Putin and the Presidents: Marie Yovanovitch (interview) | FRONTLINE

In late 2021, President Joe Biden is informed that Russia plans to attack Ukraine or Syria for a full-scale invasion, what is at stake then? What is at stake in this invasion of Ukraine? by Russia? I think it's a pretty important moment because it's not just about the invasion of a sovereign country on the border of Russia without any provocation and I should say a proper re-invasion because of course the war had been going on since 2014, but obviously this was in a much broader scope. scale and you know, frankly, if Russia is allowed to get away with it, if Russia tramples all over Ukraine and takes it over, then it affects the entire international order that we've been living in since World War II and that makes, um because you already know if Putin and his ilk are capable of setting the rules for how countries cooperate or you don't know that it's a world where might makes right and the smaller countries will have to endure and even though the United States is a country larger one that creates a less secure world in every way and less secure for more Americans, a less prosperous world (you can imagine what it does to supply chains) and certainly a less free world, so I think there was a lot at stake and You can see how the Biden administration responded, it responded by bringing together allies and partners, you know, in those months leading up to the war, you know there was a sanctions plan, there was a military assistance plan and you know that once The war started in February of '22.

Clearly, that plan was accelerated beyond anything any of us could have imagined, I think in 2021 and, yes, I think the stakes were very high and they continued to be very high, I mean the plans, as you say. they were very explicit the warnings were very explicit yes and I should have said that the release of information was incredible, the president was talking to Putin, he was saying that maybe public statements were being made, there was a meeting of allies and yet Putin Aren't you dissuaded? Don't you think the threats have credibility at that time? Why can't Biden deter Putin well at that time?

And I should say that while Biden is certainly the leader of a sort of Western Coalition for lack of a better word, many already know. Other leaders tried it too. I think Putin had a plan. I think he wanted to implement it. He had made certain evaluations. It's pretty clear that he had a large and powerful army that would only take a couple of days to gain strength and beyond that. Unity would not hold and the Ukrainians are not really a real people, they are not a real country, they have a tiny army compared to Russia's and they would not fight, oh and if they did fight, it would not be effective and It turned out that all those evaluations were incorrect.

He announces the war he calls a special military operation in February. He gives a speech and one of the notable things about the speech, known from the Empire of Lies quote, is that he has a lot of words. The beginning of the speech, the first third of the speech, is actually about the United States, the West, and its domination. Are you, as someone who knows Putin, surprised to hear that he is about to invade Ukraine and yet he is starting his speech? talking about the United States, yeah, um, and he continues to do that well, I mean the speech he gave at the beginning of the UN General Assembly, I mean in Moscow, the Russian people, too, you know, talk, talk about West and how.

The West is at war with us. That's not an exact quote, but that's certainly the point. I think, you know, it's hard for me to know to what extent Putin really believes this or to what extent he has just convinced himself that This is what he needs to share with his cohort, with the Russian people, to justify the measures that he has taken over time and you know, most recently, this attack on Ukraine, but the issue of the West being aggressive against Russia. "You know that NATO is a threat to Russia, it has been a predominant threat for decades and I would also say that I don't think you know that again.

One of the miscalculations that Putin made was that you know that Ukraine is not a real threat ". country and so I think Russia sees Ukraine, in some ways, doing America's bidding, that Ukraine is somehow, you know, a pawn of the United States and we're telling them what to do. Do you know someone who is a former ambassador to Ukraine? I can tell you. It's not like that, but I think that's what Putin believes, to the extent that the Ukrainians defend themselves, you know, I think Putin sees that as the West and, of course, from the West he has been helping Ukraine through sanctions with military assistance, economic assistance, you know, that adds more fuel to the fire, so to speak, because of that belief, do you think it's been building to this momentum for a while?

I think so. that um, you've just been waiting, I mean, it's the pattern of your presidency, whether it's Chechnya, whether it's Georgia in 2008, uh, whether it's Ukraine, one, uh, in 2014, 2015 and now this, I think I think Putin is eager to restore the old Russian Empire and is willing to wait. I mean, I think he believes and I think he still believes that the West is going to lose interest that we're going to turn our backs on the next shiny object that's out there and it's not going to stay the course in Ukraine and then he can, you know, continue uh and you know he's also told us that you know he has his sights on other countries as well, so he, you know, in some ways, you can't.

Trust what he says because he lies in other ways, he tells us exactly who he is and what his plans are, so differentiating between the two can sometimes be a real setback. I'd like to go back to what you said about um, you know, the West is the Empire of Lies. It's really interesting that Putin said that before the war because here are the United States and Britain, you know, releasing intelligence that Russia is aiming to invade Ukraine, and you know, I've never seen anything. Like, it's unprecedented in my experience, and it turns out that all the intelligence that was shared actually turned out to be true, right? all made up lies, so you know exactly where the Empire of Lies is, so let's go back to how we got here because one of the things Putin said in that speech on February 24, 2022 is that we lost trust for a moment. and it was enough to upset the balance of forces in the world.

He is talking about the collapse of the Soviet Union and presumably Gorbachev and Yeltsin. How do you understand how Putin viewed the collapse of the Soviet Union and how he influenced who he is today? Yes. Well, you know, I don't have any special knowledge, but I mean, I think we should take him at his word here when he said that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest tragedy of the previous century. I mean, I think so. I guess I mean, you can only imagine what it must have been like as a young KGB officer in eastern East Germany, um and you know your whole country disappears or is in the process of disappearing, you're there on the front lines, uh, and the Communist Party will obviously lose their death raise and it must have been devastating.

I mean, sometimes you know how useful it is to try to put yourself in someone else's shoes and I think that must have been a serious situation. Now what we see is that he quickly adapts and you know, he becomes deputy mayor of Leningrad, St. Petersburg, and you know he is the guy who, given his experience, handles international relations, now it is not the capital, but it is a big city and there are a lot of businesses, a lot of foreigners from foreign governments who want to go to Petersburg and he is the one who manages all that and, you know, in the course of that, that is the beginning of his accumulation of the great wealth that he supposedly has , would you think that because we are going to talk in particular about Ukraine but also about Georgia?

How does he seem to you or what does he say? How do you see the loss of what they call the near abroad? Yes Well, I think the term "near abroad" is not "foreign", as if Britain were abroad. France is abroad, but the Russians in this new configuration cannot even call the other former republics as if they were completely abroad. they are the near abroad and I think from the beginning there was a sense that Moscow would still make all the decisions, that countries would look to Russia for everything and there was an attempt to, you know, create the Commonwealth of Independent States that never really got too much. , but you know, we didn't know what it was going to be and I think there were high hopes in Moscow that it would be a new version of the former Soviet Union.

Do you think that couldn't be done? at that time I saw the United States as a strategic threat or a strategic enemy. We've talked to people who said the United States wasn't the one who made the Soviet Union fall apart, but do you think that's how he thought? I think it is dificult. to know and um, you know, that was certainly how he was raised, uh, you know, the propaganda films of um, you know, the Soviet Union, which you know he has written, uh, you know, were enormously influential in him as a child and they determined his first choice of profession one that, frankly, he's probably never abandoned, at least in terms of his heart, but I think there's probably a progression, I think, as he, you know, it's pretty clear that He didn't approve of, you know, a lot of the policies and guidelines of the early '90s, to try to apply shock therapy to Russia, you know, make the economy work on a market basis, and he, I think.

He saw it as a humiliation that Russia was accepting help from the West, not only the United States, but also other countries. The reason for this was that Russia was requesting help. It's not like we forced this on Russia, and you know, we provided it to them. our best help and these were plans that came together with the Russian government and other actors and I think he felt that the effect on the Russian people was very difficult and I think anyone who was there in the early '90s and I'm one of those people you know it was a really difficult time because you have this transition, but all the laws and regulations to protect people and to make sure that things happen not just in a legal setting. technically legal, but a fair path, um, we are not in their place, so you know, the strong and the ruthless were able to benefit greatly and the little babushki in boarding houses, you know, sometimes they were literally left on the street and that's something that I know was a terrible thing, um, and I think that had a really profound impact on everyone, including probably Putin.

However, I would point out that he was in the cohort of the strong and ruthless, he was an Insider, so he could make those deals and benefit personally from them and, you know, I mean what we've seen over time, not from immediate, but over time, is the rise of the KGB state, where the security, the security agencies, not only became strong politically, but they also became very strong economically. and his leadership was very strong, you know, he benefited greatly from that period of time in these early years of Putin. It seems like we're trying to figure out who he is, if he's a reformer, if he's the former KGB. agent the famous moment when George W.

Bush says that he looks into his eyes and sees the soul of him in that early period. What did Americans understand and what did President Bush understand? I mean, were you surprised to hear something like that from President Bush? I was surprised by that particular quote. I think probably most people were, but I think there was hope, you know, Yeltsin had been a good partner for the United States. I think he really wanted to lead his country to democracy and a market economy. because that was good for Russia, we thought it was also good for the United States and I think Yeltsin wanted to be, you know, a partner of the West, now he was a deeply flawed man, as many

presidents

are, and he was, um, you.

I am obviously an alcoholic and made many mistakes along the way. And I think someone like Putin and those around him saw the relationship with the West and particularly the United States as somehow humiliating to Russia, which we saw as an attempt to build. a partnership, I think I do believe that and I saw it as something more, that Russia was the junior partner, but what we were trying to do in the 1990s was bring Russia into the fold of the International Community, um, you know, Clinton. We invite Russia to become a member of the G8.

The Russian economy was not the eighth largest economy in the world, but in our attempt to attract Russia and help it in this to manage its own transition, but also to manage its relationships abroad, we wanted to, you know. brought Russia to the table so that Russia understood the benefits of the rules-based international order, that Russia would also benefit greatly from this and, you know, and then in the 1990s, it seemed like this was, you know, moving forward in a positive way. You know, NATO established a special NATO-Russia Council. Putin himself when he became president participated in that several times and certainly participated in the General Assembly for many, many years.

But I think once Putin came to power. You know his old instincts, let's say something like that. He was activated and, although initially in the first years we had high hopes that we would have a good partner in Putin, that Russiawould continue to work in the family of nations, you know, the first thing he did was consolidate his own power by going after the oligarchs, going after the press, etc., then that extended to international relations and I think what we do to Sometimes it's that you know that foreign policy is essentially a hopeful business because you have to keep waiting. and you know, work constructively to realize those hopes and that's what we were doing with our hand extended to Russia, um during that time, including uh, you know, many years of Putin's presidency, um, unfortunately, Putin he didn't want to take that outstretched hand and as the The color revolutions that occurred in 2003 and 2004 are a turning point in his understanding of the West or his attitude towards the United States.

I don't know if it's a turning point, um, it could be a turning point, it could also be sort of further solidifying your view that we're up to no good in what you know they called and you just called the near stranger. . um, you know, this is Russia's backyard. Russia believes in spheres of influence, so Putin found it deeply threatening that, um, you know, in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, um. there would be what became known as color revolutions because if democracy can prevail in countries geographically and in some cases historically close to Russia, then the question arises, maybe it can also do it in Russia and there is also a personal element for Putin, I think , when he sees the images of the leaders expelled from his country and of course he takes in some of those leaders and I think he finds it, you know, not just politically for Russia. threatening, but I personally want to say that now he also talked about it in terms of the Russian Empire and in terms of Russia's fear of influence and making Russia great again, that part is also that if these places sided with the West, his hopes of rebuilding Russian greatness were also a threat, yes I'm sure that's true and I should go back to your previous question.

He should also do it because he does not respect these countries and the people there. um, you know, certainly in the case of Ukraine they are not. a different people, it is not a different culture or history according to Vladimir Putin. How come there are revolutions there? It must be because the West is holding those countries up to par when, in fact, you know nothing could be further from the truth, you know? We were just catching up on events, you know, like everyone else, because you know these were movements that came from scratch and even you know, if you talk to people in Kyrgyzstan and Georgia and, in Ukraine, they didn't.

I didn't know they were going to be successful until suddenly there was a turning point and they were like, yeah, I think it's a mix of things, as you point out when you get to 2007 and that speech comes out in Munich. It's a lot like 2022 when it talks about the West and the Empire of Lies and you said you were writing your book. We did not fully understand Putin's words and what a threat they turned out to be. What did you mean right? I think you know. It's ironic that, you know, Putin was looking at the United States and perhaps more so at the West, as if he was somehow so focused on Russia and that we were a threat to Russia that he would, you know, give a speech like him.

I did it in Munich, because actually, at least from my perspective, in 2001, after 9/11, we completely dropped the ball on Russia. You know, we were completely focused on terrorism. You know, it's hard to remember now, but we weren't talking about whether there would be. Another attack on the Homeland that we were talking about when, because of that, all the resources flowed into the war on terrorism, first there was Afghanistan, then there was Iraq, you know, there are other areas that we focus on as possible terrorist threats to the States Joined. States and our partners and allies and um, that's where everything was focused, so I think from our point of view there were almost a lot of people, I think they understood what Putin was saying, but I think a lot of other people were almost taken aback. because it was so far from the truth and you know all you had to do was evaluate where we were putting our attention and our resources so it wasn't taken completely seriously and like I said you know we were completely focused on something. otherwise, there was no bandwidth to, you know, start regrouping and it didn't seem, at least in 2007, that there was a need for that when the invasion of Georgia happens, the end of the Bush administration, what's the message you are sending?

Vladimir Putin at that moment well, I think again this is my neighborhood, you know what I want to hear um sakashvili fell into a trap uh and um it became clear that we were not well, we provided a lot of economic aid after the war that we were not going to intervene militarily and I think Putin had probably made that assessment and was right in that assessment, it's hard to know what would have happened if the Bush administration had continued for another two or three years because what happened, as you know is that Obama won the presidency and then there was a reboot and that's not that unusual.

I think that each administration comes wanting to restore relations not only with Russia but with other countries that have been, let's say, challenging or problematic, and you know, Old Men, you know you didn't do it well, but we are because again in foreign policy we are an optimistic group that we are going to be able to do this, the timing is better, the personalities are different, whatever we do. through sheer force of will and, um, then the Obama administration came in and despite, I think, some reservations on the part of some pretty prominent people, they went ahead with the reboot and therefore the invasion of a sovereign nation of Georgia, uh, was swept. swept under the rug and you know, I was surprised to find out that not even the Bush administration had implemented sanctions against Russia because of Georgia, they didn't, you know, there were some discussions and things like that and of course it was at the same time. end of the administration, but there was actually no penalty for the Russian invasion of Georgia and then there was a new administration and, you know, we tried to start all over again.

I hadn't thought about that, that the invasion actually happens right at the end of Bush and that if Obama is going to do the reset, he won't do it, he can't put Georgia at the top of the agenda, so what we did was give George massive economic assistance, um and um, you know, continue to help Georgia with its, you know, democratic and economic transitions, you know, and for a while that worked. I mean, clearly, Georgia has a number of challenges right now, but when you say there were reservations about the restart, what were the reservations? I think the reservations are what we've been talking about, that um, Russia is an aggressive country, you know, the first test was Georgia, um, but that the repression, if not repression, of Russian society was evident even in 2008 um, and then I know maybe it shouldn't be business as usual with this big, flashy Hillary Clinton and Sergey Lavrov with the reset button, um, which turns out was the overload button.

We made a mistake with the Russian word, but maybe we understood it more correctly. what we realized and Putin must have taken something from that, not just from the Obama administration, but from both of them, what were the consequences or lack thereof of Georgia, yes, I think with respect to Georgia, I think that what he took from that is that yes, there will be some complaints, but that the West doesn't care as much, you know George, in other countries in that part of the world, since the rhetoric could indicate that it can weather the criticism and that It's what he did and you know he's a patient man.

I mean, he'll wait years to continue doing what he wants to do and I also have to say you know that since I'm implicitly criticizing the reboot. here, um, that, after the reset, some really positive things happened in the relationship between the United States and Russia that were important to our national security, so I don't want to gloss over that, I mean, you know what happens with foreign policy. about Homeland Security is that you know, it's never perfect and you have to, uh, you have to know how to weigh the balance on how you want to move forward, but going back to your question about what he took from Georgia, I think he thought, well, I can get away with mine and then with Ukraine, uh, in 2014, uh, I think it was, you know, that same calculation and you know, the guy who calls us the Empire of Lies, you know that all along, I mean, it took him about a year to admit that the little green men in Crimea were Russian soldiers, that happened very quickly and then it blew um, suddenly Crimea was illegally annexed by um by the Russians um and then you saw what happened in the east in Dom boss with this low level war and we applied sanctions um and we applied um um a lot of political pressure and we expelled Putin from the G8 um and there was some pain in the Russian economy um but mostly, you know, I think Putin felt that he could weather that storm and that again, while we provided military assistance, we were also very clear with the Ukrainians that they should not provoke Russia, which, as you know, you also hear today in some circles and you know from my point of view.

From the point of view, I mean, who is provoking who here? Russia invaded Ukraine if that is not the biggest provocation in history. I don't know what it is and you know that countries have the right to do that to defend themselves and retain their sovereign territory when to say that they are told not to provoke Russia is that when you are there at the end of the Obama administration, is that period of the What are you talking? um that's the only period I really want to talk about because I just know, but yeah, I mean, I think we were telling the Ukrainians to be very, very careful, um and um, you know, yeah, so I want to talk to you about that in a little more detail, but let me know and ask you first. message that he sent when there are famous comments from President Obama about Russia being a regional power, he talks to Mitt Romney and says, "You know, the 1980s called and they want to take back their foreign policy," what was the message that Obama was sending?

Was he wrong about that? As? was that President Putin perceived it well. I think what we know about President Putin is that he is a proud man who sees Russia as a great nation and wants to expand it into the great Empire that it once was and um, you know, I think those comments were um seen as putting down Russia and I don't think President Putin liked it at all and it was a mistake. I mean, there was a focus that we would move to Asia and I'm going to focus on there's a lot going on and there's a wrong deal and whatnot, but was it a mistake to lose focus on Russia if that's what happened in the highest levels of the White House?

So I would just point out that when the Biden Administration came in, the same thing happened, you know we're going to focus on Asia and I think you know the United States is a great power. I think we are now in a moment of international transition and, therefore, the role of the United States. It's changing just like other countries and I'm not just talking about Russia and China, but you know there are many, many countries that are clamoring for a seat at the table, so I think the role of the United States is changing. you know Bill Burns, who is now, of course, the head of the CIA, he calls it, that the United States is becoming the fundamental power.

I mean, maybe not the only superpower, but the power that, you know, determines the direction that international affairs are going. coming in and so, as you know, as we make that transition, we are going to continue to have to pay attention to all parts of the world, we need you to know how to have the depth to be able to know if it is militarily, if it is if it is diplomatically, if it is economically to be able to deal with China, to be able to deal with Russia, to be able to deal with other countries.

I mean, that's vitally important and, um, yeah, I mean, I would just say that we didn't completely do it. transition in the Obama years um and um, you know, hopefully we're doing it now, the invasion of Crimea happens, the war in the East is starting, you become an ambassador, there's a debate within the administration, I don't know if It will be resolved by the time you arrive. Whether or not we're involved in that about decent Jafflins to Ukraine, we've heard now that President Biden was on one side of the debate and President Obama made a decision on the other side, what that debate was about and why it was important , so I arrived in Ukraine in August 2016.

So that was at the end of the Obama years and it wasn't really an active discussion anymore because the president had made his decision and we weren't going to send javelins to Ukraine. Now I think he was, you know,

presidents

have their own foreign policy, but I think he was in a real minority in terms of Homeland Security leadership and that this was the right way to go, so the issue was resurrected in the Trump government. years and it took about a year for Trump to finally approve the first shipment of javelins and then, you know, they were delivered and so what would that be in 2018?

Did you support this debate that started in 2018? the Obama years before the Trump years providing these types of weapons yeah what was the argument that you and others were making um I thought thatit was important um you know when I became a participant in these discussions the javelins had acquired this symbolic value much greater than their use in the field if you can believe that because when the javelins were first, so to speak, put on the table in 2014 2015 is something we could or should provide to the Ukrainians it was a tank battle so javelins are obviously anti-tank missiles so they would have been very useful at that time when I got to Ukraine it was a different kind of battle , President Poroshenko, every time we met with him he said, you know, our biggest casualties come from snipers, it was a sniper war, it was something like that, you know, there were no more Russian tanks advancing into Ukraine, so the javelins in that particular moment maybe they weren't the most critical equipment we could send to the Ukrainians, but they took on the symbolic value of, you know, the United States really stands behind Ukraine and for that reason I supported them.

I'm so glad they got there because as we've seen in 2022, they were a huge help, as were the additional supplies we've sent. Regarding Vice President Biden's role in Ukraine, we've heard that he goes there a lot in recent years. two years of the Obama administration in their meeting what is Joe Biden's role is to take charge of Ukraine policy how involved is he yes, he was very, very involved and again I can only speak personally to, you know, the last four or five months into the administration um but he was the key person um you know he had um he was the one leading the political efforts now you know President Obama was still in charge since we just discussed the javelin decision um but you know that there are a lot of parts of our foreign policy that don't make it to the highest levels or the highest level and President Biden was the person who I think had been assigned the Ukraine file and was coordinating it, you know, in all the different levels of economic assistance, energy security assistance, etc., etc., and had very frequent calls with President Poroshenko to encourage him, you know, to move forward and move in a positive direction, must have really shaped the way he approaches it now. because he knows the people, he knows the area probably in a way that most presidents wouldn't understand.

I think that's true and if you look at the people who are most involved in Ukraine policy today in this Administration, they were also involved. in the Obama administration as well, and I think that has shaped how everyone, first and foremost the president, but also other people, are responding. Did he see it? Did you see it at the time in the existential terms that people talk about now? they say this is about democracy this is about authoritarianism this is about the rule of law or is it really about practical problems in Ukraine there was that kind of existential talk um no um at least I wasn't aware of those conversations if they took place Um , it seemed that Russia's goals were more modest, let's say, although still completely wrong and objectionable, so Russia took Crimea.

Russia took parts of boss Dom, but it seemed to me that what Russia wanted was to create this instability in Ukraine with the war going on. It was happening in the East, so it didn't often make headlines in the US, but you know, two or three people died every week, you know, sometimes civilians, sometimes soldiers, that's a burden on a nation. I mean, they were the internally displaced people that you know we heard about. we heard a lot about now, well, what happened in Ukraine all those years, where the communities just absorbed the internally displaced people, um, and Russia was organizing cyber attacks, there was all kinds of disinformation, there were assassinations of leaders in kyiv and also . in other very specific places, so I think all of that, plus you know a live hot war in the middle of Europe was destabilizing Ukraine and made it more difficult for the leadership to achieve their aspirations like EU membership. and Poroshenko at least was in favor of NATO membership at the time most Ukrainians were not thanks to Vladimir Putin's reinvasion of Ukraine.

Of course, now all Ukrainians are in favor of membership in both NATO and the EU. How profound was the change when Donald Trump was elected here on the ground there, could you feel a change in the policy or the message or how the United States was perceived vis-à-vis Russia, especially vis-à-vis Russia? So I think there was a lot of concern in Ukraine when Donald Trump was elected president in November. 2016 because of some of the comments he had made that you know Crimea is Russia, I think that made people nervous also his comments about foreign assistance, in general, no, no, with respect to Ukraine because the United States was the most important partner for Ukraine not only in terms of our training and assistance program on the security side, but also on the economic assistance side and, politically, I mean, we support Ukraine in international forums and so on, for which I think there was a big concern in Ukraine that, um. when president when when Trump became president that he would change the policy um you know, it turned out that he never officially changed the policy I mean, we had an interagency review, I mean, not at the presidential level, but you know, by Trump's people at In February and they basically blessed the same policy that you didn't know that nobody presented it as such, but it was the same policy as during the Obama years and then once President Trump made the decision about the javelins, I really felt that our policy had strengthened, we were watching it, I mean there are policies on two levels, one is the actual policy of the United States and then there is another one that you should be watching, for example, Trump just before I go to hell, Pinky, He goes to Brussels and gets dressed. below Secretary General Stoltenberg is very critical of NATO, what are you thinking at a time like that, especially his criticism of NATO in a very public way?

It was shocking, it was shocking and it was disturbing and it did not help in dealing with our allies. That's how it happened. I was in Odessa at the time. We had a big multinational exercise in the Black Sea so you know a lot of our military leaders were there and you know I really saw. the Helsinki press conference with Trump and Putin from my hotel room in Odessa after a long day of military exercises where it's about getting to know Ukraine, the United States and all the other partner countries working together on the side of the security.

And so you know seeing that was, it was again, it was shocking and I was glad that we were able to say in Ukraine, look what we're doing, what we're doing is providing security assistance and, more recently, Yeah, you know, the boss of American forces in Europe with us in Odessa, you know, started these exercises, that's what we're tangibly doing to provide support to Ukraine. I don't know how much you were aware of which president. Trump was saying how much was public and how much was private, but he certainly describes Ukraine in his private conversations as basically a totally corrupt country and he certainly doesn't frame it in terms of a country fighting for democracy and independence.

What was the effect of how President Trump viewed Ukraine and did so? Did you notice that at that time, in June of 2018, so early in Trump's presidency, that he made an um uh or did his people make an arrangement to meet with Putin in the summer of 2018 and of course we had on our side and Ukraine had been pushing for a meeting with President Poroshenko and I think when the meeting with Putin was arranged, smart people in Washington decided that this would actually be a very good idea for a little bit of inoculation and, in that meeting, Trump came out and told him He said towards the end of the meeting to Poroshenko that Ukraine was a very corrupt country and I have to say, you know, Poroshenko did a good job defending Ukraine.

I mean, corruption exists in every country, including the United States, and it certainly exists in Russia, so if the big problem is corruption, then you would think that President Trump would have had the same reservations about dealing with Russia. I don't think it was like that. The core of the problem and was it undermining support for Ukraine or Ukraine's strength or perceived strength? Well, I think that made the UK nervous all the time, you know, foreign policy institutions like the State Department, the Department of Defence, others, wondering if there might be at some point in the future a change in our policy. if that had never happened when I was Ambassador, but it created this element of uncertainty because even though the policy remained the same, it was clear where the president's heart was, let's say um and um, I think that made the Ukrainians very nervous because if they lost support from the US, it would have been pretty devastating for the Ukrainians for the Ukrainian cause, um, even you know, in 2018, before Russia invaded again, but I think it also provided silly support and um for The President Putin and his own views on Ukraine and what he could do there before his house did, if that's the right word, did you have a sense that policy was changing or that aid was being delayed? or that policy towards Ukraine was changing uh no, I didn't because I think some of the events you're referring to regarding security assistance occurred months after I left Ukraine, but you didn't have any indication on that moment that on a political basis things were changing the relationship was changing No, in fact we were working.

I don't remember exactly where we were, but we have javelins for Crane and so what happens? What happens to you in the middle of this? How do you hear that? the white house is not happy with you, well, I heard it first from the Ukrainians that, you know, former mayor Giuliani was working with some Ukrainians who were in Ukraine and who they were also working with, I should say Ukrainian-American citizens, who We were working with Attorney General Lucenko who wanted me gone because we knew we were pushing for reform and he wasn't, so, you know, I mean, I heard this and I would go back to Washington, but of course I was.

Going to official Washington, I wasn't going to go to Rudy Giuliani to fix this and official Washington was basically saying, "Don't worry about this, you know there's nothing you can do," and in fact, in early March of 2019 I They asked me to extend for another year or so even when there were these rumors, on the one hand, that you know several people, particularly Giuliani, but not only were they trying to remove me, there was also the State Department asking me to stay, so it was quite confusing. we say and what I tried to do, I mean, what I tried to do was just do my job, you know, because it's kind of hard to parse all of that and as you figure out what's really going on, how do you describe it?

I decided that politics was more important than US foreign policy. How would you describe what the president was doing, what his allies were doing, and how well they treated Ukraine? So to check the schedule, I realized this was serious towards the end of March um, they told me I had to leave immediately at the end of April and I did and then I packed my bags again and left permanently on the 20th. May. I found out what was happening, you know, in real time along with the American public and the journalists and the people who were investigating all this stuff, you know, the release of the transcript of the perfect phone call and the release of the report The Whistleblower, I mean, I watched all of that at the same time as everyone else.

I did and when I was removed during those months, I didn't know anything about the things that were moving forward, so just to clarify for people, I mean, and now that you know the president and his allies, what was their approach towards Ukraine? . foreign policy toward the election what's the big picture of what they were doing right I think the big picture is that President Trump, you know, in Exhibit a is the perfect phone call that he was using Ukraine, using our you know, assistance from the US government, security assistance. to a partner country for his own personal and political game, he was willing, you know, the Congress of the US government had authorized this because we thought it was good for Ukraine, but first of all, because helping Ukraine was in our national security interest. defend himself and um Trump was willing to put that on hold until he got a favor, although from President Zielinski the American people deserve better. um, we, we deserve a president who, um, you know, preserves and protects the United States and defends the American people. and what we saw was a president who was willing to undermine the Constitution, undermine the security of the American people for his own benefit.

I am referring to Vladimir Putin, who has said that talking about democracy and supporting allies is hypocritical, everything is a matter of interestown. just talk, I mean, what does a moment like that do for him? I think it emboldens him, because I think you know Vladimir Putin has a pretty negative view about the United States, about our society, he thinks he's weak and wasteful and, you know, lacking. moral, kind of a different society than Russia and, um, he thinks like you just said, we talk a lot about our values, but when it comes to knowing we're no better than anyone else and that's what Russia keeps trying.

Push that, okay, you know, I don't mean they say the first part, okay, we can be bad, they just say you know everyone, everything is relative, everyone does it and you know, look what America is doing and I think you know it. The phone call really showed uh what uh what Putin had been saying and what other dictators had been saying about the United States when you see your name on that phone call and the bad news and the way they describe to you what your reaction is. uh it was physics, I was actually teaching a class at Georgetown University uh and when I read the text someone in the room said my face actually turned white because you know I had already been removed from my position as ambassador.

Extremely unusual presidents have the right to appoint ambassadors and to remove them but they do not usually do it accompanied by a smear campaign because there is no reason for a smear campaign you simply remove the Ambassador so that people would know that something else was going on and that he was paying attention. attention um and so when I saw that transcript I thought what else um you know, he said that I was bad news but he also said that she was going to go through some things and I thought what else does he have in mind um and I didn't know and that was , you know, this is the The most powerful man in the world says I'm going to go through some things after being you know, for all intents and purposes, shot.

My last question about the Trump period is why Putin didn't put more pressure on Ukraine? What happened at The Vineyards? Why not? Did you think about why it didn't happen during the Trump years? Yes, so I would like to make two points: the first is that Putin was building a bridge across the Kirch Strait. which connected Crimea to mainland Russia and had been doing so during the Trump years and was completed in the Trump years and then in November 2018, right before Thanksgiving weekend. Russian ships, actually Russian state ships. They fired on Ukrainian ships in international waters and then towed them to Russia, so you know it was an escalation, you know, in terms of the naval domain, now they were working in the naval domain and it was also the first time that Russia right off the bat said yes, these are our warships and we take responsibility for this action, and that happened under Trump's watch and usually what would happen with something like this is, this happened, you know, in the U.S. .USA on a Sunday after Thanksgiving.

So it's not a good time, but even in most administrations what would happen is that there would be an immediate statement, a phone call, you know, to Lavrov or the Minister of Defense, you know, Stand Down Russia, um, and you know, release these ships in international waters because these types of actions take time, you know, hours and hours passed before the Russians received the order to tow these ships and we did nothing, the Europeans, you know, issued all kinds of statements, but we didn't do anything and, you know, in Reading. It was clear in John Bolton's book that he felt like he had to help delay any kind of constructive action on our part because the president wasn't sure if maybe the Ukrainians weren't somehow wrong, so I think that all of that sends a message to Putin that he can do whatever he wants, but I think here's the other thing, in that case he used the instrument of war for his purposes, but he's getting pretty much everything he needs from President Trump. getting um, you know, kind of a slap in the face to NATO, the humiliation of our best allies.

I mean, the list goes on and on and on and you know it's clear that while maybe the policy hasn't changed with respect to Ukraine, with respect to Russia. that maybe over time he could do it under a President Trump, so I think Putin was probably banking on a second term of President Trump and hoping he could get his way on a lot of things, whether it's NATO or Ukraine without using the instrument from the war. What was Biden's approach to Putin in just his first month? What was he doing? Well, you know, I'm not sure I have the granularity that you're looking for, but I think you know, as we discussed before the Biden Administration.

It was if I didn't want to make a pivot towards Asia, very focused on China, and you know, what I came up with with China and then there was, you know, the meeting between Biden and Putin, and I think it was June of uh um, I guess which would be 2021 and you know, I think it was a working meeting where I think Biden was hoping to lay out the path forward, um, you know, but they didn't have a joint press conference. maybe we're calling Trump Putin's press conference, I don't know, but you know it wasn't, let's say, some kind of warm meeting of minds, some kind of summit, but you know it seemed like the way forward was is going to be. relatively constructive um and then you know Putin started building in um I think it was September 2021 and you know over the months um you know there were a lot of men in material 200 000 almost men um that were completely surrounding Ukraine so It was clear that perhaps we were not on that constructive path forward, so the Biden Administration rallied allied countries and partners to begin supporting Ukraine.

In talking to people who know Biden, I get the sense that his belief was I have no illusions about Putin. I don't think I can see his soul. He is a killer, but maybe he is someone if we understand who we can work with, but maybe Putin at that point in his presidency was not someone he could. being deterred in the traditional way do you think that Putin had changed by that time and that he was not as susceptible to traditional diplomacy, the warnings, the threats, maybe I mean, you know he had been in office two decades?

It's clear from what we've seen about how he, how he handles his most senior partners and associates, that you know he's in charge, that he's probably not getting the best information, that no one has won by telling him and saying hello boss, knows? That could be a strategic miscalculation here and I think you know it wasn't just Biden, who knows what kind of impression Biden made on Putin, so we have Afghanistan, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which I think was worldwide. . seen as, you know, mismanaged and a sign of waning US power soon after, Putin actually starts the build up and you know, in Europe, the stars are changing or realigning in Europe as well with Angela Merkel leaving the scene.

Um, Boris Johnson in the UK, you know enough, he said the French election was coming up with the possibility of a really hard swing to the right and I think you know he looked at all of that and made a calculation that Biden wouldn't be able to. to lead an international group of countries to support Ukraine and that there would be no will to support Ukraine um and that even if it was there at the beginning it would not continue and I think he miscalculated, he miscalculated that the Ukrainians defend themselves, how dangerous this is. The moment he's at now you know he's making nuclear threats.

He has invested a lot in this nationally and internationally. How dangerous is the moment we find ourselves in now. I think it is a very dangerous moment. I think it's a dangerous time. For Ukraine, I think it's a dangerous time for Russia, but I also think it's a dangerous time for other countries in the world because it's hard to see what the path forward is. You know, the Russians are doubling down because they are losing and in order to break free if they are even willing to break free and that is an open question for me, but in order to break free they need to have a better situation on the ground, they need to be winning well, and So that will put them in a good position for eventual negotiations, the Ukrainians are also doubling down because they are winning, but even more importantly because this is an existential struggle for Ukraine.

I mean, Putin has made it clear and those around him have made it clear that they do not see Ukrainians as the distinct people and cultures that they do not believe that Ukraine is its own country and that, as you know, it should be reabsorbed into Russia if the Ukrainians lose , they lose everything and therefore they are not going to give up, so you know you have these two opposing forces and then the question is what does the outside world do. I would say that we must act very carefully, but we also have no choice because if we say that we are not going to support Ukraine even though it is the right thing to do, we will not do it because Vladimir Putin is threatening the nuclear option or any other scandalous thing that going to do, that's not going to solve the problem, it's just going to take Ukraine and it's going to continue.

This continues and we're going to be threatened in ways that get even closer to our most vital national security concerns, so, you know, we have a choice. I suppose we can confront, and I use the word confront cautiously, but we can help Ukraine prevail now or confront Russia at a later date, but that could come at a time that you know Russia chooses and at a time that is not necessarily advantageous to the United States, so this is, you know, what the military would call a wicked problem, I mean, like what is the solution because there are many different impacts and effects and, as you know, yesterday we saw the Russians supposedly sabotage their own gas pipelines to ensure that there would be no gas supply to Europe and create an environmental disaster in the Baltic.

Mar, I mean, all kinds of inexplicable and unimaginable things are happening right now, so we must unite, I think first of all we must stand firm because on the one hand, this is a very dangerous time and I don't want to rule out that Vladimir Putin is not fully capable of using at least tactical nuclear weapons but, on the other hand, I think the only thing we can do is stand firm, you know, tell him publicly and privately that this is not really an option for Russia in terms of to get, you know, where they want to go and stand firm and support Ukraine, uh, it's, it's, it's a dangerous time, but I take comfort in thinking about the Cold War, where we also had a series of confrontations with the then Soviet Union and yet somehow we were able to move forward and find a way to avoid the worst, and although this is in some ways the biggest challenge I think of in my life in terms of international affairs, I am hopeful. that we can find the way forward to avoid the worst disasters