 Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Carnegie Endowment. I'm Andrew Weiss. I'm the vice president for studies. And we are delighted to have put together this team of experts. Can you hear me OK? We've delighted to put together this team of experts to talk about the shock waves that are emanating from Ukraine as a result of Sunday's election. To my right is Professor Sergei Plohe, who is a professor of history at Harvard University and the director of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. Next to him is Matthew Kaminsky, who's the editor-in-chief of Politico in previous incarnations. He's been a correspondent in former Soviet Union and Central Europe for the Financial Times, for the Economist, for the Wall Street Journal, an editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal, and then was the inaugural editor of Politico Europe. And then on the very far end of the table is Balazs Yarabek, who is a Carnegie Endowment scholar, has spent the past two decades in and out of Ukraine and Belarus and other parts of the former Soviet Union as a sort of incubator for civil society groups and as a very, I think, sort of independent voice of reason about developments in Ukraine. At least was the first person who I encountered who was telling me at the beginning of this year that Zelensky was for real and published in Politico, words to that effect. So anyway, so it's a kind of nice interaction and collaboration with Politico. So I'm going to set the scene a little bit and then pose some questions to colleagues and then we'll come to the audience and ask folks to join in as well. Let me start with Sergei, who, as folks may know, is probably the premier historian in the United States of Ukraine, has written fabulous books about the collapse of the Soviet Union, about the Chernobyl disaster. Today is the 33rd anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. So we'll talk to them about that in a minute and there are copies in the hallway, I should mention, of Sergei's recent book about the Chernobyl disaster for purchase if you want to pick them up on the way out. But someone told me yesterday, I think it was a very vivid illustration of the situation in Ukraine, that if you were to, there's a graphic that people are emailing each other and if you were to plot over the last, since 1991, the leaders in the region, and I think there was like a timeline where it was Russia was on top, Belarus, then Ukraine, maybe it was since 2000. If you were to look at from left to right, the leader in Russia has not changed. The leader in Belarus, I believe, has not changed. There was a little blip in the timeline where Medvedev is shown, but Putin is standing on his shoulder. And every five years, the leader in Ukraine changes. And there's a pattern obviously here of upheaval and of major change. And is that what we experienced on Sunday is another moment of disjuncture that sort of fits in a bigger pattern of how Ukraine as a society and as a political entity organizes itself? Is that what we're witnessing or is it what the newspaper accounts portray, which is this is the reality TV and the TV star and the very charismatic figure who came out of the TV screen as a interesting and very charismatic figure that average people all got to know as a TV character. And then when he said, oh yeah, by the way, I wanna be your president for real, it was very easy for people to just sort of say, we are so unhappy, we'll take anything over the current government, which has not delivered prosperity, which has not resolved the conflict with Russia. So it's easy to just kind of vote for something that looks and smells like a protest. But I'm just starting to curious, what have we witnessed in the last couple of days? Well, thanks, excellent question. If you compare Ukraine to Russia and Belarus, this is Ukraine is the only country in which democracy survived the 1990s. And Ukrainians turn out to be much better at sending the politicians packing than at electing the politicians they can trust. So it looks like that the democracy works there, but the emphasis are on the idea of really getting rid of someone who didn't meet the expectations of the electorate. So you have to start somewhere and that's what is happening in Ukraine. Generally when you look at the presidents since 1991, two of them didn't actually survive till the end of their term. So Kravchuk, there were early elections and then of course, Mr. Yomukovych, who had three. Only one of them was there for two terms. And again, the second term can really end it in a major scandal and mass protests. So we have now the second, in Poroshenko, the second president who actually served the full term and didn't live in disgrace. That's putting these things into the context. And regarding Mr. Zelensky, the again, most of the observers look at that vote as really a protest vote. What is interesting from the historical perspective, if you look at this history between Chernobyl, it was just mentioned here, in Chernobyl it's also the start of the Ukrainian politics. That's when the first political party, the world was created. That's the mobilization around ruch starts and the movement toward independence. So the start of the political history of contemporary Ukraine is really, events of April of 1986. But if you look at this recent history, we had the presidential elections since 1991, till 2010, when the country was divided, there was East and West one way or another and the division was more or less in the middle. This is the second presidential elections where if you look at the map and they have a map there, let's see where they work, but this, the 2018 presidential elections round one and two round one is on the right and round two is on the left. We see that the country actually was pretty much united already during the first round, despite the fact that there were dozens of people contenders. And this reminds us about the map to the right and not to the left. This is presidential elections of 2010 and you see the red and dark red, these are the regions that voted for Mrs. Timoshenko and to the right, the regions that voted for Mr. Yonokovych and that was more or less the story also in the elections in 2004. The elections of 2014 where Mr. Poroshenko was elected again, we get Ukraine more or less united and this is the comparison of the, on the left, the electoral map that brought Mr. Poroshenko to power and to the right, the electoral map of Ukraine that brought Mr. Zelensky now to power. So loss of Crimea, loss of Donbass, actually made Ukraine much more homogenous place than it was ever before. We still see the pendulum a little bit going back and forth because Poroshenko didn't get some areas in the east and Zelensky didn't get some areas in the west. So the tendency theoretically is still the same but the spread of that pendulum is very different and this is again looking from the perspective of Ukrainian politics of the last 30 years, we now can talk really about maybe emerging tendency where Ukrainians are united either in electing the person or rejecting a certain type of politics and I think this is one of the most consequential results of the elections. Thanks very much. Let me turn to Yabash. As somebody who spotted this phenomenon early, what is it about Zelensky himself and the character he plays on television that created this opening? That somebody who literally avoided defining a political agenda of any kind didn't state his views except that the system is horrible and we're mad as hell about what is running our country and the people who are running our country. How did something like this happen that a person could have such a totally tabula rasa, no political experience, no team, no international exposure that he could basically run away with the election where it's something like a 70% landslide on Sunday? Well, first of all, he has a team. It's Quartal 95. It's his own production company and he has become a millionaire poking fun of politics and politicians. He's a political satirist which gives him a lot of good insights. Obviously, he's a successful one. So he's making money on politics and his team has been extremely creative. If you watch the servant of the people, I think can give you a good example, particularly I recommend everyone to watch the third series. The first two is a bit too long but the third has only three episodes and you can get a lot of insights even what's gonna happen next. There is a lot of, even the language law which was adopted two days ago is there, for example, and a couple of other things as well. So he has a very strong team. He doesn't have a team which would have political experience which I think it all boils down now what they're gonna do is the political experience but I also would like to emphasize what political experience also means in Ukraine. It means corruption and that's what people refuse. We don't need a political expert, somebody who has been politics directly because that means that person is automatically corrupt. So, and if you look at the polls which I was based my projection based on the polls as well as my own discussions with people and I have been warned over the summer to watch Zelensky because he has been reaching out to a lot of people I know and these are experts, NGOs, various people who are on politics, very foreign policy or a couple of other issues. And he has been recruiting, he has been reaching out, he has been listening to a lot of people already for about a year. So this is not an accidental thing, it was just not on the surface and I think was also very important in the timing. He was actively campaigning only three, four months. Look at Timoshenko who has been leading for long and then her campaign went down simply because it was way too much over a year and she couldn't bring anything. So the polls are saying that 66% of Zelensky's voters are voted against Poroshenko and the system he represented. So I think it's very telling. At the same time like Karta 95 has been running they have been Zelensky was nowhere to be seen in Kiev. He has been browsing the regions and they have been a very smart campaign. It's not only the movie but particularly the concerts and the events they gave. They gave in every place a lot of places, I don't know in three months, two concerts every day, one for free for those who in need and one for paid concerts for those better off. They even made money on the campaign. And exactly. And there's also like he has been extremely successful attracting earned media. It's a bit like connected to Trump. Whatever he did, the media was dying for it because the readers wanted to kind of learn what Zelensky is about. And the less he was telling about the campaign, about the program, about his theme, the more interesting and intriguing it has become. So like my media journalist friends were sounding there were three types of media campaigns now. Poroshenko who wants the so-called heated advertisement and playing everything black, meaning cash and all this, Yulia who is everything white and normal advertisement, everything legal, and Zelensky who doesn't pay for anything but we running after him because he's the only one who the readers are interested in. And that's these kind of things are decisive. Last point, Poroshenko's enter rating was up to 69%. And Poroshenko's strategy was to get to the second round which was very successful. He get into the second round but his enter rating was simply too high. So whoever was in the second round had a chance to win. And Zelensky was showing already in December and November in the polls that in the second round if he gets to the second round, he beats everyone including Yulia and the rest. And that's what I said. If he can get into the second round, he will win. And it was clear that he's gonna be the fresh face. That's what the people wanted. Fresh face, no political experience. So I think it was, how to say, not a rocket science but a lot of people particularly in the European Union where I'm from were campaigning simply for Poroshenko. We wanted to have the status quo. We did not understand how come that the Ukrainians refusing the Poroshenko, what Poroshenko represented. And what Poroshenko represented very quickly was mostly about very bad, how to say, very modest economic results. The Ukrainian economy returned to grow but people didn't see too much of it. At the same time what people witnessed and see was eight times increase of the gas price and the communal payment. Now name me a government which survives eight time communal payment increase in any democracy. And I don't think there is anything like that happen. At the same time Poroshenko adopted a very strong national building agent of the language, the army. But people care about these things at least certain level of people but not without the economy and not without a better economy and better living standards. And the key data is here, according to the IMF, Ukraine has become the poorest country of Europe now ahead of Moldova in 2019. So that's culminated with the elections and I simply think that what Poroshenko represented had literally no chance and that's what we have seen now. So I'm sort of restraining myself from the urge to say that everyone should watch the show on Netflix called Servant of the People giving him more media exposure and more free eyeballs but it is really a remarkable show and the production values are very high and the level of political touch and it's a remarkable show. So I apologize if I've given Mr. Zelensky more freedom in his pocket. But Matt let me turn to you as the sort of both child of the region who was born in Poland and who is a professional media figure in the West. What are we witnessing about our politics both in Europe and other parts of the world that creates this dynamic and creates so much of an opening. It's happening and it happened in Italy with the five-star movement. It happened in this country with the rise of Donald Trump. What is it that drives voters now to not really trust the traditional political establishment and to be willing to basically just throw caution to the wind? Is this, or is that not the norm that we saw in Macron? We've seen a lot of outsiders who just basically have come out of nowhere and totally turned political order upside down. I'm actually glad that you mentioned Macron because he was more of the same age, they're both 40, never ran for anything in his life, created a movement outside the party structures en marche, which is very similar to server than people. And it's now actually Zelensky is facing the same tactical choice that Macron had to take. How do you then fight parliamentary elections where you don't have a party, you don't really have a base, but you have a lot of momentum. In Macron's case, and this may drive Zelensky to think about maybe calling the early elections, within two months you had parliamentary elections in France and his party that didn't exist a year before won the full control of the parliament. I think, to your question, it's really, I think one that shows that Ukraine's always been kind of an avant-garde sort of place throughout the post Cold War era and we're seeing it now too. I mean, there is a long Ukrainian history of sort of distrust of central power, or there is Polish, Russian, and more recently, their own. And I think this has been kind of one constant. And in that way, Zelensky fits a pattern of, you know, Ukrainians are fairly irreverent, which is positive trait in a nation. But there are three things about him that I think are quite unique. And one, first member of a new generation take power in Ukraine, it's Brezhnev. You know, I think you had Brezhnev, then you had the, I wouldn't know, Skropetsky, whatever his name was, there's a guy in the 80s who was there forever, and... Yeah, Shcherbetsky, that's right, yeah. And then you had the same, more or less, generation. Poroshenko was a little bit at the tail end of it. He was kind of late, late baby boomers. But they were all from people who were born, essentially born and raised in the Soviet world. Zelensky was 15 years old when, no, he was younger. He was, math in the spots, sorry. He was a teen, let's say, maybe even younger. So he was not raised in the Soviet system. He was raised in the post-Soviet system, which was not, maybe sort of radically different, but there is, I mean, his formative years were already in a kind of free, free-wheeling dysfunctional, but a very different world than the kind of provincial Soviet Ukraine characterized by just mostly stasis. He's also the first one who doesn't come out of that sort of post-Soviet industrial economic elite, or political elite, but that's actually the same thing. So Kravchuk was more political. Kishmo was a Soviet nuclear missile factory boss from Niva Petrovsk. Now Zelensky is from that same area, but he was not a factory manager. Then you get to Yanukovych, obviously via Yushchenko, who was kind of seen as a modern man, but he was also pretty much a political figure head of the central bank all the way through Poroshenko, who by the way is both an oligarch, having to his credit, created a real business around chocolates, but Poroshenko had been in bed with every single political party in Ukraine. He'd been with Yanukovych, he'd been with Yushchenko, so he was not exactly a new, and so this is the other thing about Zelensky that's really quite striking for me. And the third thing is, yes, he's inexperienced, yes, he doesn't have any, and as you say, actually, that being inexperienced is a clear positive, because it means you're probably not corrupt, at least not corrupt in the same way that the whole elite has been corrupt. But his experienced and deeply experienced, and very, very good at what I would say is the most important thing in the politician in the modern world, at least in the modern free world, which is he's a great communicator. And that's something that Trump has shown to us, it's something Macron has shown, that because we now live in a world where the old mediators, my sector included, the media, we're the ones that are gonna filter for you who is serious, who is not, the sort of party bosses. Obama is another example. You sort of can go around them now because if you are a great communicator, and it opens up the sort of field to a mayor of Pete in this country, someone you never heard of six months ago is now the most talked about democratic candidate. I guess the last thing I would say is that having been on the Maidan for months, and one of those was sort of personally and professionally moving experiences, you're sort of reminded of two things. One, he's got the best civic society in the former Soviet space, and I would even argue in all of Europe in terms of actively engaged, sort of mobilized. He also had the worst, the worst political class I've ever seen in any country. I cannot imagine of a more mediocre, venal, short-sighted. It's awful, awful political class that includes everyone. So finally, this great civic society has got someone who at least you can project some sort of hope into being at least a break from the awfulness of their political class. Now, there are a lot of complications and caveats to all of this, but let me just sort of stop there. Okay, well, thanks Matt. So sorry, let me come back to that awful political class, which is a very vivid image. And it's tossed around a lot, but it's clear that state capture has been since 91 where powerful invested interests have dominated the state for their own benefit and kept in, I think Balazs writes about this in a piece that you're on Carnegie's website on Monday to keep the state weak and to allow themselves as much authority and ability to capture the rents of controlling various assets and various schemes. That structure has not grown up overnight. It has grown up over decades. And it seems unlikely to me, and this is just a fiction, that an outsider can walk in tomorrow and fully dismantle it, let alone understand what really the country out and how governance is conducted. Is that too negative an assessment of what Zelensky faces and are the forces so entrenched that France is hard enough for Macron, but he's not dealing with the same kind of level of state capture, obviously. I think it's very realistic assessments of what is going on. And the previous two residents of Ukraine it wasn't just about the capture of the state by different groups. Both of them were oligarchs, so oligarchs in the making. So Yanukovych was oligarch in the making. Poroshenko has been an oligarch. So it's just one oligarch rule. And what you see is that there would be a revolt on a certain level of other oligarchs against Yanukovych. This is an important part of Maidan and events of Maidan of 2014. The TV support for Mr. Zelensky from a number of oligarchs, from Kolomoysky to Kowoczkin and Firtoshitz, it's also a very strong indication that they were not happy is what was happening with Mr. Poroshenko. With Mr. Zelensky, what we have now, it's a well-documented fact that he is a business partner of one of those oligarchs, Mr. Kolomoysky. But it's also a change of pattern that for the first time, if the previous two presidents were oligarchs in their own right, this one is actually not an oligarch. And there is a reason to believe that the money that he made were made in the context of Ukraine, in conditions of Ukraine, in a very, very transparent and honest way. What that means is that most likely we have a return to the model that was under Yushchenko into a degree under President Kuchma in the 1990s, where the president becomes to be an arbiter, to be someone who is above these different oligarchy groups and tries to make their interests somehow work together for the benefit of the state. The question is whether someone who has no political experience really can manage that. But that's the biggest challenge that not only Mr. Zelensky but also Ukraine faces at this point. There is also a talk that while with a weak president and something that probably Mr. Zelensky will be a weak president, there is a chance for reformating of Ukrainian political institutions and turning Ukraine from presidential parliamentary election, a republic into parliamentary presidential, this parliament becoming really the center of power and authority. With the map that I showed you of elections of 2010, I don't think that was possible or that would be a good idea with the country so divided. But with this tendency of country to be united in terms of what the electorate likes and doesn't like. And Mr. Zelensky is not offering radically new vision either for relations with Russia or Europe. Maybe parliamentary election, parliamentary republic is something that has a chance in. So we've spent a lot of time talking about Ukraine as a country, as a political system and about Zelensky as a unique figure. We haven't talked at all about the war. And if you walked around Washington and you pulsed policy audiences or congressional audiences and you said what's really the core issue in Ukraine, people would center on that. We haven't really talked about it. In the last 24 to 48 hours, we've seen how raw this issue is in terms of both the Russian very provocative move day before yesterday to expedite processing of citizenship applications from residents of Donbass, which is a move that has been used in other parts of the former Soviet Union where these frozen conflict situations prevail. So in some ways, the Russian strategy in response to Zelensky is to turn up the heat. And part of what is so dangerous about situation is that Western policy is heavily reactive and the Russians retain a lot of levers and a lot of control to bring the temperature up or down. Can Zelensky have any impact on that dynamic? And I'm gonna turn to Balash first. How does he manage around a situation that's that difficult and where Ukraine is operating a pretty serious disadvantage militarily? And geopolitically, I would argue, given that the traditional partners of Ukraine since the war started, are distracted or have deprioritized Ukraine. You couldn't, if you asked Donald Trump or any member of his team to tick off the big things they're doing to support Ukraine, it's a thin list. And the political commitment that was so visible after 2014 from Western leaders is obvious. I'm just sort of curious, can you talk a little bit about Zelensky's strategy for managing the conflict and how delicate the situation looks? Yeah, first of all, I think it would be very important for Zelensky to distinguish, to show that he can distinguish himself with Poroshenko. And the war in Donbas has been a decisive issue in these elections as well because, and remember, like this looks as a great big victory, only one victory is bigger than this. It's Poroshenko's five years ago because he won 54% in the first round, right? Here Zelensky won 30% in the first round. And the reason why Poroshenko won is because he promised peace. And then before the elections, he said, oh, I apologize for that promise, but war is what we're gonna get because of Russia and there's nothing you can do about it. And Ukrainians ultimately, they tired of the war because they connect the war with the state of the economy, logically, why there is no investments. One of the reasons, it's the war, right? So, but the same time, Ukrainians are tired of the war, but they're not necessarily, there's no consensus over the compromise. What exactly the solution for Donbas is? And I have been talking to Zelensky's people as well about this and how to say, I don't think that there is a plan. I don't think that there is a strategy or a master plan. Zelensky has, and again, Zelensky is a master of disruption as well as improvisation, right? This is what he does as a political satirist and comedian. But at the same time, I think they will try to freeze the conflict. It's possible to do certain steps what could improve the situation and therefore distinguish himself from what has been happening. What he can do, stop the advance of the Ukrainian army in the Grazall. We don't really talk about it, but this is happening. And that's one of the reason why there are ceasefire violations. By the way, it was quite remarkable that there was no casualties of the election days, neither in the first round nor in the second round. Also quite remarkable that half of the army supported Zelensky. In the second round, it was only the difference was 400 votes for Poroshenko. In the second round, it was 1.5%. So when Zelensky's saying, stop shooting, he can change the attitude or the Ukrainian army. Second, improve crossing, start a media campaign or information campaign as they say to over the other side. Recognize that there are Ukrainians on the other side compared to the current rhetoric that this is everything Russian, right? So for example, build a bridge in Stanislavonsk, which the Ukrainian side is blocking with the notion that the Russian tanks will invade Ukraine via that bridge. At the same time, all the 10 pensioners died only this year. Not able to cross the bridge, there is a ruin and they have to go through the river and it's awful conditions. You can watch radio for your video reports about that. So if he can change the attitude over this, that can make steps to over freezing the conflict. Why the freezing of the conflict is important? Because it can reduce resources for the war. Ukraine spends $7.5 billion a year on defense. That's over 6% of the budget. That's not for the country with such a poverty and poor country can afford. So put the resources behind something else. And I think they will try to do that. Here of course, I'm finishing here, what Russia will do. And it's remarkable to see that the Kremlin immediately step up the pressure. They ban the coal and oil exports to Ukraine, which at this stage is not creating an energy crisis, but if they wanna continue with this in the winter, then we're gonna have a full-fledged energy crisis in Ukraine. And the second sign, the decree which allows passportization, which is an interesting, it's really raising the stakes, although yesterday the pension fund, the Russian pension fund issued a clarification that only those from Donbas can actually get pension who are moving to Russia. So those who are staying are not entitled to get Russian pension, which I think is an important, that clarification. So it's very interesting that currently Zelensky is from double pressure from the Kremlin and the Ukrainian nationalists at home. So Matt, let me ask you to step back as an observer of US politics and of European politics and talk a little bit about Ukraine fatigue. Because after the war started, after the revolution, I don't think there was a politician in Europe or the United States who was not really impressed by both how incredible the fight was of Ukrainians defending their country, of throwing out a political leader who had obviously done horrible things and killing people in the middle of downtown Kiev. And we're all shocked at what Russia had done and basically destroying the post-Cold War European security order. And then you flash forward just two years to the summer of 2016, and you have Donald Trump as a candidate in very flagrant and flamboyant ways saying, I think the people of Crimea would be happier as part of Russia. That's what I've been told. And we see in the Mueller report even last week that in private, he talks the same way, that he just doesn't care about Ukraine. And he really has his eye on some new relationship with Russia for whatever reason, it's still very inexplicable. But people are not as engaged and not as supportive of helping Ukraine manage through this horrible set of crises, which would have flattened most other countries in Europe, frankly. And it's amazing that Ukraine has consolidated its nationhood and stood in the face of this kind of aggression and basically fought the Russians to a standstill in a lot of ways. Can you talk a little bit about the political calculus of why the West is sort of not really fulfilling its side of the bargain? We're willing to write checks. We have a very ambitious IMF program that Ukraine falls in and out of compliance of. We have all sorts of technical and other assistance programs that have poured resources into Ukraine. But the political level commitment has dramatically diminished. Actually, it also plays off your last point. Are you in friends? But this is really all about Russia. It's a practical point in terms of it's not what Kiev does. It's not what even what happens in Donetsk itself. It is what the Kremlin thinks it is in its short-term interest to do there. So currently they may test this guy. They see him as a Russian speaker that maybe is something good, but also it's kind of dangerous because he can speak directly to Russians through Instagram. The same thing here in Ukraine maybe that message we have in Russia. You worry about that. The Kremlin is, I would always argue, it's priority one through five through 10 Bible. Then it's maybe about Russian self-interest, the economic, but it's about regime survival. Who's been in power for almost 20 years? That is remarkable. It's unprecedented. It can't last. How he goes is probably on his mind all the time. And I guess the West is also thinking it's really just about Russia. It's about our relationship with Russia. How can we manage Putin's aggression? That was the driving impetus behind the interest in Ukraine in 2014. But it was also about how do we not provoke anything that will lead to World War III? Obama administration, that's why I decided not to give the Ukrainians any arms because we will lose any. Russia has more to, more at stake in Ukraine than we ever will. Although there's a feeling that if Ukraine falls somehow, then the sort of post-Cold War order that we've helped create also falls with it because then it becomes part of some sort of Russian sphere. I mean, for me, it's interesting, having been in Brussels for four years and now being back in Washington for a couple of years. You don't hear very much about Ukraine. It's policy conversation. Despite that, and this is kind of this paradox of the Trump era. Trump probably articulates more sort of power for what an Italian prime minister thinks, what I would guess most of the German cabinet thinks, and what most of the European elites think, which is we really care more about Russia than about Ukraine. We gotta find ways to get along with Putin. Despite that, the US, this administration has armed Ukraine. And what's been remarkable is seeing the kind of the, where the Ukrainians were terrified of Trump when he came in are actually, I don't know if polling's been done on this but I would sort of bet that at least among the elite, Trump is a much higher standing than Obama did because Trump is seen as having come through for them in a way that Obama never did. On the European side, I think as long as you have Merkel in place, you are keeping together a fairly fragile consensus around the need to not take sanctions down. But there's certainly no support for doing anything more aggressive. Not really had any new rounds of sanctions fried in five years. So we're in this kind of unhappy status quo and we're neither side seemingly doesn't wanna provoke anything in either direction, either toward a solution which I don't see a solution which will make everyone happy, that's impossible, nor toward a real confrontation. I guess in the short term, this is great for Putin. Just like having the East, that little sliver there kind of festering, it's like you've got a healthy foot but there's a big blister on your little pinky. It's sort of, that's what I was sort of, and that's been the Russian strategy and the caucuses and Moldova for 25 years now. But so we're in this kind of no man's land really on sort of policy there. So I'm gonna ask Sergey one last question and then I'm gonna open things up and we've got microphones and we'll get folks directly involved in this conversation. As someone who grew up in Ukraine, sorry, there is a remarkable story of ability to create a separate national identity after 2014 to create volunteer units that went and fought and supplied themselves, that look at their leaders with a lot of suspicion, even on the front lines, puffing its pockets, but people are still willing to fight the country. We've seen the recent decision to create an autosophilist Ukrainian Orthodox church at the center of Parashenko's campaign which regardless of the fact that he lost is still, I think, a very powerful set of messages about army, language, and faith. We have a language law which came into, or has come in and forth, but was voted on just this week. Can you talk about how important and impactful across a very diverse country those themes are and what the resonance is and where you think they will matter in the future? I think this is an excellent question and I use it also to advertise the project that we have at Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute which is called MAPPA Digital Atlas of Ukraine and we are mapping the change in attitudes of Ukrainian populations from before the Maidan and the war and then later in 2015, 2017, and hopefully this year as well. And what we noticed there was that the issues that were central for the Parashenko's campaign and they were army, language, religion, they were really quite high on the societal agenda as a whole in 2015. Immediately after the war, people were scared, they didn't know what was going. Have a spike in the number of people who are self-reporting that they're using Ukrainian language at home and so on and so forth. And then after 2015, 2016, 2017, it actually goes down more or less to what it was before. Before those events. So it looks like Parashenko was laid by a couple of years with that message. And my guess is the reasons why he was laid because he couldn't really run on the platform on which he was running back in 2014. So the war and peace were there without much movement. And his presidency, the Ukrainian government under the pressure from IMF in particular, they raised the utility payments. At the end, you've got a situation where economy is growing and people are really poorer than they were. Every previous government knew that that was a political suicide and they didn't do that, they were right. So Parashenko did that. So he couldn't run really on the economy, he couldn't run on the peace agenda. So he went for identity politics. And he lost and lost big. It's also very interesting that in this elections, like in the elections of 2014, we don't really see the Ukrainian nationalism doing well at all, either on the president, for the president, it seems to me, the nationalist candidate got somewhere a little bit more than 1% of the vote. Back in 2015, the main nationalist party never got to the parliament. We don't know whether it will get there today. So we are seeing a situation in which there is a continuing formation of the civic nation in Ukraine. And this vote against Parashenko and for Zelensky with Ukrainian speakers and Russian speakers, actually there are some differences but no dramatic differences in terms of the support is one more indication of that. So the war is there creating a Ukrainian nation more unified than it was before. And again, we can see that from there. So in a short and medium term, Ukraine is really trapped, as Matthew was saying, what is happening in Donbass. But in the longer term, as a historian, it seems to me, I recognize this major shift and change that is there to stay. Did you want to follow up? I think on your point, nationalism, it seems so critical that in 2013, 2014, Russian propaganda, these are crazy anti-Semites nationalists who are in Maidan. It was a meme that was picked up by the Western media. And what do we have now? We have a Ukrainian Jew who speaks Russian, has now been elected by 75% of the country to be president. I think one of the sort of misunderstandings of Ukraine that I come across all the time, it is language is not an issue, except maybe in parts of Galicia in the West. It's a place you can speak Ukrainian and Russian freely. It is one of the most kind of countries that is at ease with diversity, both religious, cultural, and linguistic. And that's always been a disservice to Ukraine that I partly blame on my sort of industry. But I think it's a small but important point that's worth emphasizing. It also makes you feel bad for Russian propagandists. We're gonna have to find a new set of talking points, right? This is gonna be a rapid, rapid change. Okay, so we're gonna open things up. Microphones are gonna come around, a couple of ground rules. One, please identify yourself. And then whatever you say, please make it a question so that there's a question at the end and make it brief. And I'll start over here with John. Thank you. Jonathan Elkind's Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy. I'd like to ask the panelists to drill a little bit more deeply into the room or lack of room for economic policymaking. Because it seems to me there's a little bit of a dammed if you do, dammed if you don't quality to the picture you've given. On the one hand, he's a neophyte. He doesn't have a program. He's got lots of vested interests surrounding maybe even supporting him. On the other hand, if he doesn't create growth, he's a dead duck politically. So what do you expect? What do you see as the possibilities? Well, Ash, do you wanna do that? Yeah. Well, obviously I'm not an economist and Anders is here, so I'm even nervous. But... The first thing what he needs to do is something with the gas price. And meaning the communal payment. What he can do is rotor than plus. Which is, by the way, it's remarkable that how much Ukraine oligarchy has been changing, it's a purely legal scheme, right? It's approved by the regulator. And obviously, certain calculations I've seen, it brought $2 billion in the past two years to Ahmetov. It's a huge money. And that's all paid by Ukrainian people, right? So that's number one, what they can do. And Abramovich was the former minister of economy who is now one of Zelensky's advisor already yesterday, stated that they're gonna start with the anti-monopoly committee and as well as the energy regulator. Which I think it's key, like that's gonna be key nominations to do that. The second is the gas price. And the good news for Zelensky that the gas price is gonna go down simply because the crude, in the past six months, they're gonna buy cheaper gas. That's number one. And number two, there's also a solution which the Stockholm arbitration court already requires Ukraine to buy gas from Russia, which would reduce the gas price by what, 20% because it wouldn't be bought as a premium from Europe, right? But the question is whether he can do this politically at home. And I don't think so until the parliamentary elections, which I don't think it's gonna be early elections. I think it's gonna be in October. He can afford that. But these kind of issues are gonna be and steps are gonna be crucial. I also think two weeks ago, there was his chief of staff, as well as Olesh Dubinov was here, the former head of Gaz, who I think he's gonna play a role, although they denied. But these issues are gonna be crucial. Again, it's a question of what Russia will do, right? But I think here the Europeans can help tremendously with connecting the transit and as well as the gas price, I mean the direct gas purchases. Number three here is increasing, like as one of the things which I heard and I'm not an expert on that, is selling the households the gas which Ukraine extracts, right, Ukraine is producing gas. So it would be possible because the IMF calculates the gas price based on, again, the Russian gas which Ukraine purchasing, Ukraine pays the highest gas price in Europe because it adds to the premium. Now when it comes to overall economy and I think based on my talks with his team as well as what I'm hearing from them, I think the key issue is gonna be mobilized domestic resources, right? What he can do there. I already mentioned reducing the cost of the war, right? It's alone a few billion dollars, right? Second, customs, according to, which is one of the biggest rents he's seeking schemes. According to various estimations I have seen 80% of the customs are not going to the state budget. Imagine if he can, he's able to reduce that, like he's gonna get surplus. And the third one is what it is he's plan is the tax honesty which raises the question what he's gonna do with the oligarchs and I agree with him that he can be an arbiter. Most of the oligarchs already supporting him and have been supporting him, right? The question is what kind of relationship he can work out. The two oligarchs who did not support him is Ahmetov and Medvedchuk, right? Who remain, Ahmetov just get two Oble Energos, two regional Oble Energos from the regulator. It's like, thank you so much for your support. So, like mobilizing domestic resources, increase FDI if he's able to make an agreement, a tax agreement with the oligarchs that what is FDI in Ukraine? Mostly it's repatriated oligarch capital. Not all of them, but mostly. So who will invest into the country if not the oligarchs first, right? But that's gonna be one of the indicators what he's gonna do. I think his tax plan is sane. The question is whether he can implement or not. And my last point, if he able to mobilize these resources and get more money into the budget, tax, custom, war, and so on, then he can put these behind the key sector of reforms, healthcare, education, social systems. So if he can pull this together and it's a huge if, then I think we're gonna see certain changes and improvements. I'm gonna turn to Ambassador Heffern who was one of the people leading US policy this region until fairly recently. Hi, thanks. Thanks, Andy, very much. General question for everybody. You all touched on nationalism and building the bridge and all I know reintegration is in some sense a dirty word in terms of the dealing with the people in the East. But is it time, is there an opportunity here now for the new government to focus on the hearts and minds of the people in the East and not just the territory and the borders and the aggression and all that stuff's important and I'm not saying we change any of our policies on that, but is it time to fix the birth certificates and build the bridge and fix the pensions and fix and end the blockade and do some of that stuff to try to deal with the people part of the equation? Sir, can you talk about humanitarian impact of the conflict? Right. Well, my understanding is that there is unspoken consensus in Kiev that for the foreseeable future they don't want to integrate those regions back into Ukraine. Yes, at least that is my understanding. It is not set publicly, but there is no any plan, any particular vision coming from anybody. So Ukrainian political elite adjusted to the new political map knows how to play in this new field and the area will come with a lot of problems, economic problems, electoral problems. So I don't see any politician, any institution really seriously thinking about that. It was a while ago at the Yalta conference in Kiev that I asked a panel, quite distinguished speakers, about what are the plans for the integration, let's say, if tomorrow that really happens. So the only group that had a plan and knew what to say were the Crimean Tatars. For them, this is an issue, they're thinking about that, whether it's realistic or not, but again, I still have to see just one political force, one political leader, one think tank that would have a plan on how to deal with that. Vash, can you jump in? I mean, there's a side of me which has always heard exactly what Sergei has been talking about, which is they can't say it publicly because that will sacrifice their image in the West as a victim and it would suggest a willingness to cut a deal where Donbass doesn't come back to Ukraine, but is there also a side of this which is anger about the Yanukovych era and a sense that the people in Donbass are partially connected to what hijacked Ukraine during that horrible period? Well, I would love to disagree with Sergei here, but that's kind of, no, I would love to, but I will. I won't, because it's really like, we don't like to talk about it, but that's actually the case in Kiev. Now Zelensky may bring change, and actually he will bring change, exactly what you mentioned, the hearts and minds, launching an information campaign which doesn't blame them being Russian, but recognize that they are Ukrainians as well, and so build more reconciliation, so the step-by-step, and again, the most important thing would be freezing the conflict. Stop the shooting, as he says. You make sure that that would reduce the cost and would allow, again, greater improvement in Donbass. For me it was remarkable that the Kerch incident a few months ago, which the three military ships and the Russian reaction, the Europeans were the vast reacted, oh my God, Mariupol is isolated from the rest of Ukraine. Yeah, for about five years, so there has been no investment in today's, and Zelensky's promise is or potential is to rebalance Ukraine a little bit, exactly as the map shows, and bringing more investment into Southeast, particularly the Donbass and the East, and convince people with better economy, better, I mean, more investment, more money, and so on. It doesn't mean that the reintegration is possible. Why? Because it would mean a U-turn. And any U-turn in Ukrainian politics is dangerous. It creates potential for radicalization on the other side. Again, look at what is popping out there, Galicia. West-Energy Ukraine, right? They feel abandoned. Now they are the ones who feel abandoned, right? So anything must be step by step, and there is a huge question. Who is gonna pay for the reintegration of Donbass? Ukraine is poor, people feel they cannot afford reintegrate a totally devastated industry or heartland. I'm not talking about reconstruction of the houses. I'm talking about what kind of industry, what kind of jobs, and there are plans, right? Tourism, for example, one of the clear plans of people, tourism, you know, they wanna attract again, the old, you know, but for that, you need to solve it kind of where is the mend to the conflict of the current, you know. So who is gonna pay for it is a question. And I think here, obviously the role of the West and particularly Russia could come up, right? And I think this is exactly what Zelensky mean when he said in the first election night when there was a journalist question, so what are you gonna ask from Putin? He said, back the territories and compensation. And I don't think the Russians like that. It's not what they wanna spend money on too much. So maybe continuing of the current status quo, stalemating Donbass is cheaper than to pay for the reintegration. Anders Oslin from the Atlantic Council. Anders Oslin, the Atlantic Council. Thank you for excellent discussion and I like the positive undertone that you have about this very democratic change. But we have a big problem about transition and I would like to ask you how you see that the problems of transition can be mitigated. Matt mentioned how sensibilities in France that a new president can get a new parliament. Here, the parliamentary elections will be on the 27th of October, realistically, there will only be a new government until December. Until then, we will see the old institution, sabotaging for Zelensky. We have, for example, constitutional court judgment on law on illicit enrichment. The prosecutor general now taking the most honest people around Parashenko and prosecuting them, giving them the real crooks. And the government decision on NAFTA gas, several courts revoking the nationalization of the Privant Bank, the language law. I mean, literally every day now we are seeing a harmful decision by the old elite against Zelensky. What can Zelensky do realistically to stop this? Thank you. Okay, do you want to start? It's a hard question. It is a hard question. Well, all questions about future policies of Zelensky are hard questions because he never really laid out his vision. So we have to rely on his movie. And what his character does, he gets into the parliament and shoots people there. So I think that... You're not advocating that. No, but I think this is basically an indication of what we might expect, not literally, but discorsively, in Ukraine in the next few months. Probably the elections, early elections are not taking place. So the elections will be in the fall in October. What happens or doesn't happen in Ukraine will really depend on who will be in the parliament and what kind of a coalition will be there. Zelensky's task is actually to survive for his popularity to stay high until that period of time. And my guess is that he doesn't have much in terms of his options, but doing this, blaming the old elites. I am in your face. I am in your figure. I am here to do what you elected me to do. But please look at the parliament. So it's a kind of a political assassination of people rather than physical. Again, I... I... That is one possibility. I have difficulty predicting Ukrainian past, so speaking about the future, it's even more challenging. Matt. I haven't seen the show, but isn't he impeached in the third season? Including the jail. It's been jailed, okay. I'm not as advanced. I didn't get the third season yet. The only thing I would add is as good marks that Ukraine gets for democracy over the last 27, 28 years, it gets terrible marks on statecraft and being able to build institutions to make unfree function and problems in the East was there was an absence of a state. I mean, it's so easy for Russia to provoke a conflict there. I think that also creates a situation where you have... You have free speech and you have this kind of chaotic debate so the Ukrainian parliament is one of the most fun places if you want to watch a daily spectacle. I think that in the Korean parliament is probably a sort of compete for the most boxing that you're likely to see in a legislature. But what happens in this situation that it is kind of chaotic, and what you have is people who are in grain interests are able to defend them quite effectively in a situation of horse trading or kind of open warfare, open parliamentary warfare. Anders, you and I have been... You were there in the 90s when you were trying and it was hard enough in the 90s to make, to push Ukraine toward an economic transition on let's say a Polish model. I guess I would argue it's even harder now because a lot of these systems and interests are far more entrenched. People have more to lose from change and I think that's one of the great challenges. The second one politically is I kind of wonder about Yulia Timoshenko. If you remember she was the gas queen who then was the business woman, then was the Ukrainian nationalist and the dissident. Now she is a kind of political operator. She's been everything in this system. She came in third so this was a blow to her in the presidential election. I don't know Zolensky, but I do know her. She's always been the most talented political operator in Ukraine. I guess I wonder if she does somehow emerge as a prime minister or a kind of critical figure in that parliament. What role will she play and how is the president able to strike some sort of deal with the people? Because again it is a, the parliamentary elections suddenly become the real contest going forward. But I would not understate how difficult it is now to, the country needs kind of, we used to call it shock therapy in the early 90s to sort of make it a cleaner, properly run market economy backed by a strong state. And that's not easy and it's again, it's a lot harder now than it was. Could you, Balash, could you just talk a little bit about the role of civil society because the past four years, most of what happened was as a result of pressure from civil society that then created a pincer on the government where Western supporters of Ukraine and civil society would work together to box in the government and force changes. Are we likely to see that kind of tag team approach to civil society have the same clout going forward with Zelensky? Well, our civil society is divided and most of the NGOs, and I'm, you know, there's a distinguish between civil society and the NGOs, most of the NGOs are backing Poroshenko and have been backing Poroshenko, particularly the patriotic-minded NGOs, you know. And again, if you look at the map, where Poroshenko won is Galicia and downtown Kiev, one in downtown Kiev too, which kind of explaining, you know, and this is where the NGOs are, this is, you know, their bubble. So downtown Kiev bubble has been, you know, not allowing particularly the Europeans to see what's going on in the country unfortunately. But let's not forget that, you know, that the anti-corruption activists are, for example, backing Zelensky because, you know, like, let's remember, 50 activists has been attacked only last year and five of them died. We never had such a year in Ukraine. Despite of this, and a lot of this clearly connected to Poroshenko people in the region, as well as the SBU, you know, and so on and so on. So, you know, like it's kind of, you know, but the nation building and the patriotic agent, is powerful and he's still, you know, a lot of civil society people backing Poroshenko because of that. Now, a little bit because of, and, you know, like that's division is gonna stay and exactly as Anders said, the transition is gonna be marred or attempted to be marred as much as possible, which, you know, it's very good news for Zelensky. So we have time for one more question, I'm gonna go to Wayne. Yeah, just, yeah. So very good news for Zelensky because he's gonna win because of this, the parliamentary elections with the landslide. And if he wins because of this, because of the obstruction, then we're gonna have a situation that one person gonna control the presidency and the government as well. And then what is the main question? And then, you know, like, for example, I wanna see not that much the key nominations, but I wanna see who is gonna be in his party list. No, it's gonna be oligarch nominees, it's gonna be new people, but he's gonna do with the single mandate districts, right, which are usually these are oligarchs and mini-garchs and what is gonna be his tactic to where that's fresh people or did what Poroshenko did, which was co-option of these people. So these are the key questions for the next five, six months, but I think he's gonna be silent, reacting on videos just as Pashinyan did in Armenia and making sure that he's, you know, like essentially taking the benefit out of this resistance and obstruction. Wayne, very the American Foreign Policy Council. Very good panel and I'd like to end by soliciting comments from the panel about what the people who supported Zelensky and in this new government realistically are expecting or unrealistically expecting from the United States because, as been noted, I mean, Washington along with most European governments was quite comfortable for Poroshenko, expected him to be reelected. What Washington did not want was Julia Tomoshenko. They got that, but they were, what they did get has surprised them and they're still evaluating that. As Andrew noted, we have a president who manifestly couldn't care less about Ukraine. We have a Congress who manifestly cares about Ukraine mostly in an anti-Russian sense and has adopted sanctions that are effectively permanent and would be interestingly challenged if they could actually do some kind of a deal on the Donbas, which I think is probably quite optimistic. But my question is, in an American context, that is so split on the two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue and is going into, obviously, a very intense political environment, what realistically do people there want? I was one of a small group that had dinner with Zelensky's chief of staff when he was in Washington. He's had all the right things. He made a very good impression, but I had very little sense of an understanding of the dynamics of this city. I think, in fact, he was more in a listening mode than a speaking mode, but what do you think people who are going to be on Zelensky's team really think Washington should, could, or will, deliver on behalf not of an anti-Russian agenda, but a pro-Ukrainian agenda? Why don't we start with Matt? I can maybe speak more to the Washington side of this a little bit, and so if one of you does know Zelensky's team and can maybe speak to sort of that. As I mentioned, actually, Yulia Kamushenko did corner Trump, I think, at a national prayer breakfast, and in five minutes, I think she did charm him into letting the, it's into sort of getting the U.S. to support arms deliveries to Ukraine, which was not, maybe practically was not a big step, but certainly symbolically, it was very important to reassure people there that America does support Ukraine and Trump isn't about to sell them out. I mean, within this administration, nothing is quite what it seems, and you don't quite know what is really going on, and you can kind of look at certain statements by the president and read into something, and then you look at the NSC and you have Fiona Hill, who's still the, I guess the senior director there for that part of the world, and certainly has no pushover on Russia. John Bolton is also not someone who's known as a dove, and a, who would have been doing sort of Auspolitik in the 1970s, so I think there is a kind of interesting dynamic within the administration that we don't fully understand, but I don't sense that there is certainly a kind of a, any kind of chorus that says, oh no, we should really back off on this and strike deals. If anything, the American-Russian relationship has only gotten worse since the Helsinki summit last summer. The Mueller report is not helping, and you don't hear Trump saying same things. That said, there isn't really an American-Ukrainian strategy. I think Kurt Volcker seems to be doing a very good job of talking, he's the special representative for Ukraine, of engaging with the Ukrainians, of not talking too much to the Russians, but is there, if they ever would come to the table, and trying to keep the Europeans on side? And I think that is presumably limiting any kind of rollback or damage, but what I'm not seeing is any sort of strategy going forward from here. Bolish, can you talk a little bit about what you've been picking up this week, you've been in Washington talking to folks in the administration? Yeah, well, I did think watching, there was a difference between how the Europeans, the EU, as well as the US, treated the elections. And my understanding was that the US simply seen that Zelensky's gonna win early on. So it was moving to emphasizing democracy, making sure I think that the repeated calls from the EU as well, but from the Western overall, do not do anything which would harm Ukrainian democracy, right? Do not manipulate the elections and all this, which I think was very important, was a key signal for the Poroshenko administration. But it's also was showing that the US is ready to work with whoever is gonna win. And I think the US seen that Zelensky has a chance and potential. The EU did not. The EU did campaign for Poroshenko until the last moment and they woke up in downtown Kiev and very shocked. What happened in the country, right? So what is the expectations from the Zelensky team? I don't think that there is any. And I think I agree with that they are here for listening. They're here to get the sense what would be possible to do. And I don't gathered any strategic kind of thoughts here in DC what to do with the current Ukraine. What exactly this means? But I think in there is a policy change in Ukraine, particularly vis-a-vis Donbas. It has a potential to bring changes into Western-Russia relationship as well. It's gonna be extremely difficult. It's gonna be very slow, simply because not even Russia is so far, as we discussed, kind of interested in to have that. But if there is a change in Ukraine, a meaningful one, particularly when it comes to Donbas, I think that's gonna be a very interesting thing to watch as well as support. Now, I think it's in the US and the EU interest to support Zelensky if his intention is to return to the Maidan ideals, state reform, all this. And let's not forget that we have been having an impression that we're showing up Ukraine, but we're not really. Showing up is not when a country, Ukraine has to pay back $36 billion in the next three years to Western creditors. That's huge, right? So I think it would be very necessary to support exactly those domestic research mobilization and making sure the anti-corruption fight and all this that Zelensky succeeds, because I think his intentions are right, but his lack of experience is gonna be a challenge. So if you had a formula that you could sit down and present what the three or four must-dos are during this whole honeymoon period, what would they be? What does Ukraine need the most from this administration? I don't have a formula. My understanding is when it comes to the Zelensky electoral rhetoric to a degree that it existed at all, it was about peace. And the idea is that Poroshenko and his administration was not able to deliver on that promise. They were there to help with that. And the criticism was that the US was not allegedly, that Poroshenko didn't do enough to involve and engage the United States. So that remains to be probably the biggest issue in terms of the electoral expectations for the parliamentary elections, but also in terms of the expectations within the Zelensky team. They want to be closer probably with the US than Poroshenko used to be. I don't know whether this is possible at all or not. And I think that the best strategy that can be adopted in that particular situation is to stay involved, to stay engaged with Ukraine. Be sure that the democracy survives the period between the presidential elections and parliamentary elections. And then see who comes to power with what agenda. So I think we are now in the period of inter-regnum in Ukraine and introduce some specific long-term policies during the period of inter-regnum apart from very broad and general ones probably would be premature. Well, very sensible sober advice. Everyone should go and buy lots of copies of Sergei's book about Chernobyl accident, which are for sale right here. Please join me in thanking Professor Sergei, Polki of Harvard, Matt Kaminsky of Politico, and Bajarbak of Carnegie. Thank you all very much. I'm so glad to meet you here now. I'd like to ask you about that. Okay, well, thanks so much. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you very much. So who are you? You're still in this position. And I do see what to do. Couple of minutes ago. Yeah, so. Oh, you're so young. Yeah, so I'm really, yeah. It's nice to meet you. Hello, my name is George. You are so great. Well, hi, nice to meet you guys. Hi. I'm George. Thank you. How are you? Yeah, I used to work at VOA for twenty-six years. What's your name? It was, of course, yeah. So I was curious. What are you guys doing? We're interviewing a good interviewer. What are you going to do? I don't know. I don't know. I think you should have a meeting. I'm fine. I have a simple question. What are your best to do? Thank you. OK. I just think I have all your budget. Yeah.