2026 Securing Ukraine's Future Symposium

FROMAN: Good morning, everyone. Thanks for coming. Welcome to our Securing Ukraine’s Future Symposium. As we enter the fifth year of the war in Ukraine the stakes have never been higher. At the Munich Security Conference earlier this month Western intelligence and military officials revealed the latest estimate of Russian casualties, 65,000 over the course of December and January. That’s about 1,000 casualties a day. But the Russians are not winning this war, which has lasted longer than the Great Patriotic War, and resulted only in Russian control of an incremental 12 percent of Ukraine’s territory since the full-scale invasion.

The question, though, that is still very much open is how do we secure a Ukraine that is prosperous, independent, and embedded in the West? More than a year ago the Council launched this initiative, led by senior fellow Paul Stares, to take on three major questions: How to achieve peace and secure a just and durable end to the war; how to drive Ukraine’s economic reconstruction and recovery, spur growth, and rebuild critical infrastructure; and how to strengthen Europe’s long-term security framework. And those priorities are now reflected in a series of new policy briefs published by Paul, and Liana Fix, Ben Harris, Sam Vigersky, Heidi Crebo-Rediker, and Tom Graham examining everything from how Europe can manage Russian aggression with less U.S. support to harnessing Ukraine’s defense industrial base as an engine for Europe’s own economic and security renewal. I encourage you all to read these excellent papers.

Today’s sessions will take up these themes with three panels: “Europe’s Approach to the War in Ukraine;” “A Conversation with Ukrainian Ambassador Olga Stefanishyna;” and “The U.S. Vision for Ukraine” featuring Senators Shaheen and Tillis, a bipartisan representation from the Congress. All of this work, the initiative, the policy briefs, today’s programming, is part of the Wachenheim Center for Peace and Security. And we’re deeply grateful to Susan and Edgar Wachenheim for their generous support of the Council and its work. As a reminder, the symposium is on the record.

And now it’s my privilege to introduce the first panel. Ambassador Laurent Bili of France, Ambassador Kristjan Prikk of Estonia, coming in virtually, Ambassador Jesper Møller Sørensen of Denmark, Mr. Martin Thümmel of Germany, and, of course, Greg Myre, national security correspondent for NPR, who will moderate this conversation. Thank you all for being here. (Applause.)

MYRE: Thank you, Mike. Very much appreciated. Welcome to the first session of what’s going to be an excellent day of discussion on Europe’s approach to the war in Ukraine. We have this outstanding diplomatic panel here who have already been introduced, so we will jump right in.

I want to take this opportunity—here we are, a day after the fourth anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion. And how much has changed. And I’m thinking just briefly my own experience. I was asked to go to Ukraine and I believe the conventional wisdom, that this war was going to last for a couple of days and it would be hard to get in, hard to get out. And I said, why don’t I go to Russia? So I applied for a visa to Russia. Four years and one day later, I’m still waiting for that visa. And I’ve been to Ukraine many times in between. But I would like to hear from you on that day or in that period, where were you? What were you thinking? And did any of you miscalculate as badly as I did? Ambassador Prikk, since you’re joining us virtually and you come from a country right on Russia’s border, tell us, where were you four years ago? What was going through your head?

PRIKK: Thank you. Thank you, Greg. Thank you very much for including me in this panel. I do have to apologize, though, since I’m—due to the work trip in the west of USA, so I cannot join you personally, but—or, in person. But when the war started I was in Washington. I was the ambassador to Washington since May 2021. And, of course, I followed pretty much in real time, particularly using—watching every TV channel that I could, but also following every Twitter feed that made sense, to understand what was—what was really going on. And I was glad to see that even in the very first hours of the full-scale invasion there were few, albeit weak, but still a few signals or a few signs that actually the Russian plan, as massive as it was, was not really working out the way they thought it would. And there were already a few signs that Ukrainians may have had, let’s say, better fighting spirit, for sure, but also better preparedness for the assault, and many of even us thought. Thank you.

MYRE: Yes. Ambassador Bili, I know the Americans were having trouble convincing everybody that the invasion was real. What were you—what were you thinking at the time?

BILI: So I was in in Beijing. And so just on the eve we were still discussing about the possibilities, the probability. And within the diplomatic communities, Western diplomatic communities, the idea will be that it will be limited. Maybe an offensive in Donetsk or something. And so we have to face the harsh reality after. And we were under, I think, a huge shock. Very worried. Trying to convince the Chinese that they should push for a ceasefire to stop things, to protect Ukraine.

On a personal note, what I also remember is that being in Beijing, my family, being in France, once I had my—it is not that often that one of my son called me. And I realized that for the first time in his life he was thinking that war was back in Europe. And that it could be some more dragged into it. And he was—at once he was interested about his father’s experience.

MYRE: (Laughs.) Ambassador Sørensen.

Sørensen: Thank you very much. Well, for me, it was—what happened was actually that one month before the invasion took place our deputy foreign minister called me into a meeting saying that he had decided to resign with very short notice. So he said that the minister had decided that I should fulfill that position until there was a replacement. That took five months. So that, I would say, became the wildest rollercoaster in my life, professional life, at least until I met Greenland here in Washington, D.C. (Laughter.)

MYRE: We’ll get to that later.

Sørensen: We took that intelligence extremely serious in Copenhagen at the time. I think that’s also why we actually were ready with some very immediate decisions. It didn’t take long for us to—both to hand over, essentially, all the artillery to the Ukrainians that we had on our shelves. We also decided to, I think, double our defense spending in a couple of weeks. We asked for a referendum on the security and foreign policy opt-out that we had to the European Union, with the belief that, you know, it didn’t make sense anymore to stand outside of that pillar of defense in Europe. So I would say that it became a very foundational first couple of months. And in that morning itself I was awakened at 5:00. We went into meetings all day. And that seemed to me, as I recall, just to continue for days, weeks, and months.

MYRE: Martin, were you expecting us to be in this place four years after that day?

Thümmel: Certainly not. I was in Berlin at the time. Mentally, I was almost in Beijing because I was the Asia director, had just started in the foreign office at the time. So it’s hard to kind of recall what I thought that very morning moment when I, very early in the morning, heard the radio news. I immediately thought, well, our world is going to change. This is a really big, historical moment. And, of course, not a good one. I was actually feeling quite good until that news, because I think Ambassador Bili can an understand that, because the Winter Olympics in Beijing had just ended. My government was just two months in office. It was our first big sort of test how to weather that, with very serious human rights concerns in China. So I thought also, what will this mean in our relationship to China?

And, of course, the Russian joint statement, Chinese joint statement, with the famous phrase, “friendship without upper limits, no taboos and forbidden areas in our cooperation,” came back to mind. We had a China strategy two years later which was a much more hardnosed one than the one we had before. And I think without the Russian invasion we would not have had that one. That’s another of the kind of maybe collateral effects, maybe we get to that later. Many collateral effects that Mr. Putin, with his crazy and illegal and brutal attack on Ukraine, has caused.

MYRE: Could we talk a little bit about the way that the narrative has changed in your specific countries? You know, I’m just thinking here in the U.S. the war was certainly top of mind four years ago. Last night, when the president gave his State of the Union address—couple of you were there, heard it in person—it was barely mentioned. There was a U.N. General Assembly resolution yesterday. The U.S. abstained from that resolution. I’ve been going to Ukraine regularly. Very quickly, to summarize there, the attitude seems to be: We’re exhausted. It gets harder every year. But we’re going to keep fighting. And we’re not—we don’t want to settle for an unjust peace. So every country or place has its own slightly different narrative. And I’d like to talk about how that has changed. Ambassador Prikk, maybe you could start us off.

PRIKK: Yes. I am—OK, I hope you hear OK—can hear me now. So I think for us, at the very first weeks of the invasion, I think us and many others pretty much just scrambled just to help Ukraine to survive that first wave of attacks and atrocities. But very soon I would say after Russians withdrew from the vicinity of Kyiv but regrouped to Donbas in end of March and throughout April 2022, it became very clear that, at the first hand, the attempt to—Russian attempt to quickly break Ukrainians clearly failed. Secondly, that Russians won’t simply abort their plans. And hence, thirdly, it was also very clear that it was going to be a long war. And so even before that, it was becoming very clear that the outcome of this war would have a way wider impact than is related to Ukraine. We could just look at the Russian ultimatum to NATO and the U.S. in December 2021, or even go back to Putin’s speech in Munich in 2007.

So very early on in this war we focused quite quickly on the longer-term picture. And I think we were also among the very first who took long-term commitments to support Ukraine with military aid, but also with civilian reconstruction aid. So and it has pretty much—the kind of commitment and the focus on this war has pretty much stayed very similar in Estonia, because, after all, we understand very clearly that this—neither the Russian objectives nor the eventual repercussions of this war are only limited to Ukraine. They are not only limited to even the—let’s say, NATO’s eastern flank or Europe, but these impacts will be felt globally. And therefore, we absolutely have stayed the course, have seen the need to, on the one hand, support Ukraine as strongly as we can, but at the same time deny Russians the resources and ability to further escalate this war and draw it out forever, as core elements of our collective strategy. Thank you.

MYRE: Ambassador Bili, what’s the conversation like in France? Not just at the official level, but among ordinary French?

BILI: I’d like to come back to that because I think from the very beginning we understood that it was the end of an era. And the fact that war was back in Europe was a defining moment. But being in China, it was also interesting to see that we had to convince others far away, including our people—our friends from South America, from Africa, that it was something of a different scale. And from the very beginning we have seen that Russia was trying to make things complex, what they called the root cause of the conflict, and these kind of things. And we have to push back again and again on things that, OK, it’s complex, but it’s also very simple. There is an aggressor and there is a victim. And the right thing to do is to support Ukraine. And still today, we have 60 percent of the French people thinking that way.

MYRE: Sixty percent? Ambassador Sørensen, a slight twist to that question. The war has in many ways been stalemated, with relatively little movement on the battleground. Are you seeing, either at the official level or among ordinary Danes, an expectation that the war is going to be settled any time soon? Either through diplomatic means or that there will be some breakthrough by one side or the other on the battlefield?

SØRENSEN: Well, we certainly hope so. We very much support the diplomatic discussions. But hope is not a strategy. And I think in the Danish political system there’s not a lot of real assessment that Putin is up for a deal any time soon. We believe, coming back to what has also been said, that this is a generational question for Europe, for us.

I would also just like—because I can repeat what my colleagues have said—but I also think that it has given legitimacy to decisions which would otherwise have not been possible also in domestic politics. We are essentially now, I think, already at 5 percent of GDP in—depending on how you calculate the last 1.5 percent—that NATO has come up with. And, you know, we were at 1.3 percent just three years back. So a major part of that boost of giving political legitimacy, of course, to raising those defense spending, it’s also because of what has happened in our own neighborhood. And also because we realize that we’re up for something which is for the long haul.

Even if there is a temporary ceasefire in in Ukraine, I’m not—you know, I don’t think that the general sense in in Denmark, in the political system, in public opinion, is that means it’s then over. We think that—our assessment is that Putin has what is essentially almost imperialistic ambitions. So we are—we are looking into a challenge which is long term and that we will have to tackle. Certainly together with our European friends, and hopefully together with our American friends as well.

MYRE: Mmm hmm. Martin, I want to talk about something that took place in Germany in December at the Helmut Schmidt University of the German Armed Forces. There was a wargame simulating a Russian incursion into Lithuania. And it was—it involved former senior German and NATO officials. Russia used the pretext of a humanitarian crisis in Kaliningrad, that little Russian enclave separated from the rest of Russia. As the wargame played out, the U.S. didn’t invoke Article Five. The Germans were a little indecisive. Can you talk about that, and what that said? I know it stirred quite a bit of debate about how well Europe is prepared for potential threats from Russia.

THÜMMEL: Yeah. I think if you talk about public debate and political debate in Germany, I think one change since the invasion, full invasion, has been fundamental. And that is our threat perception. There are always outliers, usually extreme left, extreme right. But I think the realization that Russia is a direct military, security threat to Germany has really sunk in. And I think in the coming years we will see this sinking in even further. Just one example, I’m not going to cite the defense expenditure things. That’s very well published. The president mentioned it his State of Union Address yesterday. We’re going to increase our armed forces by 40 percent, by 100,000 people within the next few years. This will have a fundamental psychological effect. If you look at our armed forces, our entire political establishment, decision makers, there’s been a fundamental change in mindset.

Within the wider population, it will take a couple of years, but I’m totally convinced—because, unfortunately, Russia will give us more and more examples that prove that our threat perception is correct—this will change also. We’ve had six decades of—for obvious historical reasons—of pacifist kind of education in Germany and a pacifist mindset. But you see the reputation of our security establishment, of the armed forces, of the police anyway is improving. It’s going up. So we are on the right trajectory.

About wargames and sort of scenario assessments, I understand that you always have to also take into account low probability/high risk scenarios. We all know that. And that’s maybe all I have to say about that particular, you know, event you mentioned. But I’m absolutely confident. On the other hand, we’re a country of free speech. Of course, after four years of war—First World War lasted four years, I looked it up, three months, fourteen days. We might have a war here that’s longer than the First World War. There’s certain parallels. As we know it’s been analyzed, war of attrition and so on.

It’s absolutely understandable and it is right to discuss how can this war be ended. And of course, there’s an open debate on that in all our countries, how that can be achieved. But I think that—and partly informed by—partly also influenced by Russian disinformation campaigns, but also not just that. I think it’s a legitimate debate. We take up that debate. But I think we’re making a very good case that we support Ukraine as long as it takes and with whatever it needs.

MYRE: So I’d like to have all of you help explain to us here in the U.S., we’ve seen an administration that says we’re not going to aid Ukraine anymore. They have stopped. And Europe has certainly stepped up. It’s providing more aid. And yet, we also saw on Monday a large loan that was supposed to win approval was blocked by—basically, by Hungary. Further sanctions were blocked again. So, you know, can you give us a sense? There seems to be a general European stepping up, but there’s still these blockages or barriers. Help us understand how this is going. To what extent it’s a limited number of players, to what extent the continent is still debating this? Ambassador Prikk, please start us off.

PRIKK: I think we have to understand that we are currently going through an experiment that that has no former precedent in the history of EU. And there are hiccups on the way. And there are tough moments. I, for sure, individually and my government too, we are very disappointed that the Hungarian government decided to escalate their—some of their, you know, domestic quarrels and some of the—some of the issues that they may have had with Kyiv to the level where actually the very essential loan, and as well as the sanctions, have been blocked for now. But I’m sure they’ll come around. We’ll find a way to go on with that. We absolutely do believe that, just as Russians are not only fighting the Ukrainian military on the frontlines, but they are actively taking measures to try to break the resilience of Ukrainian people and to deliver them the message that there is no hope out there, that other countries won’t support them as much as they would need to.

We have to prove them wrong. And thus far, there have been many road bumps throughout these four years, but eventually I’m absolutely confident that Ukraine is currently on a—let’s say, a better ground or stronger ground than they were exactly four years ago. And Europe in general, in terms of its cohesiveness, in terms of its understanding of the nature and the durability of the problem, is also in a better place. So we’ll find a way. And we’ll continue to support Ukraine.

MYRE: Ambassador Bili.

BILI: Well, I think so far we have shown that each time that there were another in the way, we managed to turn it on. And I think we will do the same in that case. I think it’s fair for the Europeans to take a big part of the support to Ukraine. At the same time, I think that we have also to make the point that what is going on in Ukraine is not only in Europe, but it’s observed—again, coming back from China, I’m quite sure that in Beijing they will draw conclusions of what they will observe on in Europe. And I think it’s a lesson for all of us.

MYRE: I’ll note that in just a few moments we’re going to take some questions, both here in the room and for those who are joining us virtually. So please get your questions ready. But in the final minutes here I’d like to ask Ambassador Sørensen, talk to us about security guarantees. Because that certainly seems to be, if we are going to reach a resolution in this war, one of the key questions. As specifically as you can, and, again, it doesn’t exist right now, but what is the nature of the discussion? And what would you consider to be a legitimate security guarantee?

SØRENSEN: Well, yeah. First of all, if we ever get into a situation where the security guarantees is, you know, with that—it requires a ceasefire before we can actually commit to what we’re doing within coalition of the willing and so on, the Danish government has already committed upfront that we are ready to partake in that. We have actually also taken the further step of going to parliament in advance and get the green light, without being able to tell parliament what it is that they are greenlighting in terms of capabilities and footprints. But just to show our friends and allies that that we are ready to be part of such an endeavor.

MYRE: And just to be clear, you’re talking about sending—it would be Danish—and I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, I understand, ceasefire, big negotiation.

SØRENSEN: But I cannot go ahead—

MYRE: But that’s the kind of idea you’re talking about?

SØRENSEN: Yes. Yes. So but all of this is, of course, being coordinated within, you know, the coalition of the willing, security guarantees.

But I would like to make a further point here, which is everything we are doing is, of course, essential. It’s very important. But we also have to recognize what has happened in Ukraine. Because the long-term future defense of Ukraine will start with what the Ukrainians are capable of themselves. And I think it’s just incredibly impressive, both how they have managed to push back on a much larger army, the Russians. You know, when you look at the casualty difference today, it’s becoming more and more astounding month by month. The Russians are taking significantly more casualties than the Ukrainians are.

And I think that one of—some of the things that we have done here is actually to be able to home-grow a defense industrial capacity in Ukraine itself. We have introduced a Danish model. We are now on version 2.0 of that, meaning that we’re also creating safe havens in our countries to give manufacturing—Ukrainian manufacturing a safe haven among us. I think it’s those kind of creative ideas that we also need to bring into the fold. And then comes, if there is a ceasefire, security guarantees, and all of that, coalition of the willing, how we will do that together with our partners. But I think I just really want to make the point of the Ukrainians themselves in this defense. They are the primary long-term future defense when it comes to Russia.

MYRE: Yeah. And, Martin, I’d like to go to you to pick up on that. On my own trip I see all these—everything from the little garage drone makers to much bigger efforts. Germany, I know, is expanding its own defense capacity in terms of manufacturing. And I believe there’s some cooperation with the Ukrainians as well. Could you talk a little bit about that in terms of the specifics of what we’re seeing now and what we may see in the years to come?

THÜMMEL: Yeah. On that one, just on the first question—the question you asked, I fully share what the Estonian ambassador said. Putin achieved a couple of things with his attack. He united Europe. He enlarged NATO. He changed—contributed towards changing our China policy. And there are all kinds of other effects that maybe was not part of the calculus right at the beginning.

Cooperation on defense—also, I have a huge list of what we delivered to Ukraine. I have a very impressive list of also what kind of cooperation projects we have with Ukraine. We have, you name it, drone production coming online, not just with us but also in Germany.

MYRE: But that’s direct cooperation with—

THÜMMEL: Drone production cooperation.

MYRE: Explain the level of cooperation.

THÜMMEL: It’s we’re setting up—we have set up production in Germany. We have huge financial contributions towards acquisition of long-range drones by Ukraine. We have laser AI-assisted systems. By the way, we filled in a lot of the gaps. At the beginning of the war there was this shortage of until artillery munitions and so on. And actually, this was a huge cooperative European effort. The Czechs did a great job on that. We filled a lot of the gaps. And that’s why the conventional, sort of, advance of the Russians has been halted. And now they are resorting to terror—55,000 drone attacks last year as the Ukrainian friends tell us, to terrorizing the population. I wonder, have they studied military history? Maybe, if they have they’ve drawn the wrong conclusions.

But anyhow, defense cooperation production in Germany, in Ukraine is massive. It’s not just drones. It’s air defense. It’s all kinds of things. And it’s helping us as well to modernize our response and fill in gaps. And as Mr. Froman said at the beginning, this is one of the really strong points where I think I also see a lot of potential for economic recovery. And it’s truly a win-win, absolutely.

MYRE: Yeah. It’s absolutely visible. I can vouch for that. You know, Ukraine was a country that wasn’t making drones four years ago. They’re going to make 5 million or more in Ukraine now and then have these partnerships as well. And every time I’m there you see there’s a military defense industry conference going on. I think we will leave it for there, this part of the discussion. And we will open it up to questions now, both here in the room and those joining virtually. Looks like we’ve got some hands up. Right here. Yes, sir.

Q: Good morning. Christopher Smart from the Arbroath Group.

I just wondered if you could give us some sense of how quickly Ukraine can expect to join the European Union, and what sorts of obstacles there will be in that process.

MYRE: Who wants to jump in on that one?

BILI: Well, I think there is no clear answer yet. But there is a debate about the possibility of a very quick membership. But at the same time, if it’s a quick decision it should be a progressive integration. But I think the debate is still open.

MYRE: Yes.

Q: Thank you very much for this discussion. James Siebens. I’m with the Stimson Center.

I wanted to ask what the coalition of the willing, or what NATO is doing to improve deterrence of Russia’s air incursions into NATO airspace. What kind of increased cooperation and deployments might be involved?

BILI: Well, I suspect it’s a bit specific, but in the coalition of the willing there is an air component. And so, again, that coalition is the willing is supposed to be after the ceasefire and to two deter incursion. So there is three components on sea, air, and land. And, of course, over part of it there is also a lot of cooperation going on. And usually air defense is a NATO, anyway, competency. So there is all of an integrated system of surveillance.

MYRE: It looks like we have a virtual question.

OPERATOR: We’ll take our next question from Peter Galbraith.

Q: Thank you.

My question is to Ambassador Sørensen, to comment on the connection between Greenland and Ukraine. Specifically, do you think the Trump administration’s willingness to cede Ukrainian territory to Russia is related to its belief that it can seize Danish territory? And conversely, do you think the thought of United States taking Greenland, seizing it or acquiring it, encourages Putin in his belief that he can annex Ukrainian territory?

SØRENSEN: Well, let me limit my Greenland comment on this stage today by referring to the fact that we now have a very constructive dialogue with our American friends to find the right solutions that we all agree. And I think, as everybody knows, the Kingdom of Denmark has been exceedingly open to provide whatever asks the United States has. I think we share the threat assessment about who our adversaries are. And that we can manage together. And I actually would think—I would also like to say that the decision here in Washington to open up for NATO’s role in Arctic security, in general is a very important one and one that we have been asking for, for quite some time.

So the fact that that came out of this moment we had in January, I actually think was a very prudent and constructive decision. Because, of course, it should not only be the United States that has to confront our adversaries in the north, in the high north. We do that as an alliance. We have the same adversaries. What I do think it is, that we have spent too much time and resources on one specific issue, where we all had to concentrate and focus on what is the real threat, which is Russia’s invasion in Ukraine. So I’m happy that we are now back on—that that is the real challenge that we have in the near future.

MYRE: Yes, here.

Q: Hi. Jim Slattery.

I’m just curious, what is going on in Europe to directly communicate with the Russian people in an effort to really undermine the people’s support for Putin’s policies? Especially in areas like St. Petersburg and Moscow, is there anything being done to undermine Putin’s support at home?

BILI: Well, I think in this kind of society we have to acknowledge that it’s very difficult to act. And that our embassies are not having exactly the kind of access and usual tools. So I have to confess, I think that our effort can be only modest in a totalitarian state where we have seen recently also what happened to Mr. Navalny. So you—it’s a huge risk for anyone connecting with us these days.

MYRE: I’d like to bring Ambassador Prikk in on this. I know that there were many—there were Russians who went to Estonia. I know media—some media organizations that were in Russia have moved there. What are you seeing in Estonia that addresses this question, in terms of countering the Russian narrative in Estonia, by either Russians who’ve come there or Estonians?

PRIKK: Thank you. Yes, there are people, there are there are organizations, there are efforts to reach the wider Russian audience with the information from abroad, including from Estonia, and Latvia, and Lithuania. But, just as Ambassador Bili mentioned, our ability to reach the Russian audience, as much as I would like to say it otherwise, I think is relatively limited. At least, the ability to reach them directly in a way that would—that would bring a major societal change. However, the Russian people may have been turned numb, in a way. And their political activity or their willingness to speak up on a(n) average day may be very different than what we experience in the West. But they have—even if numb, they have not been turned into dumbs. So the effect of economic struggles, the effect of thousands of soldiers being killed on the frontlines for no effect, is something that slowly but surely definitely has its effect on the Russian society too, even though very limited.

MYRE: Just very brief—just a very—yes, take your point. Just a very brief follow up, though. If a Russian news organization moved to Estonia after the beginning of the war and were putting their material on the internet, could Russians access that if they wanted to? Is it just it hasn’t hit a large critical mass but it was available? I’ve seen some things recently where the Russians are internally cracking down on Telegram, which is very, very popular. But were Russians able to get information from Estonia or other countries in Europe if they wanted it?

PRIKK: Initially, mostly yes. But Russia has been cracking down on the information space for four years. So it’s become increasingly more and more and more difficult. Even the use of VPNs and other techniques or technologies has become very much more difficult and more risky. But I think from the—from the very get-go the problem was that not that large part of the society was really hungry for information from outside, but they were pretty comfortable with whatever they were fed by the Russian state television channels.

MYRE: Right. Yes, right here.

Q: Thank you. Thank you all. Allan Goodman from the Institute of International Education.

There’s a large Ukrainian diaspora population now in many of your countries. How large, and what is their expected stay?

THÜMMEL: Well, we have a very large population of Ukrainians. Had a bit of coming and going, but round around about a million came in. They are increasingly—the kind of migration within Europe is a bit different. In our case, we often have, like, families, the wives or mothers or grandmothers and the children. Not so many men. Even though that setup seems to suggest that a lot of them will not be employed, we got a 35 percent employment rate by now, despite the fact that a lot of them are families.

And they are very—there is a political debate in the entire kind of—along the entire spectrum of how long to support Ukraine. And there are, of course, voices that say, how much does this cost us? But they are actually a really well-integrated and not problematic group of mostly refugees. They blend in very well. I lived in Berlin last eight years. And it’s not really a big problem for us at the moment. And I’m confident that will stay that way. And a lot of them also, of course, want to go back to Ukraine as soon as they can, to participate—once there is peace.

SØRENSEN: Well, I just wanted to say some of the same patterns. I simply don’t remember the numbers. There was a spike immediately. Then I think the numbers have fallen somewhat. Many of, especially the women, are integrated in the service sectors. And they’re actually doing, as I understand it, very well. Obviously, some will end up staying, but there’s also desire from some to go back when they are—the parts of Ukraine where they originally come from makes that possible. But I think it’s—politically there’s a huge support across the political spectrum for—both supporting those that have arrived, and also, if necessary, to take even further.

BILI: France does the same, that 150 at the very beginning, fast track for integration, huge support on welcoming people. And on the future, it will really depend also on the condition in Ukraine and the ability of Ukraine to welcome them back. But some will, obviously, after some years, wish to stay.

PRIKK: On Estonia—

MYRE: Go ahead, Ambassador.

PRIKK: Yes. Estonia has been one of the largest recipients, proportionally to our own population, of Ukrainian war refugees. So the patterns are pretty similar with other countries, that we receive a lot of refugees in the early months of the war, but some of—some of them have returned. Some of them have moved to other countries where their other family members are. But generally speaking, we’ve seen close to 4-5 percent of our population at one point being the Ukrainian war refugees, and they’ve been granted the social benefits, the access to education and healthcare, that also other residents of our country enjoy. But they’ve been very eager in terms of being, let’s say, good residents and integrating to the labor market, you know, studying in schools, and so on and so forth.

In terms of their future, I think we also have to be honest about the fact that the longer the war actually lasts, the slimmer are the chances of these people finding their proper way back to Ukraine, even though I think a very large proportion of them are interesting in in reestablishing their life in Ukraine.

MYRE: Yes, Mike.

FROMAN: Mike Froman, Council on Foreign Relations.

How do you interpret Secretary Rubio’s speech in Munich with regard to the U.S. commitment to Europe and to NATO? Everything OK, back to normal? And as you think about Europe’s role in NATO and in securing Ukraine’s future, what does strategic autonomy mean to you?

BILI: It’s a question for the German—(laughter)—

THÜMMEL: Yeah, that’s fine. You answered the second one. (Laughter.) No, no, but, I mean, also that European role in NATO, that’s also, of course, a hugely important point for us. I mean, on NATO, just one—when we want to strengthen the European pillar in NATO, we’ve done so. We will continue to do so, with the burden sharing that we have agreed to. We are not just on track with the 5 percent contribution—like GDP to military expenditure—not only on track. We want to achieve that in ’29, not in 2035. So that—I think on that front we are doing OK.

The Munich speech was a diplomatic master stroke by the secretary of state, because he obviously—he said so himself—he is there to represent, to explain the policy of the president. That’s what he did. It was welcome to have this strong commitment to the transatlantic cooperation, defense cooperation, and so on. We welcomed that. But we did not expect him to deviate from the policies of this administration. He didn’t do that, but he delivered it in a masterful way. And I have to just draw my hat to that—to that achievement. It really is a big achievement. And sorry to say this so frankly here—well, not sorry to say it—but I just honestly want to say that, that being a diplomat myself, a much less important one, I just have to say this was masterly.

BILI: Maybe on a complementary note, it’s kind of paradox, but it’s probably one of the field where we are—we feel closer from the administration, because we do acknowledge that Europeans have to step up, have to do more, to take more responsibility. And strategic autonomy for us, I’ve seen always being what is it to be an ally? Is it to consume security or is it a partnership in security? And to be a partner in security you have to bring things on the table. And so that part we are comfortable with, I think we have to—sometime in this administration, I think we get even more understanding that to have a real partner you need that partner to have also an industrial base, to be able to fill the gap. Because these days there is a queue everywhere for some strategic weapons. And we need the production in Germany, in Europe—you know, all over Europe to be able to provide that security. So we are comfortable with the idea that we should be partner. But, of course, partners should have a say.

MYRE: Ambassador, I believe you wanted to—

SØRENSEN: Well, I just wanted to make an additional point. I was in Munich myself. And I agree with everything my colleagues are saying. So just say that if—if there was a lot of focus on what the—what the Americans, be it the secretary of state, said in Munich this year, because everybody was wanting to see how did that contrast or how similar was it to what was said one year back. I actually think that the more interesting thing was to notice how the Europeans then reacted to that. You know, all the headlines was what did—how did Marco Rubio communicate, the tone—masterpiece, I agree. The way—but nothing was really taken away from what the Trump policies are. But I think, going to my French colleagues points about what does that mean for Europe? And clearly, you know, you can see that there—that this is a conversation that that is clearly taking place now in Europe, with different tones, and angles, and so on. So I was more interested in how the different European leaders were responding to what has transpired over the last fourteen months.

MYRE: We’ll take a question right here.

Q: Bill Courtney, with RAND.

Ukraine has very large majority support in the United States. But now the United States is no longer funding military and economic assistance to Ukraine. Europe has really commendably stepped up. Do you have the domestic political support in Europe, if this war lasts some time, to continue the high level of support for Ukraine that Europe is now providing?

SØRENSEN: I can start on this one. I’ll say that I think, per capita, we have—we are the highest per capita donor to Ukraine. And this is not about who is the highest and so on, but so far every package, as we call it in Denmark, that has been delivered has had full support in the Danish Parliament by all parties. And there is a—and percentage-wise, there’s a very, very large support to continuing the military, economic support that is needed for Ukraine. So I think certainly for us there is this commitment. We have touched on some of the other issues which are more complicated, what do we do with European Union? Now there’s a general support for doing this, but the devil is also in the detail. How do we do this in practice? It’s technical. There are also the question about other countries who have actually been in the line for longer. But I think when it comes to the specific question about the continuous support to Ukraine, we are in.

MYRE: Ambassador Prikk, yes, you want to add something?

PRIKK: Thank you. I am very much on the same page with Jesper on that. In Estonia there is a long-term commitment taken that that enjoys the support across the party lines regarding the—regarding the long-term military assistance to Ukraine. We’ve publicly stated that for the—for the years to come Estonia will support at least—at least at the level of 0.25 percent of our GDP the military assistance to Ukraine. Just to put this into perspective, in the U.S. context, adjusted to U.S. GDP, that would be around $80 billion per year. And the contributions to so-called PURL—NATO PURL initiative have come on top of that. So there is a long-term support to assisting Ukraine.

And I’d like to make it again very clear here that this is not only about solidarity and sympathy for Ukrainian people, but this is because of our clear assessment that the outcome of this war will define the rules of the game for at least a generation, if not generations. And we believe that this is not just about the security in Europe, but America also has clear security interests involved. Thank you.

MYRE: Martin did you want to add anything?

THÜMMEL: Yeah, I’ll be very brief. First of all, the short answer to your question is, no. Just two more points. What the Scandinavians, the Baltic states, and the Poles, and others have done in terms of the GDP is absolutely amazing. I mean, we are, since last year, the biggest bilateral donor, but in terms of what it means for a budget, a national budget, that just shows our resolve. But the United States, I would like to say two things. First of all, the oil sanctions against Lukoil and Rosneft were fundamental to increase pressure on Russia. Russia has had an almost 50 percent decline in revenue from oil beginning of this year compared to the beginning of last year. And that also shows me Europeans have a few things yet to do. And the last point, American military support has been continued, and it’s been absolutely crucial. It’s absolutely crucial in air defense. It’s crucial in intelligence sharing. So, yes, there’s been a financial shift. No, not calling that into—it’s not causing a big—that one is not causing a big stir in Germany. But the Americans are in, and they’re absolutely needed.

BILI: As you know, support is still very broad. And I also agree that we have to step up on the maritime services, the ghost fleet, because that’s really where we have the most leverage on the resource of Russia to finance the war. But I think Russia is also aware that after four years, various debates, and we have seen the kind of hybrid war from Russia on our social networks, with a lot of disinformation, sometimes action on the ground to try to disrupt the national cohesion. And so we shouldn’t be naive about the fact that we are going to be—especially because we are going into elections—we are going to see more and more disinformation coming from Russia to try to break that broad support to Ukraine in France.

MYRE: And just one quick follow up on that. The numbers are clear. Europe is providing more in terms of military aid, financial aid. But are there certain things you just can’t provide because you don’t have them? I’m thinking missile defenses, Patriot missile defenses specifically. And do you see any solution on that front?

THÜMMEL: Well, I would say, yes, some of that is true. But what I really think is essential is on the intelligence side. Also because it’s not, I think, something we can stand up in a very short timeframe. And that’s why I think your point about how important it is that the United States is still there and continues that support is absolutely critical. And I also think that what we have seen when it comes to energy, you know, that there is now a replacement for—and maybe this is also a place where we have to look ourselves in the mirror. I think we should have been able to transition away from Russian fossil fuel faster than we have been able to in Europe as a whole. But that’s obviously an internal discussion in Europe. But we have already fast-tracked that. We are trying to—but I think we have some homework to do there.

BILIL: Intelligence is really key, but we need also to scale up our industry production in some weapon system. And that’s where we need also EU funding to be directed to the European private sector to be able to step up.

MYRE: We have time for just about one or two more questions. Right here.

Q: Thank you. Natalie Jaresko, former minister of finance of Ukraine ’14 to ’16.

So, first, I wanted to say thank you to all of you for your incredible support throughout this process to the Ukrainian people and to the Ukrainian state. In particular, for stepping up over the last year when it was absolutely necessary. There’s no question that Europe has been very supportive. At the same time, we shouldn’t be commemorating the fourth anniversary of this war. One of the reasons we’re commemorating the fourth anniversary of this war is because this has all been very gradual, from weapons to finance to sanctions. The fact that we’re only sanctioning Lukoil and Rosneft today is really a reason for us commemorating the fourth anniversary.

And I also believe that this dragging out is not good for your domestic populations. I think that over time people become tired. I’m not saying everyone. And I know certain populations feel it more closely to their hearts. But doesn’t it seem that time is of the essence, and that there needs to be a surge? What I mean by that is, rather than doling out sanctions kind of month by month, package number, I don’t know what we’re on in the EU, but just put it together and do it, like I said, in a surge, in a very conscious press. You’re all—

MYRE: Sorry, we’re short on time. Let me just—if we can—

Q: The last thing I’ll just add, is you’re all—you talked about hybrid warfare, but there’s all kinds of things that the Russians are doing to the Europeans—from cables to other. So you have multiple ways to respond to Russia and to put additional pressure on them.

MYRE: OK. A surge—do we see a surge in sanctions and financial aid and military aid? Is that in the cards at all?

BILI: I think one of the issues that has been—well, first of all, I think we have—we should have been doing more sooner, quicker. And Russia has been good to overplay it’s strength and somewhat deter us, because we wanted to avoid escalation. And so that’s, I would say, for the past. But on the sanctions, we have to understand it’s kind of a cat and mouse game, that things have been working, then we have circumvention, and then you have a new pack of sanctions. So it’s an ongoing process. And also that we have to get rid of some dependencies. So I think we are becoming more efficient but it’s not because we didn’t want to be more efficient. It’s also because some of the things that we are seeing were not anticipated.

MYRE: Thank you very much, gentlemen. I appreciate your time. Let’s have a big round of applause for our diplomats here. (Applause.)

For those of you here in Washington, we’ll take a brief coffee break. For those of you on Zoom, get up, stretch your legs. We’ll be back in fifteen minutes with Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States. Thank you all very much.

(END)

This is an uncorrected transcript.

KELLY: Good morning. Welcome back, everybody. Welcome to our second session today, a conversation with Ukraine’s Ambassador Olga Stefanishyna. Welcome. Welcome to the Council. Welcome to Washington. You haven’t been here that long.

I’m Mary Louise Kelly. I host NPR’s All Things Considered. I also host our national security podcast, Sources and Methods. So I will be asking the questions for the first part of this, and then the ambassador has generously agreed to take all of your questions. So get them ready.

I would love to start. We’re going to get to policy. We’re going to get to diplomacy. We’re going to get to some big, abstract things. But would you paint us a picture? You were just back from Ukraine. You were there last week in Kyiv, in Odessa. How are people feeling? What is life like four years into this war?

STEFANISHYNA: Well, thank you for this question. And greetings to everybody. So many familiar faces. Also I understand that many of you have been to Ukraine also in course of, like, last four years. And it’s very different. It’s very different from 2022 and ’23, and all the years which followed after the beginning of full-scale invasion.

KELLY: How so? Like, what strikes you when you go home?

STEFANISHYNA: Well, first, in 2022 it was a little less a decade after the annexation of Crimea, which didn’t—you know, resulted in, you know, a massive military aggression, and the occupation of Donbas, and of Donetsk and Lugansk regions, and the same attempts to occupy Kharkiv, and Dnipro, and Odessa as well. And this was, like, also a, like, proxy and, you know, hybrid format. But in 2022 we were severe to defend ourselves, and we are still. But four years after, you know, the Russian defense industrial capabilities have significantly grown and the level of destruction in Ukraine have significantly grown. Because in 2022, in the winter of 2022, Russians were destroying what we had. And now they are destroying what we have left, you know, in these four years in the aggression. And, of course, in Kyiv, it’s dark, it’s cold, and people are far less concentrated on geopolitics, peace talks, referendum, or elections these days.

Because, you know, just before leaving to Washington I had a meeting with one of my friends. She is CEO of one of the biggest Ukrainian energy companies. And she’s a very influential person in Ukraine. She’s doing a lot of philanthropy. She’s been helping a lot on the front. And she’s been engaged in most of the social discourses, as you know, in our country. But what she was really caring about after leaving the meeting, that she will make it to the fourteenth floor. And then when she will make it to the fourteenth floor, where she lives, that there she would have enough time to have enough electricity to prepare the dinner for her family. And that if she will be lucky enough to do two of this, she should make sure that all the generators are charged. And, you know, this is what’s in the minds of the people, but—

KELLY: I’m told that’s almost a constant soundtrack to life now in Kyiv, the hum of the generators, because there’s never reliable power to get your elevator to go up the building.

STEFANISHYNA: Yeah, and—yeah. And in 2022, you know, I have a lot of videos also in social media I was—I was making with the sound of the generators. It was almost the sound of the nightlife. But now it’s far more severe because, you know, we were speaking about, you know, one attack per ten days and, you know, twenty, thirty drones, and sometimes missiles. Now we’re talking about that—I’m coming from Kyiv, just the night before I left there was 300 drones targeted to the major cities of Ukraine, with the ballistics. And it’s happening, like, very regularly. They do not need a week or ten days to prepare. So the longer the war is lasting, the bigger capacity they’re growing. And I think this is a very simple fact with which does not need a—does not have the two answers to one question, whether additional pressure should be put in on Russia, whether the existing pressure is not enough. No. It is not enough. And more pressure should be taken. And sanctions should be imposed. And Ukraine should be capable to defend its cities.

KELLY: And I want to get to all of that in a moment. But just one more question on how people are feeling. And I get that that is—it’s a big country. People are probably feeling a huge mix of sometimes contradictory emotions. But when I have interviewed Ukrainians—you know, I think a lot of Americans have celebrated Ukrainians as showing what looks from here like almost superhuman resilience. And when I say something like that lately to Ukrainians when I’m interviewing them, they half roll their eyes and say, what choice do we have? (Laughs.) Like, we are so tired. And we’re tired of being resilient. Do you hear that?

STEFANISHYNA: Well, speaking about the mood in Ukraine, I said what the priorities are. The priorities are that, you know, whenever a country needed to be saved or protected all the nation were standing up, be it Maidan or, like political protests, be it frontline, be, you know, defense against the aggression. But now the priority for Ukrainian people is just to survive through the winter. So this is—this is very important understanding. But I have not met a single person, or I haven’t heard of a single person who would say that, you know, we’re so tired we are going to give up. We do not want to fight. Because there’s no, literally, other option.

And you have heard a million times but, you know, if your brain stops defending itself, it will stop existing. And, you know, we do not have a wide range of options here. You know, if we will not be capable to stand and defend ourselves, we will be very far away from our European aspirations. And we will get so much closer to occupation by Russia. So it’s just, like, we need to stand as long as we need to stand. And I think it’s not even a question which has been raised over the negotiation talks or any other framework, because Ukraine will stand. But everybody wants the war to be over so that Ukraine can always—can also consider developing itself and, you know, thinking about strategies and prosperity, for every family and for the country in general,

KELLY: You did just say, “everybody wants the war to be over.” Does that translate—and polls suggest it does—into growing appetite for compromise among Ukrainians? Understanding that a perfect peace deal would be great. Perfect doesn’t appear to be on the table. Is there growing appetite for something, anything, that ends this war?

STEFANISHYNA: Well, every Ukrainian knows what freedom is. You know, the basic set for a Ukrainian is the security of their house, security of their family, security of their city, security of their living in a country, predictability of, you know, political and security environment for years. And the Ukrainians understand very well that we are far from having—being at the spot where we can say that this is the solution that’s going to work. And by saying that everybody wants the war to be over, it doesn’t mean that it has a real deadline. It should be over in a way that tomorrow we could continue living our lives in a country we were building and we were defending. And this is what’s important. So maybe it is something that should not be considered as, you know, one-time solution. You know, president have already said a major thing. And I’m really surprised that in this town it has now been, you know, perceived as the real big thing.

You know, after he was here in Washington meeting with President Trump he went out to meet the press and to address the media after the meeting. And this, he said that Ukraine is ready to stop on the existing line. This is a huge thing. This has never, you know, been publicly said or announced. And this is a huge message delivered by a president of a country at war. This is already a big thing. And Ukraine really supports that. But it doesn’t mean that, you know, this decision should be aligned with, you know, concessions, land swaps. It should not be, you know, aligned with the amnesty for the Russian crimes. It’s not something you can put in one basket. Maybe we should, you know, move step by step, eat this elephant by parts. And you know here that Ukraine have already made a very serious commitment. And it was announced by president of Ukraine. And I think it’s really big already.

KELLY: You said that surprised you. In what way? That that there wasn’t a bigger reaction to that announcement?

STEFANISHYNA: Yes, because all of the questions are about, you know, how do you formulate this point in twenty-points peace plan about Donetsk region and et cetera. And there should be, like, a wider discourse. You know, a year ago, we were speaking how this war could be ended, what is the just peace, and many other stuff. And now, you know, all attention is to this—to this land swap thing. While, you know, it’s much bigger. And Ukraine have been very, you know, open by saying that it is possible to stop on the existing line. And everything which would be needed to make sure that this arrangement is working can be implemented.

KELLY: So let’s go to the peace talks. The U.S., as you know, has taken the lead on brokering talks to try to end this war. Is it clear to you, Ambassador, that the U.S. has a coherent plan to end this war?

STEFANISHYNA: Well, I think—I think we should really work on building the same understanding around the wording, you know, and this war. What we hear from President Trump is, like, two major things which led us to where we are. He’s the president of the United States who have made a personal commitment, even before he stepped into the formal position of those forty-seventh president of the United States, that he will end the war. And he will—

KELLY: On day one, he said.

STEFANISHYNA: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is not about the timelines. You know, we were never, you know, concentrating on this particular—on this particular point. But I think what we’ve heard since was that it is important to stop killing. It’s important to make sure that civilians are not dying, and the losses among civilians population is not increasing, you know, by dozens of percents per year. And I think what the discussion is taking place around right now is about that, while the war itself has so much more meaning. You know, the war is over when we give so many answers to the other question which are not covered, you know, by negotiation framework. You know, it’s security guarantees, its implementation and enforcement of security guarantees, enforcement of the arrangement, which hopefully will be agreed with the mediation of the United States. It’s about the reparations and the accountability. So this is—this will take the cake. And this is not necessary as, you know, something that related just to stop killing and stop the active warfare.

KELLY: Is the U.S. pushing Russia hard enough to end this war?

STEFANISHYNA: Well, to my understanding, and I said it also yesterday—yesterday this was the first year since the beginning—fourth year since the beginning of the full-scale aggression. I think Russia is really afraid of losing this format of negotiations. You know, because they’re successful in manipulating facts and manipulating the process. But they cannot step back. But the president of the united states, and generally the team engaged in the negotiations, they are not oriented to an eternal process. So and here we see the window of opportunity, while Russians, you know, are trying to secure process lasting as long as it is possible, while they can get, you know, benefits from their relations with the United States throughout the way. But the United States are not committed to, you know, showing process. They’re committed to results. So here we see the window of opportunity, whereas, you know, America really putting, and can put more, pressure in terms of speeding up the arrangement. Not through the price of Ukraine.

KELLY: So I interviewed a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine yesterday on the four-year anniversary. She was calling for the U.S. to do much more to push Russia, more sanctions, more working with allies. Do you agree with those calls? Does the U.S. have more leverage that it could be using?

STEFANISHYNA: Yeah. And if we would forget for one little moment that it’s only about Ukraine, and Ukrainian people are dying under the attacks and being subjected to an unprovoked military aggression of the impossible, largest military scale, but also this is a genocidal war. So if we will forget about that in one minute and just understand that this has been a war of technologies, a war of knowledge. This says—this war has already changed the whole world. The world is so much more different now from what we knew. You would not really know so much about the drones and the drone innovation that you knew, like, four years ago. You have never seen in the history of humanity the front line held by the drones. You know, the drone walls. And yet, you have not seen so many man losses from the aggressor side because they cannot move with tanks and heavy weaponry, because they’ve been destroyed by drones.

So the only price of success of Russia in any even smallest—as you’ve heard, less than 1 percent of gains on the battlefield is just through increased number of losses, 35,000 per month. And while, like, 40,000 recruited per month and 35,000 killed and lost in combat. You know, so this is a totally different reality. And it’s in Europe. And Russians are learning. They’re learning from Ukraine’s innovation. They’re learning from Ukraine’s talent. They’re learning from Ukraine’s innovations related to the desire just to live and to survive. And they provide these technologies to China, to North Korea. They are partnering financial and militarily with such wide group and coalition of states.

And I think it’s the interest of the United States to make sure that we can provide security for the region. And it’s not that bad. And it’s not that hard. And Europe has stepped in. The significant surge in military and financial support has been there. Ukraine has scaled up its domestic production. And this work could be over also through military means. And yesterday President Trump, while addressing to the State of the Union, has said that there’s no more powerful military in the world than the United States. And it is so. And there are so many things we can do without waiting until the next round of discussion in the trilateral or bilateral format. And it’s just—simply should be recognized. And it could be done on financial or nonfinancial basis.

STEFANISHYNA: You’re making a point I heard earlier this month in Munich at the security conference. I believe you were there as well. Chrystia Freeland, who was the deputy prime minister of Canada, is now working as an economic advisor to President Zelensky, said, you know, at the beginning of this war here in the U.S. and Europe, Ukraine was seen as a victim—you know, a righteous, wronged victim. And she said, that is true. Ukraine, you know, is a victim in this. But four years on, has the strongest army in Europe, has pioneered technology that other militaries, including the United States, are learning from, and is now being valued as a shield and an arsenal for Europe. And that’s a different place than where you were four years ago.

To go to some of the specifics that need to get hashed out in peace talks, security guarantees you mentioned. A central question all along to me has been what kind of security guarantee would you need in Ukraine to be sure that Vladimir Putin wouldn’t sign on the line, go home, lick his wounds, and come back two years later?

STEFANISHYNA: Yeah. Coming back to what you were saying, despite all of the—everything you mentioned, we’re still a victim, because we have done so much to defend ourselves but still every Ukrainian has somebody on the front line, somebody who—someone who died or have been lost, or somebody who lost their house, somebody who have been tortured and raped and deprived of their, you know, dignity or life. So this is—all the human stories are firsthand. And the consequences—we are saying is the consequences, what we do to minimize the suffering that evolves in, you know, necessity for us to be stronger and stronger, because the war is not coming to an end. The scale of aggression is growing every year. And we should really grow more and more capable to be able to defend our people.

What would you say to someone, you know, in the occupation, and you cannot have a reach to this person. And you know that this person has been closed by Russian soldiers in her apartment and raped for twenty-four hours in front of the eyes of her child? You know, you will—you will eat the earth, you know, to make sure that you can do anything to protect this person. And this is that—we’re still victims. And this is the trauma which will, you know, be there for centuries and for decades. And here, when we’re talking about the security guarantees, I would just put you on a spot where we should not consider security guarantees as a document for Ukraine, right? It is important for Ukraine, because it gives you now predictability and security. But also this is the arrangement which secures the enforcement of any agreement which will be signed with Russians, or maybe signed with Russians, right?

So it’s the arrangement which secures the President Trump deal. So he and his team have been investing a lot of efforts. And I can confirm that the team of negotiators he nominated, they are working around the clock, literally, like every day. The teams are working in contact with Ukraine and in coordination with the American leadership.

KELLY: And so can you be specific on what kind of security guarantees would be acceptable to Ukraine?

STEFANISHYNA: Well, this is, like, American security guarantees and also European contribution. First is, like, Article 5-like a wording, which means that this is the protocol for immediate reaction in case of, you know, repeated aggression. Secondly, it’s a in-field military presence of foreign fighters, foreign military presence, which will monitor and secure, actually together with Ukrainian armed forces, the arrangement which might take place. And also it’s, like, air defense, air support. But also availability to have a strong, capable defense and military, which is really important to make sure that our preparedness is not evaporating, you know, after any peace arrangement. So this is not that complicated, by the way.

And if you’re looking—it’s not that complicated, by the way, because we’re now four year into full-scale aggression. We have Patriots, NASAMs, ATACMS, IRST. We are fully equipped with all the NATO-type ammunition. We operate on the Soviet ammunition. We have developed our own defense industry. So, I mean, that’s why I’m saying that it’s, like, not that a unique warning you can invent in the security guarantees. But reading this document is something that really guarantees that the deal will be implemented, rather than counting that Russia will be acting in a goodwill on Monday, and on Tuesday is very different. And when you’re looking at that from this perspective, that does not—should not be considered as, you know, a leverage provided to Ukraine, or a benefit, or, like, a carrot for Ukraine. It’s absolutely essential just to, you know, secure the authority of those leaders who have invested and put in their names to this deal. That’s as simple as that.

KELLY: Yeah. Land swaps, which is a problematic term because I’m not sure what the swap is. It’s not clear that Russia is handing Ukraine anything in this scenario. But on Donbas, which the signaling from the White House is that—the signaling from the White House, I think it’s fair to say, is that there is not a scenario imminently where Donbas ends up in Ukrainian hands. Is that a scenario that you can live with?

STEFANISHYNA: Well, you know, it’s—like, it’s really hard for me to answer questions like that because, you know, maybe you will want to hear from me, and you are asking because it’s on the agenda, it’s on the highlights, it’s been discussed, but I’m Ukrainian, right? So you’re talking about the territory of my country, the country I was I was born, that I got my passport in this country. And this is, like, I just don’t feel really comfortable even speaking about that. And again, stopping on the existing line is a big thing. And we can—if you’re talking from the military point of view, even on my memory of the last year I recall all these phone calls of President Putin to President Trump, when he was, you know, naming his next military accomplishments he’s planning to gain. And he never—he never did it. He never did it. He’s making a call saying, like, I’m, like, one minute from occupying Pokrovsk; like, I’m just, like, one kilometer from Kupiansk. And then you see Zelensky coming to Kupiansk, and says, like, want to come over? You know, we have something to talk about.

So, I mean, this is—this has not only even about the pressure for Ukraine. There’s no point in even having a lot of public discussion around that, because eventually they want to save—Russians want to save, you know, a couple of billions of American dollars they would spend for another military campaigns for another five to ten years. And just to spend money for a pen they would want to sign something on a deal. So this is how it is. And unfortunately, it’s not—it’s not this, you know, perfect solution, you know. So when the teams negotiate they do the great job. They’re working around what—a wording, I would say, what the demilitarized zone looks like, what the Donetsk region discussion is taking place. So I’m not really very comfortable, you know, in making any statements or announcing any position, because it’s not clear. It’s not clear.

KELLY: All right. I am going to open it up to y’all’s questions in a second, but I do want to ask about elections. Both President Trump and the Kremlin are now pushing for Ukraine to hold elections. And in Munich, you were there, I’m sure you were in the room when President Zelensky got asked about this. And his answer was, give us two months of a ceasefire and we will hold elections. He also said, and, by the way, Russia could hold democratic elections too. That would be great. You know, he’s getting at the point that it is very hard to hold elections when people are getting bombed and shot at, and went, to your earlier point, they may not have heat, they may not have electricity. How do you hold an election in that situation? But that suggests that elections are not imminent. That was my read. Was that yours? Is that accurate?

STEFANISHYNA: Not imminent? What do you mean? Like—

KELLY: That they’re not happening anytime soon.

STEFANISHYNA: Oh. Well, first, for Ukraine, elections have never been a problem. So I see Natalka here. In fact, on a funny note, elections is a favorite sport for Ukrainians. You know, so it’s just—if there’s, like, sort of a perception formed, you know, somewhere around this town or in Europe, like, no. Ukrainians love elections. We love holding different types of elections. We really—and, you know, I could go further into that, because I’ve been into politics, and I’ve been part of many European political families, but probably it’s, like, a different type of discussion. So it’s, like, there’s no problem for Ukraine to have the elections. And I cannot really find the proper English word to explain how it is not problem. It’s just absolutely fine. No problem, you know, in having presidential or parliamentary elections.

KELLY: You would love to have the conditions in your country where you could hold elections.

STEFANISHYNA: Yeah. And there’s no pressure domestically to vote. Of course, there are, like, some political groups. You know, they’re doing the preparations just in case. You know, this is like a normal Ukrainian process as well. And there is no demand. You know, while you’re thinking about how do you get to the fourteenth floor, you know, the last thing you will be thinking in your top ten priority list is the elections. You know, what would elections change with lack of access to heating and electricity tomorrow? Like, probably nothing, right? There will be a ceasefire, but sixty days ceasefire is, well, I think it’s just given to the discretion of, you know, president to negotiate if elections would fit into the general framework. But Ukrainians will have no problem with that. If they will not fit, Ukrainians will not have problem with that either. There’s no feeling that there’s, like, some artificial barriers of not having the elections. You just can’t.

You just can’t because, you know, you wake up in the morning and the Russian missile attacks a kindergarten in Kharkiv. Not at night, not in the evening, 9:00 the morning, deliberately when parents brought their kids to the kindergarten, when everybody are gathered together. And the missile attacks this particular moment, not when the building is empty, right? And the threat is really big. So there are, like, a lot of—a lot of implications to that. But there will be no problem in developing the legal framework. The group has been working more on technical level but, I mean, it’s such not a problem, right? But it has been part of the discourse because it was in the Russians’ plan, right, and that’s why it’s been discussed.

But, in fact, the absurd of this discussion is shown by president, or his, you know, quote on the Munich. So if you need elections to get to the peace deal, maybe after all of these months or years, and twelve years since, you know, there was no reconciliation between Ukraine and Russia or from Russian side, maybe Russia should also change its ruler and try something new. Because it’s how with Ukraine—it works in Ukraine. OK, we have a good president. We really love him. He’s a great guy. But we need somebody new. And that’s fine. That’s how it works in Ukraine. That’s absolutely OK. Why don’t Russians try someone new? Maybe it would work better for them. (Applause.)

KELLY: Questions. If you raise your hand, we will get a mic to you. If I could invite you to tell us who you are and also invite you to make your question a question, that would be great. Yes, sir, right here.

Q: Thank you. Dov Zakheim. Good to see you again.

You’ve talked about drones. And even the Russians are learning, you say. And you’re building drones to an amazing scale. My question is, in our country the Pentagon is still trying to figure out how to build things like that to scale. And oh, by the way, our first drone was in the 1970s. And it took us about forty years to get drones that really work. What’s the secret? (Laughter.)

STEFANISHYNA: Oh, I can tell you. I have a great story to that. You know, a week before leaving to Washington to serve as the ambassador—a very simple story and a very simple, simple answer to this question—I went on the front line. And I was in Zaporizhzhia, in Sumy, in Kharkiv. And I happened to get to a headquarters of the drone command. The general who was in charge of the drone command is a guy whose nickname is Madyar, right? So he is one of the most successful Ukrainian businessmen. He was working in the agricultural sector. And he had zero experience in drones. He knew nothing about the drones. When the war started, he mobilized to the territorial defense. And he was targeted to go to a Kherson direction. And I was just asking him, you know, how did you—you know, how did you make throughout all of this way? You know, four years ago, he was, you know, interested in arts. He, you know, did a lot of nice exhibitions. And he was a philanthropist. And now you’re sitting underground in charge of drone command.

And he said then, you know, we were in Kherson. And there was a very severe fight. And we had only guns. And it was really scary, because when you need to get to the hill, when you have no idea what is waiting for you, they needed eyes, right? And he said, like, I just didn’t want to die. No, he just—he just was literally ready to do anything he can. And his brain was, like, acting, like, with a triple power. So he would not move to this hill until he knows that he did everything he can so he’s not dying, and the guys with him are not dying. And then they said, oh, we can—we can use the drone. And then they used one drone, and then they used the other drone. You know, then here we are. You know, the drone dominance and the reality we’re talking right now is there.

And, you know, we’re just, like, a couple of steps behind the decision of first drone innovation companies partnering with U.S. producers are, you know, going to get IPO or anything like that. And we are happy to contribute with this technologies because more capable American defense industry, more capable U.S. Army, means a more capable Ukrainian defense and Ukrainian technologies. So we are developing technologies to survive. We are innovating to survive. And I’m sure also that without Ukraine, U.S. will not be able to be that innovative. Because what I saw at Madyar’s office, like, that week, they will be totally different in two weeks. They will be totally different in two weeks. It’s like a very changing environment. So when you want to live and you want to fight, and when you cannot allow yourself dying because you have a mission, you will invent anything. So that’s how it happened.

KELLY: There you go. (Applause.) There’s some questions in the back. I believe I see Ambassador Verveer with your hand raised, if we could get a mic—yes.

Q: Thank you so much for being with us.

Yesterday there was a vote in the United Nations General Assembly. It was a resolution calling for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine. And at the last minute the United States introduced an amendment to delete two crucial paragraphs, including references to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. And I wonder if you have a reaction to that.

STEFANISHYNA: Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Indeed, we were in contact with our colleagues from Department of State and our U.N. ambassadors to Ukraine and U.S. were working. And what was important for us, that we have 107 votes supporting the resolution. And the position of United States is—to our understanding—is justified by their current role. They’re, you know, trying to perform in orchestrating the negotiations. And I don’t think it’s something that could be read, like, the real solid position, like, there is no support to Ukraine’s territorial integrity or sovereignty, or there is, like, a lack of recognition of the atrocities or the aggression. So we rather consider this vote and this proposal as something that fits in the understanding of U.S. government to the current purposes they’re putting in front of them, in the—you know, in their role in terms of ending the war.

KELLY: Thank you. I believe we have a question over Zoom. We’ll take that, and then we’ll work our way back into the room.

OPERATOR: We’ll take the next question from Christian Adame.

Q: Hello, Ambassador Stefanishyna. Thank you very much for your time and for taking our questions. My name is Christian Adame, portfolio manager at JPMorgan.

Quick question. Ahead of President Trump’s upcoming visit to China, if you were briefing the U.S. delegation what three priority asks would you recommend regarding China’s postures over China and the importance of those actions? And kind of related to that question, what realistic outcomes would you expect from that meeting related to the Russia-Ukraine war? Thank you very much.

KELLY: China.

STEFANISHYNA: Well, that’s really hard to comment on that. I think, you know, as I was saying earlier, you know, that if Ukraine stops fighting Ukraine will stop existing. If Russia will leave—Russian troops will leave Ukraine, the war will be over. And if China will cut off the—all the arteries that are uniting them with Russia, this would have a(n) absolutely significant impact to the outcomes of war. They gained—well, speaking pragmatically, China gained a lot throughout the wartime from Russia. You know, this is a big country, the largest territory, probably, right? The largest country by territory. And to get finances and other support from the China, China was given the, you know, absolutely open access to this market. This is unprecedented. You cannot get easily to the Russian—or to the American market, or European market, or Ukrainian market. And here you have the green light to do anything.

There was, you know, in the beginning of war a lot of jokes in Russia about—that the Russian ethnical groups nature will be changing, you know, in the case because, like, it will be really Chinese and Asian. So I think—I think we really hope on the talent of President Trump in negotiating with Xi Jinping. We see—from what we see there is a serious approach in preparation of this meeting and of this visit. So there’s been a significant control of narrative in terms of the attitude and the goals. So we are not expecting any significant breakthrough, but situations will definitely not get worser for Ukraine. Probably like that, very neutral.

KELLY: Back corner, in the white shirt. Yes.

Q: Thank you so much. Gregor Schwung, foreign affairs correspondent for German Die Welt. Thank you, Ambassador.

KELLY: Can you hold the mic a little bit closer, please? Thanks.

Q: OK. Gregor Schwung, foreign affairs correspondent for the German Die Welt.

Ambassador, you laid out what kinds of security guarantees you need. My question is, what have you got from the United States so far?

STEFANISHYNA: Well, so far, nothing, you know. (Laughs.) So we don’t have any security guarantees at this point, but this has been discussed. And largely what has been discussed and agreed, not yet signed, is something I’ve been, you know, previewing, let’s say. So it’s nothing other than what I was saying about the military capabilities, in-land presence, and Article 5-like protocol of reacting in case of the repeated aggression. But what I think is also not something related to the talks is securing Russian—securing American economic interest in Ukraine. And I think it’s really important. Just yesterday we had a big delegation from Ukrainian gas—major gas company, and our ministries and other institutions in the energy sector. They were joining this initiative of the vertical corridor together with Greece. And this is strategic for Ukraine. This is very important for Ukraine. And I think if we can secure our role in this project, this will be also security guarantee for Ukraine.

KELLY: You’ve used the term a couple of times, Article 5-light.

STEFANISHYNA: Like.

KELLY: Like.

STEFANISHYNA: Like.

KELLY: Article 5-like.

STEFANISHYNA: I said “like.”

KELLY: Light, like, I mean, what do you mean? What does that look like? Because Article 5 is kind of all or nothing. You’re with us, you’re with us, we’re all in.

STEFANISHYNA: Yeah. So, yeah. Well, I think the Article 5-like wording, from what I saw in the draft texts discussed on the security guarantees, is far less weight than the original Article 5 reaction. But still it’s weight. It provides for immediate ability of a military response, but not for the immediate military response. So there’s still options in between that you can negotiate, you can consult, you can consult with the allies. And it does not something—the enforcement is not clear. So the perception, how we would perceive enforcement of this article is one. And this could be really different. I remember on twenty-fourth of February and twenty-fifth of February—in the morning of twenty-fourth of February there was a phone call with secretary general of NATO, right? And there was a number of follow-up things we had to do after this conversation.

And I was trying to reach out to our then-Ambassador of Ukraine to NATO. And I just couldn’t because she was on these political committees. You know, the war is raging on, the hour of war, the two hour war, the twenty-four hour war, the forty-eight hour war. And she’s without her phone all the time. And all these committees are sitting, sitting, and sitting. And there’s, like, the gap between that is huge, because the bombs are falling but the committees are meeting. And there’s no, you know, interconnection between that. So the consultation mechanism we have, you know, tried. And I don’t remember, don’t recall that it worked. So something could be signed but, you know, I think it’s more important that we all understand the enforcement in the same way.

KELLY: OK. So a lot of details to work out. Let’s see, in the middle of the room right here.

Q: Hi. I’m Michael Hirsh with Foreign Policy, a political magazine. Thanks very much for doing this, Madam Ambassador. Appreciate it.

Can you give us any more clarity on how you see Trump’s position on the territorial issue? Because he seems to have been whipsawing wildly on that, going all the way back a year ago to that infamous meeting in the Oval Office on this question of how much pressure there is on Ukraine to recognize Russian territorial gains, and whether, on the other hand, there’s some sort of give, some sort of arrangement along the lines of what happened with the Koreas, you know, 1953, or the Kosovo-type of arrangement, where there’s some sort of a settlement that doesn’t involve actual recognition by the United States of Russian territorial gains.

STEFANISHYNA: Well, I don’t think it’s—so how it should be read is that, to my understanding, President Trump is looking for options to stop the atrocities and the war. So he wants to see this stop. He really gets all of the reports after every deadly night in Ukraine, especially throughout the winter. And what I know for sure that this information reaches his eyes and his ears and he’s aware of it. It’s not like he’s blinded and not aware of the real situation. And he got the military briefings as well. And all he wants is just to match his, you know, political statement with the real enforcement.

And there is a discussion that potential arrangement on the territorial issues could lead to this result. And that’s why there is a process. And this process is about to give the answer whether this is a workable solution or not workable solution. And if it’s not workable solution, I’m sure he will be able to move on, and, you know, together we will find another solution. But this train should be moving. And, you know, he didn’t say a lot yesterday on the State of the Union. (Laughs.) So pretty much—pretty much what we expected was said. (Laughs.) So, but at the same time he has this commitment, and this train will keep on moving. And if there will be, like, other options which would be workable on a table, I’m sure he would—he would explore them.

KELLY: You’re laughing. I mean, I’m glad you’ve kept a sense of humor that there wasn’t a huge mention, there wasn’t a big Ukraine chapter of the State of the Union last night. What would you have liked to have heard?

STEFANISHYNA: No, I’ve heard what I thought I would hear. So that’s it. That means I’m a good diplomat. (Laughter.) Our team have been working well, so that’s it. (Laughs.)

KELLY: Let’s see. We’ve got a question right here.

Q: Thank you.

Madam Ambassador, two years ago when we were having conversations around reconstruction we were thinking about big, fundamental projects. Perhaps now it seems like reconstruction is going to be about rebuilding basic energy infrastructure. I imagine that all along in Kyiv the people who are thinking about this are continually recalibrating the plans for eventually what needs to happen. Can you talk about that process? How much of that is being discussed with governments in Europe and the United States, with the private sector? It’s going to require a very large amount of money and energy for that to happen. Thank you.

STEFANISHYNA: Thank you, Guillermo. And, well, I think we cannot really—like, every year is very different. Every year of war is very different. You cannot compare what you were thinking in 2022 and planning to what we’re thinking about right now. I just want all of us to remember—maybe you don’t even know this, by the way. So in 2020, we didn’t have this relations with Europe. You know, we had problems with Poland. We had problems with Netherlands. We didn’t have relations with friends, right? So we had not developed, you know, significant relations with Germany, for example. And we had not been a regular visitors to Brussels. It was, like, one year political trip. And I was just recalling, talking to my friends, that back in the time when I was so far from even understanding that Ukraine can join the European Union that I explored the Norwegian mechanism, because Norwegians are not members of EU but they are part of the single market, right? So this was such a different spot.

And, you know, all these years after I’m so proud, you know, that we are part of political family. We are enjoying such close relations with the—not on the level of the leaders, with the governments, with the ministers. We have bilateral agenda with every major European capital. And we are fully integrated into European market. And on this basis, there was one discussion, because we needed to build that. Now we built that. And now when we have the largest destruction since the beginning of war of the energy infrastructure, targeted American and European companies and businesses by Russian missiles, when we have the coldest winter in decades. You know, this is a very risky environment for the European companies and European operators to work. But this is probably the best time and the best environment for American businesses.

You know, America has been known by gaining all this power by operating in the most hostile or unexplored areas of the world. And I think, you know, before Ukraine joins the European Union, we should not wait until the post-war process starting, or post-war recovery, because post-war may not look anything like what we imagine it right now. It could be so different. So I think, if not only because I’m, like, sitting here, but probably because I’m sitting here in this capital, I would say for American big investments the time is really now. Because this is not—it is not only the war country, it’s the functional country. We have a functional business, banking, fiscal system. We have functional services, a functional government, a functional parliament, functional local self-governance. So we provide services for companies and for businesses while being under the war condition. So it’s very different. So yeah, post-war will bring a lot of opportunities, a lot of options, but now is the best time probably.

KELLY: You heard it here first. There’s the pitch.

I’m going to exercise moderator prerogative and ask the last question, because that segues to something I wanted to get to with you. The U.S.-Ukraine relationship is a lot bigger than this war and peace talks. It is deep. It’s a relationship that has had ups and downs and challenges. And that remains true. But in the interest of landing us on a note of some kind of hope, I wonder what else you hope to do, what opportunities you see for cooperation aside from these peace talks?

STEFANISHYNA: Well, I would rather give a more personal answer to this question. So when I landed here as the ambassador, what I’ve learned? I’ve learned a couple of things. That we have never made enough effort to educate Ukrainians on what real America is, how big this country, how rich this country, how powerful this country. You know, in Ukraine, people do not know it. People do not know it. They do not understand how big this country is. And that it’s not only about, like, one person in the United States. This is about, like, two million Ukrainian—two million-plus Ukrainian diaspora. This is about the leadership, and the philanthropy, and the commitment, and the powerful economic potential of so many states of the United States.

So yesterday, I had a video conversation with the governor of Utah. You know, these guys, they just decided that they will just support Kharkiv. There was the governor, the speaker, the president of the House. You know, and everybody, they gathered just to hold the Ukrainian flag. You know, and they—these guys from this state, they just built a city near Kyiv to support the refugees. And we have so little knowledge about that. And I think this is one thing which is really important, that Ukrainians really understand how big United States are, and how powerful this country is, and how it is important that Ukraine is part of its, you know, agenda. That really matters.

But also, I think it’s really important to explore the potential of these relations. We can provide so much more for the United States. And I want that American government know Ukraine from so many other different perspectives. And I want us to be the country which has not only—were able to push away Russians from its territory, we also pushed away Chevron, and Exxon, and many other big players. So we’re really powerful and, you know, leaving all Ukraine to ourselves. But I think this relations are only to be explored. They were political. They started to be economic with the mineral deal formally signed. And so much more to go. And I really hope that that it will happen. (Applause.)

KELLY: And you can help us sort our drone programs, it sounds like.

STEFANISHYNA: Yeah.

KELLY: Ambassador Stefanishyna, thank you. This was a pleasure. Thanks to all of you for great questions.

 

STEFANISHYNA: Thank you. Thank you.

KELLY: Lunch. We have lunch. Please stay. If you’re here in Washington there’s a reception just outside. If you’re watching via Zoom, take a break. We will be back. We’ve got our keynote with Senators Tillis and Shaheen starting at 1:15 Eastern. Thank you. (Applause.)

(END)

This is an uncorrected transcript.

KARL: All right. Well, welcome to the final session of today’s symposium “The U.S. Vision for Ukraine.” I’m Jonathan Karl, chief Washington correspondent for ABC News and co-anchor of This Week.

And it’s a great honor to be on the panel with Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who is the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, also the former governor of New Hampshire—senator from New Hampshire. Great to have you here.

SHAHEEN: Thank you.

KARL: And Thom Tillis, another Republican member of the Foreign Relations Committee and—

TILLIS: No, I’m a—I’m a senator without portfolio. (Laughter.) I’m not on either Foreign Relations—

KARL: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course. That’s right. Let—

TILLIS: —and I was eight years on Senate Armed Services.

KARL: And—and—and—and—

TILLIS: Oh, and the SNOG, of course.

KARL: And we can call you chairman because you’re chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property.

TILLIS: Yeah.

KARL: And the former Speaker of the House from North Carolina. So great to have both of you here, and both with a—with a keen interest in Ukraine.

So I wanted to start with last night. The president spoke for almost two hours and I counted two sentences on Ukraine.

Senator Tillis, what does that say about this administration’s—where Ukraine is as a priority?

TILLIS: I don’t think it’s anywhere near where it needs to be. I was just thinking we’re about to enter the month, four years ago, that the occupation of Bucha and the systematic kidnapping, murder, and rape occurred to the tune of 500 people in a neighborhood that would have been Northern Virginia, you know, in terms of—comparatively speaking to Kyiv, how we can’t focus on the fact that the Russians who got us here.

I get that the president wants to negotiate a peace, but I think it was a missed opportunity to remind the American people that we care about the transatlantic partnership, we care about free Europe, and we care about totalitarians who invade sovereign nations, and that was a missed opportunity last night. (Applause.)

KARL: And so it was literally on the fourth anniversary of the invasion.

SHAHEEN: It was.

KARL: Literally. What is your sense as you deal with the administration?

And, by the way, the Ukraine portfolio seems to not so much be with the State Department but it’s Steve Witkoff and it’s Jared Kushner.

Do you get visibility into what they’re doing and what the negotiations are? I mean, can you call them before the committee to brief you?

SHAHEEN: Well, we could if the chairman would agree to that.

But no, we don’t have any insights into what they’re doing. The most information we’ve gotten about what’s happening with negotiations we got in Munich at the security conference from the EUCOM commander who gave us some insights into the lower level negotiations that are going on around security guarantees, around definitions, around how you define territories, that sort of thing.

But we’ve gotten nothing from the administration.

KARL: And based on even that, I mean, my sense is we are seeing Ukraine, Zelensky, willing to make concessions that I don’t think that he would have talked about a year ago, two years ago. Are we seeing any movement on the Russian side?

SHAHEEN: No, not at all. And we just introduced a resolution yesterday on the four-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine with thirty-one co-sponsors and we’re still building on those, fifteen Democrats and sixteen Republicans.

So I think the president is overlooking the fact that there is still strong—and Thom would agree with this—strong bipartisan support for Ukraine in the Senate, and in Congress for that matter.

TILLIS: And you know why that is? Because there’s also strong bipartisan support among the American people.

You know, very seldom are you going to find an instance where a politician isn’t taking the position of their constituents. That’s important. That’s their job. And the fact that we’re seeing these numbers also suggests—and I’m sure the administration is seeing the same numbers that I am—you know, the transatlantic partnership, the NATO alliance, in Ukraine matters. And bullies—the United States has a long history and the electorate has a long history of hating bullies, and Russia is a bully.

KARL: So have you seen any diminishment of that support? I mean, clearly, the president hears from people and has key—very prominent supporters, I mean, people inside the administration and outside who are adamantly opposed to the idea that the U.S. should be aiding—I mean, just blatantly pull the plug.

SHAHEEN: Well, I don’t have insights into the White House. They don’t talk to me on a regular basis.

But I can tell you that we have more Republicans signed on to this resolution this year than we did last year, and it is in Americans’ interest to support the Ukrainians because—for all kinds of reasons.

One is because they are defending democracies everywhere, and if we believe in democracy and the importance of promoting democracy around the world, Ukraine is the place where it’s happening. It’s also the place where our adversaries are watching.

One of the interesting meetings we had in Munich at the security conference was with the Japanese defense minister and one of the things he talked about was the fact that China is watching what’s going on in Ukraine and the fact that North Korea is learning a lot from Russia and from the war in Ukraine, and they’re going to bring those lessons back to North Korea and that’s going to threaten the whole region.

So the fact that we aren’t there paying attention to what’s going on, learning from this war, is to our detriment and it doesn’t make sense at all.

TILLIS: And that makes sense on any level. OK. If you go back and look at it from the standpoint of Russia’s design for moving from Ukraine to Moldova to the Balkans, we can have that discussion. All the hybrid warfare that they’re engaged in now—there’s no dispute about that.

But, folks, we had what we thought was a near-peer competitor result in adding two countries to NATO and creating the most lethal, largest military in Europe, and they’ve held him off. We’ve demonstrated that Russia has nothing to—I mean, and the ones who are learning are dying. They’re non-commissioned officers. They don’t—they can’t execute a multi-pillar attack like our NATO alliance can.

I mean, we’ve forgotten some of the capabilities because we’ve moved on that Russia’s baseline capabilities don’t exist. When do you ever give a would-be totalitarian who has his designs on reimagining and reimplementing the Russian empire an out with the abject failure that we call his decision to invade Ukraine? You put your foot on the accelerator, not on the brakes.

You know, I hate that the Russian people are having to go and live under the yoke of this murderer. But we in the West should seize an opportunity to make him lose, and if the United States is going to have its own internal challenges, I think that Europe must stand up.

They must continue to rearm. They must send the message to Vladimir Putin that you’re there for the long term, and if you’re from Europe you should be there for the long term because a success for the West and Ukraine is intrinsically linked to your own national defense.

So put the foot on the accelerator. Demonstrate to Putin that—I don’t think you’ll have to go it alone, but you’re prepared to do that because he will not succeed if we remain committed. There’s no way in any scenario where he succeeds.

KARL: That is powerfully stated. I don’t think I’ve heard anything remotely like that from this administration making that case.

SHAHEEN: You’re right. You haven’t. (Laughter.)

KARL: Yeah.

TILLIS: Yeah, but that’s—again, you know, when you go to Europe, you know, how many of you all remember the Schoolhouse Rock “I’m just a bill on Capitol Hill?”

Well, I do that sometimes when I go to Europe. I said, I’m just a bill on Capitol Hill. Let me show you how policy works here.

First off, any agreement between—Kushner and Witkoff are very accomplished businesspeople. I’m sure they’re good negotiators, but they’re not subject to Senate confirmation and they’re not subject to oversight. So, hopefully, they’ve got some adults in the room who are.

They can negotiate the broad strokes. But at the end of the day, an agreement that doesn’t be that bill on Capitol Hill that gets ratified by the U.S. Congress isn’t worth the paper it’s written on, in my opinion. It will simply not have the staying power that we need to provide long-term certainty for Ukraine and for the—for its neighbors.

So, look, I don’t care who negotiates it. It is suspect that you can negotiate a Ukraine peace, an Iranian situation, a Gaza situation, and whatever, and be the same two people. That doesn’t make any sense to me, and the reason I’m saying it is just purely from a business context, guys.

This is pretty complex, hairy stuff. You need historians. You need—you need national security experts. You need—you need people that understand at a very granular level the motivations and the past history of these people to be in a position to actually execute credible negotiations.

And it’s not that they can’t be in the room and it’s not that they can’t play an important role. But you can’t just go, oh, where’s the time? I’m off to Gaza now. I’ll get back to Russia tomorrow and, well, I’ve got to do that Iranian thing, too. What do I do? Working lunch?

I mean, it’s just not the way to project steady, strong leadership, which the world needs from the United States on these very dangerous hotspots. And, again, I very seldom disagree with what the president is trying to accomplish, but I do have some challenges with how they’re going about it and these are three good examples of the what.

You know, if the president really just wants to get Russia expelled or get to something that Volodymyr Zelensky will accept, great. But let’s just get the people in the room and focus on that and let’s get these other pieces parsed out to folks that can do an equally good job.

SHAHEEN: And it sounds funny but the reality is the State Department is missing in action—

TILLIS: Yeah.

SHAHEEN: —because the State Department has been hollowed out by this administration, and that should worry all of us.

TILLIS: But what I will—yeah.

SHAHEEN: Now, are there reforms that needed to be done at the State Department? Absolutely.

KARL: Right.

SHAHEEN: But the way they’ve gone about it is not the way to address making sure that there is a State Department that is functioning in the way that is in the best interest of the United States and our security.

TILLIS: But I’m very glad that Marco said what he said in Munich. I was there on the third row, and everybody should realize that wasn’t Marco talking. That was—that was the position of the administration and I think that’s a good first step trying to—

KARL: Yeah, explain that, because that was a—I mean, the contrast was stark, obviously, with what J.D. Vance had said the previous year where he was basically poking his fingers in the eyes of Europe saying that Europe was the problem, and then Marco Rubio comes out with the message that the Europeans found very reassuring.

I mean, how do you—how do you explain what—and what is the true message of the administration? Did it change over the course of the previous year or was it—

TILLIS: Yeah, a lot changed, by the way. This is where I get to—I know some of you probably heard this.

One of the reasons we’re here is because for the first two decades of this century too many of our NATO allies fell short of their commitment to our mutual defense to the tune of $2 trillion, folks—$2 trillion. You wonder if we had spent, those who had fallen short, the $2 trillion whether we’d even be having this discussion.

What does $2 trillion do for our interoperability? What does it do for each and every member country’s capability to defend itself, or modernization?

And so I think that J.D. went to Munich when we were still having a discussion about whether or not 2 percent or some other threshold was appropriate, and so I have to give the credit to the president. I would have never given the speech that J.D. did.

But we were a month and a half, two months, into the administration. We’re still looking down at a $2 trillion shortfall, and time to get serious. Get our industrial base back up to speed. Shift the priorities. Deal with the politics back home. Don’t come to me, as some have done in my capacity as Senate NATO Observer Group and say, well, it’s just really unpopular.

Really? Defending your own country is really unpopular back home? Are you—have you allowed that little tidbit to escape the discussion of your priorities? So like I said, I’d have never given that speech that J.D. gave. It’s just not my style.

KARL: I mean, the context is we’d also had seen in the same time period the meeting in the Oval Office with Zelensky and—

TILLIS: Yeah. Well, that’s where—that I—J.D. and I—

KARL: I mean, this is—this is about more than about what percentage of your budget goes to—

TILLIS: Well, yeah, J.D. served in the Senate for two years. J.D. and I have been on the opposite end of the spectrum on Ukraine. You know, he’s definitely—I think personally believes that it’s not a war that we should fight. We can—we can help without shedding American blood in Ukraine or we can deploy our Article 5 commitment. Which one do we want to do?

And at the end of the day, I think helping Ukraine be successful, holding it very accountable before it could ever be considered for any accession into NATO, is something I strongly feel. But I do believe that we should give them time to continue to implement the reforms that they’re doing heroically right now in their parliament.

I met with the speaker of their parliament. We met with the speaker of their parliament. They’re doing remarkable reform work there that they should be given credit for. But there should not be any notion that we negotiate a peace with two people who, you know, maybe had reasons for their behavior.

KARL: Senator?

SHAHEEN: And, look, Thom and I agree on the importance of the Europeans and our NATO allies contributing more to their own defense, and I give the president credit for setting that 5 percent threshold and pushing our allies to get there.

But the reality is this administration does not have a consistent foreign policy strategy. They have mixed messages. They have not put the kind of pressure on Putin and Russia that needs to happen if he’s going to be serious at the bargaining table.

Every person we met with in Munich said that they don’t believe Vladimir Putin is serious about negotiating a peace deal, and we are not going to get a peace deal unless we put pressure on Russia, and there are lots of ways to do that and we’ve known this for the last four years.

We need to give them the weapons that allow them to continue this fight and they need to be long-range weapons so that they can go into Russia. We need to continue the sanctions and go after Russia’s economy. There was a great piece in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week saying that Russia is not winning this war, and Russia is not winning this war.

KARL: I mean, the losses are staggering.

SHAHEEN: The 35,000 people—35,000 Russian casualties in the month of December, 1.2 million casualties, double what is—we’ve seen in Ukraine.

Now, sadly, they have the capacity to do that because they have the population and Putin controls all of the information that the Russian people get. But the reality is Ukraine can win this war and we need to put pressure on Russia to ensure that that happens, that they come to the table, that there’s a real negotiation and not weigh in consistently on the side of Russia.

For the United States to do that is antithetical to everything that I believe about our democracy here at home.

KARL: And, Senator, you led a congressional delegation to Odessa, which was the first delegation since the invasion. What was your sense of the level of resilience from Ukraine? What did you—what did you pick up in Odessa?

SHAHEEN: You know, we had—there were four senators. Unfortunately, we lost Senator Tillis because he had—

TILLIS: Family emergency.

SHAHEEN: —a family issue. So it was four Democratic senators, and we drove from the capital of Moldova, Chișinău, into Ukraine in a snowstorm, the worst snowstorm they’d seen in Odessa in twenty years, and to get into the city we had to go over a bridge and there was some concern about whether the bridge was going to be safe enough for us to go over because the Russians had destroyed the bridge in December and they had rebuilt it already.

And one of the observations we heard as we were talking to our embassy officials is that whenever something gets destroyed in Ukraine they rebuild it immediately because they’re thinking about the future.

And what we heard in that trip in Odessa—and we met with the border patrol, the folks on the Black Sea who are watching and saw all of the drones that they are fighting this battle with, more advanced drone technology than we have in the United States. They’re not buying drones from us because our drones are too expensive and they’re not technologically advanced enough.

We heard from their port officials how they’re keeping the port open. We met with some American businesspeople in Odessa who said that the Russians are targeting American businesses and we aren’t doing anything to respond to the fact that they’re targeting American businesses.

So that means people, our adversaries around the world, are saying, well, we can target American businesses with impunity because nobody’s going to come after us when we do this. But what we heard consistently was people want a peace agreement. They want a fair peace agreement. They want security guarantees.

But they’re not going to give up their freedom and they’re not going to give up their country in order to get that, and I think we should all be cheering them on and providing help in any way that we can.

KARL: Wait. Let me just underscore what you said. You said that the Russians are targeting American businesses.

SHAHEEN: Absolutely.

KARL: Deliberately targeting American businesses in Ukraine.

SHAHEEN: Yes, and I—we asked a couple of the businesspeople if they thought that the attacks were deliberate and they said yes because they’ve attacked not just once but multiple times. So they are very clear that Russia is targeting American businesses. Fifty percent of the American businesses have been targeted by Russia and hit.

KARL: Do you think the administration—do they know this? Did you, I mean—

SHAHEEN: Well, I’m sure they do because the embassy certainly is tracking this and they’re reporting back.

KARL: So the State Department knows?

SHAHEEN: Absolutely.

KARL: All right. At this time, I would like to invite all of you here to ask questions. I think we have some folks who have joined us via Zoom.

Do we have any questions? Yes? In the middle right there.

Q: Thank you. Toby Gati. I served in the NSC and State Department under President Clinton.

In talking about the U.S. public, it seems national security arguments don’t work, and business—maybe that’ll be the key to getting in. And we have very naive negotiators. The Russian negotiation—negotiators have a hundred years of experience dealing with the United States and English-speaking countries and we have zip.

My question is this. So what works? Well, in Nigeria, what worked was attacks on Christians. So my question to you is—and I did a little research on this and wrote a piece called “Ukraine is a Christian nation.” Why is there no concern in the United States about what Russia is doing to the Ukrainian people and would do to the Ukrainian church if Russia won?

At the Prayer Breakfast there was no mention of Ukraine. I listened. There’s going to be a mall. Something “One Nation Under God” is the theme. Of course, those of you who know American history know that one nation under God was against communism and Russia and the organizations like the KGB, which Putin worked for for many years. So, obviously, that’s not a problem.

So and now the Russians are selling large quantities of missiles to Iran, which would be used against our forces if we invade Iran. Why are these arguments not being used by you and by others to make the case that it’s not because we love Ukraine or it’s, you know, we feel bad for countries that are subjugated, but this is really harmful to the United States, to our security, to the future of Christianity, actually, in a large country like Ukraine.

KARL: Who wants to take that?

TILLIS: Yeah, I think there are valid questions. I think the more fundamental questions are the security of the Western world, to be honest with you.

I understand what you’re saying. I mean, you could—you could use the argument of the thousands of children who have been kidnapped and relocated. That should be a sympathetic argument.

Whether or not you wade into, you know, bias in our priorities around Christian nations or non-Christian, I tend to be very secular. I’m a Christian and born and raised that way, but I’m very secular in terms of my decision-making process.

I think there’s a variety of other arguments that should be able to be used to make it very clear there is good and there are evil at the table in these negotiations, and, you know, the Ukrainians, in some respects—a part of the reason why I think we’re still dealing with the sins of the forefathers post end of the Soviet Union, take a look at the Baltic states, for example. They moved very quickly towards reforms and they addressed the Russification of their country.

Ukraine did not move as quickly and a part of what they’re dealing with—and those leaders should be held accountable in the past for failing to move as quickly. So I think your arguments are valid. I’m just trying to be balanced, you know, in terms of my view.

I think you go back to the tried and true. This is a real stress test for NATO, for our European alliances. It’s a real stress test for Putin to see where he goes next if he succeeds at any level in Ukraine, and he will. He’s hiding in plain sight in countries like Moldova. Thank goodness for the election result there.

But I think that those are valid arguments, but the bigger arguments still carry a lot of weight and they’re the ones that I’m focused primarily on. I get your point about Nigeria, though.

KARL: Yes?

Q: David Smith of the Guardian.

Just combining Ukraine with President Trump’s recent threats to Greenland, I wonder what you thought of what happened at Davos and in particular Prime Minister Carney’s suggestion that there’s been a rupture in the global order.

Do you agree with that? And if so, can it be reversed in future?

SHAHEEN: We were part of a delegation in Copenhagen right before Davos in the height of the controversy over Greenland, and it was probably one of the most upsetting trips I’ve had since I’ve been in the United States Senate, because what we heard from our Danish allies, the people that we met with, was what’s happened in the United States?

Why—we’ve been your allies. We fought with you through two world wars. You know, Denmark recognized the United States in 1792, one of the first countries to do so. We lost as many people in Afghanistan per capita as you did, and why have you turned on us?

You know, the polling in Denmark showed that people have a more favorable opinion of China than of the United States now, and I think—

KARL: Wow. Wait, were—how did you answer the question?

SHAHEEN: I said, you know, I don’t think President Trump reflects where the American people are on this issue, just like I don’t think he reflects where the American people are in Ukraine. Maybe we weren’t very effective in our earlier arguments about why it’s in America’s national security that we take action in Ukraine.

But is there—has this affected the trust that people have in the United States? Absolutely it has. It’s going to take time to rebuild that trust and we’ve got to work on that, and that’s one of the other things we said to our Danish officials that we met with, to the Greenlandic officials that we met with, is that we are going to work on this, there is support in Congress, and that President Trump’s rhetoric doesn’t reflect where I think most Americans are.

TILLIS: Also, I think there is—European nations are at risk of overreacting and I think, certainly, before the Rubio speech, but I believe in this philosophy that nothing is ever as good or as bad as it seems. And so I’ve talked to a lot of leaders when we were in Munich just saying, you should definitely take this serious.

But to draw the conclusion that the transatlantic alliance is over and there’s a new world order is just silly. I mean, it’s emotions speaking. But we should also keep in mind, again, because I do try to call balls and strikes, when I won my election against the Democrat opponent for the Senate in 2014, I was talking about the mistakes that a president was making in Ukraine when it happened to involve the invasion of Crimea.

KARL: Right.

TILLIS: So, once again, no one should say that any one president or administration is responsible for how we got where we are because then you’re going to proceed with a different perspective if you have that balanced perspective.

I don’t think it’s the end of the transatlantic partnership. I do believe, at the end of the day, we can come out stronger, particularly if we remember not to repeat some of the mistakes that got us here to begin with with this administration.

KARL: We only have about a minute left. Let’s do one more question.

Yes?

Q: Jim Slattery.

First of all, just as a personal point, I’m awful sorry to see both of you retiring.

TILLIS: Well, that makes one of us, right? (Laughter.)

Q: You’re going to be—yeah, you’re going to be missed in the United States Senate, both of you will.

TILLIS: Thank you.

Q: You know, the Russians are constantly working day and night to sow discord in the United States and I’m just curious, have we given up on an effort to sow discord in Russia and undermine Putin’s support, you know, among the Russian people?

I mean, are—what are we doing to communicate truth to the Russian people I guess is my question.

SHAHEEN: Yeah. You know, one of the—one of the things that concerns me the most about the actions that this administration has taken has been in the information space because they’ve dismantled the—

KARL: Corporation of the—

SHAHEEN: Yeah, the —yes, the Radio Free Europe—

KARL: Radio Free Europe and what’s—

SHAHEEN: —Radio Liberty, the traditional measures that we have used around the world to try and correct misinformation and disinformation from our adversaries.

The Global Engagement Center at the State Department has been dismantled. There is not a consistent, coherent strategy for how we’re dealing with—in the information space and it’s one of the places where we are woefully behind, not just in terms of diplomacy but in terms of military engagement, because what do we see with hybrid warfare?

They come in, they disrupt cyber networks, they spread disinformation about what’s going on before they engage in military activity, and we don’t have any comparable measures to respond to that and that’s a huge problem.

We’re actually working on legislation in the Foreign Relations Committee. We haven’t gotten anything yet, but we’ve got to put back in place that structure because if we don’t we are not going to be anywhere.

You know, we had a hearing in the Foreign Relations Committee last year. Our first hearing was on China, and the former ambassador Nicholas Burns talked about the fact that China is now spending $1.2 billion on misinformation and disinformation annually, and we’re spending nothing by comparison. I don’t know how we think we’re going to compete if we’re not even on the playing field.

TILLIS: Yeah. The only thing I’d say is right now, you know, the information war—Russian people are not dumb. They’re suffering right now—the economy. We need to put our foot on the accelerator of the real and that is going after more interdiction of the ghost fleet, trying to get Orbán to have a brain and realize he shouldn’t be spending so much money on Russian oil.

I mean, just continue to put them into the funnel and make their economy suffer and let the Russian people, hopefully, find freedom as a result of that failure. But, you know, information war right now, I think—I agree with everything that Jeanne said, but we’ve got to play with the hand we’re dealt and right now we need to run up the score on pressure, and that will speak volumes.

There’s only so long a population can suffer the way the Russian people are because of the illegal invasion of Ukraine, and we need to continue to exact pain there.

KARL: Unfortunately, we’re out of time. This could go on—I’d go on a lot longer with both of you. Thank you very much—

TILLIS: Thank you.

SHAHEEN: Thanks a lot.

KARL: —Senator Tillis, Senator Shaheen. Thank you to the Council. (Applause.)

(END)

This is an uncorrected transcript.