jim you was absolutely right because like people here they and including experts they misunderstand the real like Putin's goal so it's not done bus it's not only in Kiev but it's probably like whole Europe that's why so he is addicted by this idea for him key with a holy land and he wants to take everything it's not about them but it's it's like you said it's a only reason to diminish the power in Kiev and then just even to move further about his tanks in Poland and in Germany we've heard about this a lot and on the other hand I think that we are here we overestimated the capacity of their military troops on the ground so you work on this book maybe you can answer to the question tell me about one at least one successful Russian operation in Donbas for the last six months or something like taking the baltseva they just like desperately tried to take airport for 20 250 days I mean and people you know who people were in this Danish airport one Ukrainians like 30% of them there were even like students or like some professionals who didn't keep a weapon before they were not professional soldiers so I think that they're like military and their troops and they're actually invasion it's really miserable and we really overestimate their like capacity in eastern Ukraine and the question is about that we have this the main issue right now on the table about possible providing little assistance and can you please answer the two like small questions the first is what will be the positive and the negative scenario of this I mean if it will be escalation in what way if it will be like peace so maybe you can comment on this thank you very much I think you addressed this once already but give us a recap on lethal weapons to Ukraine up and down yeah thank you very much for your question before that David if I may just ask the question that I believe you asked I think I understood you correctly that in your view the the capacity of the Russian military in that region has been exaggerated is that is that correct well yes and no I would just ask you to think about two things the turning point in the reversal of Ukraine's early military for fortunes came when the Russians took a direct hand in my view in opening up a front in Novozov's come time last fall and then we have a significant level of escalation that has enabled the rebels to gain about what 400 square kilometers recently is the Russian Army capable of advancing and incorporating large parts of Ukraine no but I don't think that's their goal they've been extraordinarily successful successful with two things keeping the pot boiling and making this war extraordinarily costly for Europe and putting a great deal of pressure on states that are nearby so it all depends on how much how you define success if it's in terms of strict military professional operational capability I would agree with you but I think that the game that they're playing is rather different it's to make as much of a mess and as much trouble as possible in the East and try to extract the best price they can I don't know what price that is on on arms to you before you go to arms could I ask you there's a lot of bandied about this term that Russia is actually waging a hybrid war that it's not a linear military force that's an issue here that they're using asymmetry and hybrid methods you agree with that was that terminology fair and is that the mess you're talking about that's confounding Europe and the United States I mean hybrid David to this extent they're involved in a variety of ways there is no as I said there's no question they're involved directly but they're involved indirectly the level of weaponry that's possessed by the separatists in the Don Boss and the kind of operations that they have undertaken however limited they may be as Mr. Varabyov said could not the idea that a bunch of people who were really angry and truck drivers and whatnot came across the border and and this military conflagration began beggars belief I just think it should not even be dignified with with a response so there's clearly a Russian role but it's been a very very careful role in the sense that they have escalated when necessary pull back when necessary and I think the goal really is in part to maybe to bleed Ukraine economically to death and in that respect I would say that the war has been extraordinarily costly for Ukraine and there are the Russian Putin is cynical enough to say oh you believe in Ukraine united with Europe and possibly one day in NATO in a democracy well good luck to you here here's the check I want you to pick it up because by the time he's done with us the Ukrainian economy will suffer greatly so there is a connection then between what is going on in the military front and what is going on on the economic front certainly for Ukraine well I fear that if I use the term hybrid warfare and military purists will criticize me so I won't use it but I agree with Raj I think that the one thing that mr. Putin has made clear is that he is not prepared to see the separatist lose in this conflict so how good the Russian army is I think it's almost irrelevant under the circumstances because clearly it has the resources it has the manpower and even more importantly the Russian leadership has the will to step in and provide the the necessary amount of force to to make sure that its objectives are accomplished on the battlefield okay Ambassador Collins Jim Collins from Carnegie a pretty good friend of ours a number of us the other day observed that out of 64 conflicts in the recent here only one has been settled by military means but everything else has been negotiated now I think this is perhaps instructive and my question to both of you is what's the negotiation going to be about and who's going to be the key player or players in figuring out when you've come to terms because right now it strikes me we aren't even talking on the same page if you go to Kiev if you go to Washington if you go to Moscow and probably if you go to Don boss well Jim I mean I would welcome your input in this conversation I think you had more experience with negotiations than quite a few of us and possibly quite a few of us combined but I would say you have to start with a negotiation you know assuming that there are two sides here basically there's Russia and the separatists on the one hand and then Kiev collectively Brussels and the United States on the other so you need to have pre-negotiation negotiation and agree what it is that is desirable and feasible that the West collectively can put on the table assuming that Moscow and then it's gone Lugansk or wherever the center of gravity is there can come up with its own solution and I am not suggesting that Lugansk and then it's here are entirely independent players but they will have some sort of an input in it too I imagine so there needs to be that conversation and I think it's going to be a very different very difficult conversation for the West collectively because we'll have to make some compromises which politically will be difficult for the leadership in Kiev to accept for us to accept but if we are to reach that desired end state that you're talking about will have to make the compromise and I think at this point looking at the results of Minsk too I think that even the goal of Ukraine reasserting its control over the border with Russia is unrealizable and there's going to be some de facto control of the border but the real border will be between the separatist territories in the rest of Ukraine wherever that front line is going to be we may not see that the actual front line at the present time so I fear that acknowledging a measure of defeat under the circumstances is unavoidable at least that's how it's going to be pursued perceived and then you engage Russia about what it is they want but I think we're looking at you know Ukraine as sovereign within the boundaries controlled by the government in Kiev with I fear it's going to be a country with you know not entirely free to pursue its chosen course in foreign policy because of the threat that Russia will continue to pose to it so you know others and it's a very politically fraught term to use but others like you know in Vogue's big new Brzezinski have talked about a form of neutrality on alignment for Ukraine I think some countries have used that model in the past where the great deal of success eventually but as long as we can achieve a state in which Ukraine can concentrate on rebuilding itself domestically I think it's a victory for us giving you the benefit of my advice is like rather like my teaching magic Johnson how to do a jump shot so with in that spirit of humility I will say at one level the mechanics of how to end this are simple right there has to be a ceasefire there's to be weapons free zone and a true pullback on either side of the border this has to be policed by three a third-party contingent there has to be control of the Russian-Ukrainian border never on the Russian side by third-party observers but definitely on the on the on the Ukrainian side so the mechanics of how to do this I think you will agree we know how to do because we've done these things before the question is what will it take so here it seems to me it's important to look not at mr. Putin who is someone in the driver's seat but mr. Putin who's also seeing the plummeting in what is a hydrocarbon economy of oil prices with no prospect that they will recover mr. Putin on the one hand who says we won't buckle the sanctions but on the other hand clearly implies that sanctions are creating difficulty for the Russian economy would sanctions be put on the table not front-loaded put on the table in exchange for clear cooperation from the Russian side to make this happen neutrality for Ukraine is a very difficult thing because you know we ought not to decide their foreign policy for them but if they could be persuaded to agree not to neutrality on an open-ended basis but neutrality for a five-year period with the proviso that they can buy arms from whoever they want get military training from whoever they want would that be a possibility now I'm thinking out loud here but it seems to me punishment alone which is what we've done right and I understand why we've done it has not worked because the tighter the screws have been turned the more mr. Putin has escalated I mean Americans in particular I think are our our economic stick in their thinking right but mr. Putin is not an accountant I mean he's thinking in terms of passion and one-upsmanship and historical losses and all of this and so the question is what would be the price that we would be willing to pay and when would we sequence it so that when we provide something by way of good faith it is in exchange for something definite on the ground that lasts for some length of time because in the end I think you said this correctly this cannot be settled militarily we cannot overcome the Russians by equipping the Ukrainians the Russians as mr. Vorobyov said I think are no position to drive further west whenever this is settled it'll be a political solution it's going to be very very difficult for the reasons that Jean has said and you will understand okay we have a lot more questions let's try and move brisket through your my name is Mario Sacheva I'm a Russian reporter and blogger based in Germany so let's take the worst scenario for the Russian authorities and the weapons will be delivered from the US to Ukraine so do the same US authorities and think tankers have already planned for you for Europe what to do what how to proceed with thousands of Ukrainian refugees so I know that you both experts don't support the idea of delivering weapons but you are in touch with experts and authorities who are thank you very much I think I think the mic I think the microphone is terrible yeah and Mario Sacheva Russian reporter in Germany my question is let's take the worst scenario and the weapon for the Russian authorities and the weapons will be delivered from Ukraine from Russia from the US to Ukraine and so do the same US authorities and think thinkers have already a plan for Europe how to proceed with thousands of refugees because the situation would escalate for sure thank you very much I'm neither a think tanker nor am I in touch with any authorities I can assure you look the refugee problem will undoubtedly get worse but you say well do we the United States have a plan and how to deal with it it seems to me that the problem is going to be Russia because more most of the refugees going across the border into into Russia for you because these are Russian speaking areas so they're not going to come here it will be in a sense a Russian problem I don't know how to answer your question except to say for that and other reasons I don't support the the arming of Ukraine I my concern is as much as I would be concerned about refugees that if you're looking for the kind of political settlement the political solution that Ambassador Collins referred to I think this will delay and perhaps make impossible a political solution all right let's get some more questions that we got one right up here in front go ahead I'm trying to catch everybody here we can hi our one nugget from George Washington University can I take it back to the understanding your chapter one about how we got here and especially this kind of Mersheim our narrative of we are to blame say because of NATO expansion but you mentioned early on Eugene the Eastern Partnership and the view the objectives of Carl Bilt and Roderick Shikhorsky a couple of questions there do is it your sense that yes a case can be made we are to blame because Carl Bilt and Shikhorsky created the Eastern Partnership specifically in a way that was designed to be exclusive of Russian interest or were they naive about how this was going to be perceived in Russia and I should say if they were naive about how this was perceived in Russia you also talked about improvisation what strikes me is that Russia took its sweet wild to realize it's seemingly that there was a serious problem with the Eastern Partnership I mean 2009 you find Lavrov saying that he might as well that they might actually join the thing and there's this sense of you know a phone call from Putin to to Yanukovych a week before Vilnius like if they in a panic are realizing the full implications of Eastern Partnership so it's two patterns I mean you how do you interpret the the the rationales of Bilt and Shikhorsky in Eastern Partnership and second would you would you say that Russia itself improvises its reaction to the to the EU's policy I think that informally both you know Carl Bilt and Rodik Shikhorsky they have oversized reputations on the European scene and clearly they're very capable leaders they're also very well known in Russia for their views and for their political skills so I think you know the idea of sort of a joint Polish-Swedish inspired Eastern Partnership was something that was not lost on the Russians as a not just an expansion of Western values but also you know Russians do think geopolitically it's one thing that they sort of embraced with vigor in the 1990s and haven't given up since so I think those personalities and statements that they made over time were you know played a role I don't want to say that they were the decisive but clearly I played a role and I think they played a bigger role than many other European leaders because frankly your other European leaders were not paying as much attention understandably too because something I didn't mention in the beginning but you know Europe had it more than its fair share of crisis in that time too right so that said the Russian government as we know is not the best organized and well-oiled machine and I think you are right in that they didn't quite catch on to the meaning of the Eastern Partnership but as the data approached and as the stance taken by the negotiators for Europe was that's either or and there's not a lot of room for compromise in fact no room for compromise I think that created a dynamic then that led eventually to to the crisis as to the question of whether they were improvising the Russians that is I think they were I think there is ample evidence to suggest that the series of moves that the Russians made throughout this crisis were not part of a long-term strategy I mean they're clearly long-term preferences but as a matter of strategy I don't believe that they had one I think if you look at sort of the series of events well we don't know what transpired between Putin and you know Kovac in November but when somehow Putin in that secret meeting they had I forget the exact date of it but when when when you know Kovac pulled the plug on signing at Vilna so I think Putin probably thought hey I got it it's it's done and then you have protests which were completely unexpected I believe for all including for Washington and then there is a 22 billion dollar package of assistance from Russia to Ukraine 15 billion dollars in aid in loans and seven billion dollars in gas discounts and probably at that point putting things I think I bought myself Ukraine at least you know college and probably enough to get you know goes through the 2015 election and when that doesn't work sort of you have this progression and then the February 21 22 dramatic events when basically you know Kovac collapses and that was unexpected I think that leads to the move in Crimea which I take to be a panicky move and and and when that doesn't work it takes you to the Varossia and so on so I agree with you in your assessment just behind you know just behind you the fellow with this thank you Paul Joy on a side you you've mentioned the the the possibility of what the West could offer mr. Putin in order to bring this negotiation forward I would like to ask the question what are the constraints on mr. Putin for moving in that direction namely what today is the Russian national idea secondly what effect internal to Russia has the the the new emergence of people who were in the background before into some type of promise concerning the area of ideas men like Dugan neo fascism the type of extreme nationalism that that has emerged and the very very strident anti-american propaganda that's in in the country how does this constrain him and if he does move for accommodation does he risk his own political standing for those who support the compatriots abroad strategy the no novorossiya and all these ideas of of recreating something larger than Russia is today so there is a little bit of a saucer is a apprentice problem here in the sense that having whipped up this shall I say almost jingoistic rhetoric and having created in the Russian people's minds that they are surrounded by hostile enemies and so on and having brought up the old age old question that goes back centuries in Russian history of who are we are we west are we east are we hybrid you know the Russians have been debating this for years questions is Mr. Putin a victim of his own rhetoric it certainly makes it more easy for him to extricate himself from this than we would think because I think the general sense I get from reading analysis here is that he could end it like that if he wanted to so I think if you're suggesting it could be more complicated I think I agree but he's a man having built so much on being a strong leader and a nationalist who will be obliged to take something home that is to say if he's going to make something that he would regard as a concession he will have to show that something has been gotten in return and I would say the thing that's something that he's most interested in would be economic relief we for our part have to be very careful on how we seek sequence it and what is offered at what time but it seems to me that I don't think people like Alexander Dugan are going to prevent Mr. Putin from cutting a deal if he wants to and Dugan makes a lot of noise and says he's got connection with the Kremlin and so on but he's not going to be the one deciding this and I think in the end if Putin makes the move and shows because he commands the airwaves that this is an honorable deal for Russia you can do it there is certainly no question that the climate that's been created in Russia as a result of this war and mind you this war is going to have effects not only on the Russian economy but I think in the structure of the Russian polity and I actually am quite concerned about the direction in which Russia is going even even before this war but I think it's it's doable for him providing that there's something that he can show that has been given to him and that he can show was an honorable piece. I have to say listening to all of you the cards that Mr. Putin has seemed to be the most firmest thing we can identify here today everybody else seems to be playing very weak hands. Some more questions over here on this side I'm going to try and go back and forth. Thank you Judith Mandel former State Department I'd like to turn to the economic aspects of the situation in Ukraine and given the weakness of the Ukrainian economy it's desperate need for some sort of external financing package which is being held up because of a variety of internal factors including the fact that the forms are going to be difficult to implement what can be done to help the Ukrainian stay afloat and perhaps even improve their economic situation even as the fighting either continues or settles down when we understand that the stability in the east will be a long time in coming. In my mind it's impossible to de-link the political economy of the war from the political economy of the Ukrainian economy because the longer the war goes on the more it will cost Ukraine and so giving Ukraine money that then it is obliged to some spend some part of by defraining the cost of the war strikes me as not a very very good proposition. There's another problem it's kind of the moral hazard problem I think that as I understand the Ukrainian position they've asked for substantial amounts of economic relief but some breathing room in which to introduce the reforms and I completely understand why they've done it because these reforms are very very difficult forms there will be short-term pain you can tell Ukrainians 10 years from now you'll be like Sweden but they want to know what they'll be like five months from now and so the question is do you give them the assistance with minimal preconditions and create a moral hazard problem that is to say that they have no incentive then to do what they need to do or do you do this and give them some breathing space while the war is going on knowing that that's kind of a mugs game because the more the longer the war continues the deeper the economic pressure on Ukraine which is I think essentially part of what Mr. Putin is trying to do but it seems to me that the problem that we can probably deal with more effectively than the military problem which is not to say we deal with it is the economic problem it is within our capacity and certainly in the capacity of the Europeans and others who have money to whom we give protection right to to say if Ukraine is such a high priority to give it as much money as we can in exchange for proper policy there I have the utmost sympathy with the Ukrainians and I would do as much as possible the question is will there be the kind of reforms that are followed through the history of Ukraine so far suggest that we have to be very careful about that the great the last great hope was during the Orange Revolution and you know what happened to the reform program in that period okay Mr. Menon you I'm sorry Eleanor Bacrock I worked in Ukraine for USAID for five years and more hopeful time you seem to be saying that the arising of a Putin was inevitable and that he will stay in power despite the but the Russian economy is not in great shape and is likely to get worse and there is the issue of negotiations which seems to be kind of like Charlie Brown he doesn't seem to be at all serious ceasefire is an opportunity to take more territory can he really is there never going to be a reaction amongst the Russian people as their own circumstances get worse is this new Stalinism and terror or it has there been some possible change so if you understood me as saying that the rise of Putin was inevitable I apologize I'm a spoke I didn't mean to suggest anything the sort I don't believe in historical inevitability nor do I believe that NATO expansion caused it or the Eastern partnership caused it I think one thing you'll see if you read the book is that there are complex array of problems going on your question essentially is how vulnerable is Mr. Putin so far from what we know unless someone can show otherwise I don't believe that economic pressure has led him to rethink his current policy in vis-a-vis the war nor has it so far early days yet led to some collapse of his political standing but let's assume that the pressure could be put on to the point where there would be a systemic crisis in Russia do we want such a systemic crisis in a country with what is it now they cut back one time zone is it 11 time zones 9 9 so okay whatever it is right do we want and this is not a plea for protecting mr. Putin or backing mr. Putin but we think well this pressure will lead to a better outcome in Russia well that's possible but what's also possible is that it could lead to a worst outcome for the moment anyway that's neither here nor there because what we have to deal with whether he was inevitable or not is the fact of Vladimir Putin and if in fact we're talking about a political settlement the modality is however much one may not like him and I take mr. Mary's point about all the terrible things he's done on the verbal front and on the ground but he's the man who's there that one has to deal with and the question is what is a deal that will give him enough to change course but that an American leader can sell here as something other than total appeasement as the calendar moves on and we get toward the election that is going to be much much harder I will I will say something to you which I which I hope is not true which is that when we meet if we were to meet here next year I think this crisis in some manifestation could well be with us I don't I mean I don't mean an open ended war but there are many ways in which the Russians can keep the pot boiling in Ukraine at very little cost to them but at very high cost to the Ukrainians there's a kind of asymmetry there now there is one thing that's clear to me that is whatever bravado you may hear from the Russian authorities there is just no question you can look at the reserves the value of the ruble the amount of revenue gotten from gas and oil the sanctions and the decline in hydrocarbon prices have made a difference and I think Mr. Putin is far too intelligent to believe that simple patriotic rhetoric will save the day if in fact the standard we're living in Russia plummets if that is true it stands to reason that there is some economic incentive that can be thrown into the mix way in the back here on the right side beyond you way in the back yeah thank you my name is Jeremy Weiss I'm a professor at George Washington University Department of Political Science I just want to see if I can pull together a couple of strands here that you've mentioned you just said that if we were to meet here a year from now this conflict might still be going on in some sense you've said that the Don boss especially if it's been heavily damaged by conflict is not really a big prize that Putin needs Kiev but probably can't get it and you've said that there's no master plan but do you think either that Russia is trying to engineer a type of frozen conflict that would keep Ukraine from ever solidifying relations with the West or also that he's trying to drive a wedge between the European Union during a delicate time for Brussels when they're also dealing with the euro crisis your turn I believe yes I think if they could freeze this conflict and achieve the terms that you're referring to they probably would but again that's just me guessing we really have very few insights into Russian thinking these days and it probably doesn't hurt from the standpoint of Russian policymakers to keep the European Union preoccupied with other problems that it has and it does have quite a few of those problems so I think what you're describing is likely the term frozen conflict I would urge you to rethink because everyone's saying this now I'm not entirely sure what it means it kind of sounds nice I would say it's a simmering conflict modulated by Putin in other words think of him I don't mean that he's in control of everything but think of him as someone who has the capacity it's like you're standing in front of a stove and you've got your hand on the gas nozzle or whatever one calls it and they can go up and down he's got the capacity to do that so I don't think it's a frozen conflict so much as a conflict on some level of boil which every once in a while looks like the water is going to come out of the pot and that could continue on an open-ended basis absent of political solution okay right in the back with you David said he formally with the State and Defense Department a question for each of the speakers for for Gene I understand you your discussion about there's no master plan but is there a grand ambition something that perhaps Catherine the great would recognize and then for mr. Menon and first I should thank both of you for your book and I'm sure I'll learn a lot from it when I read it you talked about a potential key role for the US but what is there to make you think that would be positive the US role there's there can be I think an reasonably argument reasonable argument made that four or five years ago the US tried a policy of reset that may well have impelled in Putin to see the United States as weak and conciliatory and helped him make a lot of the decisions he's been making we just finished a two-year exercise and trying to make peace in the Middle East which resulted in a worse conflict in Gaza so why do you think the US just by having the US starting to play a role why do you think that'll be positive couldn't it just as likely be negative right I think you know what is the vision you know we've probably talked about a number of times it's very cool but I think it's the same vision that endures that is really difficult to implement I don't believe it's the vision of Russia as an empire so in that sense taking literally me trees right but I think the vision that the best I can reconstruct it the vision is more like sort of you know a constellation of major powers surrounded by smaller satellites and it's these major powers that decide key questions in European and global security Russia clearly wants to be part of that constellation it's again my reading of the Russian literature and the Russian as a whole is that for the Russian security establishments after the Cold War ended the idea that Bulgaria would have a vote and a veto in major European security decisions with NATO is the principal European security organization and Russia would have a voice but not a veto was really unacceptable so it's you know in reality I think Russia could have had a lot more than a voice and a veto but that's just the understanding that the Russians have embraced in their view of European security a lot of it really goes back probably to you know very 19th century like thinking about what European security could be should be so I think that still endures and you know the notion of you know one country one vote that each country has an equal vote is something that Russians probably will not accept I think it was Bremenkoff 25 years ago told us it's going to be a multipolar world right we didn't believe them then but I think we're seeing so you're in essence asking me quite appropriately the same question that mr. Mary asked also quite appropriately so if I'm saying that the United States should play a role I'm obliged to say why I think so and how that role ought to be and I will grant you upfront the two of you may well be right I'm not sure what the alternative is but let me start with where you began the reset you know sometimes because it sounds so nice we do foreign policy by label so there's the reset there's the pivot to Asia in the end I think both were rather vacuous soon after the reset we sent an ambassador to Moscow quickly not blaming him for it but for curious and complicated circumstances in effect became inoperable he was persona non-grad on Russian there could be no reset if the Russian leadership doesn't meet with the president's personal representative on site in the case of the pivot to Asia everyone in Asia is left wondering what does that mean and the Europeans are thinking if you're pivoting to Asia at a moment like this what does that mean you care about us so yes we've done things poorly in the past but I would say two things if you're skeptical about and rightly so whether we should play a role then we're obliged to think through what will happen if things continue as they are and to use Mr. Mary's very picturesque language that we continue sitting on our hands because the Europeans want us to do so the fact that they want us to sit on the hands is neither here nor there because of things go really bad look it'll affect them a lot more than it'll affect us so we ought to learn from the past about what we did wrong and we ought to be very clear about what we want to achieve and we ought to be very clear about what we think Mr. Putin will want in return and when we're prepared to give that to him it may fail it may fail but I don't think and this is where he and I disagree the fact that somebody might resign from the State Department ought to worry Mr. Obama you know he was awarded a Nobel Prize this is a golden opportunity to earn it actually right okay we have any more we have one more here and I think this will be the last question yes I'm Albert Reabs of Embassy of Ukraine first of all I would like to thank Carnegie Endowment for the string of very interesting events public events devoted to our Ukrainian issues unfortunately we are one of the priorities of the international policies now it's unfortunately second I would like to stress the still because I know the position of the attitude of the participants of the event on the little weapons for Ukraine issue I would still stress the necessity of this kind of weapons and not only in the purely military they mentioned all this issue but as a political decision as a signal for our Western partners believe me it could be just the signal we have Western partners which are almost waiting until the United States waves the flag and we will have some necessary technique and armament I wouldn't under underestimate the Russian military Russian military is very strong effective and power powerful they proved it in in Crimea just a year ago and we have this huge problem so secondly I would like to stress the necessity of further sanctions against Russia because means the new means agreement is already violated under the Baltic and violated not by Ukrainian forces but by separatists who is a clear Russian participation and so this is as for me this is the the evidence and one question question is about the direct United States involvement in into context with Russian Federation on the Ukrainian issue do you have the impressions that the context are already happening because the day before yesterday we were puzzled to hear that the full-fledged Russian delegation is participated in the summit of counter-violent extremism in Washington and this delegation is headed by the director of FSB FSB mr. Bortnikov the announcement came from State Department the day before the summit started so could such kind of context be like a you know the pretext by but like an idea of also discussing Ukrainian issue and the kind of United States participation in our matters that with Russians thank you thanks and I hope we'll have the answer to this and some closing remarks together so do you want to go first yes Albert you raise you know very important issues and they're very contentious no question about it and you know believe me when I sort of cast my vote one where another it's not an easy decision for me personally what I think is happening in Ukraine really is a tragedy and it's not a clear-cut case but it's more of an on-balance type of a decision and it's hard to make it you know without really taking into account the gravity of the situation on mr. Bortnikov's visit just like you I was surprised to see his name on the list of you know on the announcement I have absolutely no information as to whether or not he has meetings beyond the the one that he is formally attending I can only say in my view it is an opportunity and I hope somebody takes advantage of it as to just a little closing remarks I want to thank you all for coming to this event we look forward to seeing you in the coming weeks and months I am afraid as Albert just said this crisis will be with us for quite some time and we here at Carnegie try to really do what we can to advance the conversation so thank you and thank you Raj and thank you David most of all for moderating the conversation my pleasure well thanks to everybody for coming and next time we'll have sunny warm weather