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Nataliya Gumenyuk
Founding Director of the Public Interest Journalism Lab
DHSF class of 2018

As a journalist who covers conflict, today I am 100% consumed by the current situation in Ukraine. It is my job to explain what’s going on to a global audience, as well as to the Ukrainian one. Yet I and other Ukrainian professionals feel a bit trapped. The situation is so uncertain, we cannot afford to cancel all other plans; we are always busy with so many things happening, we can neither cancel nor fully engage. I am saddened that so much of our strength and energy is wasted on this situation. And on top of everything we are thinking about our families and considering various scenarios. As for myself – I am on duty.

Russia’s demands are not about Ukraine, they are about changing the international security architecture, canceling the ‘open door’ policy by NATO, which undermines the whole idea of the alliance. If Russia is allowed to invade further (and by the way Russia has already occupied parts of Ukrainian territories since 2014) – we are essentially agreeing that it’s acceptable to conquer other states by force.

The key takeaways for me are that we really should be discussing the current international relations system and to what extent it is able to protect countries outside of these alliances, and young democracies when they are threatened and bullied. This is a discussion not only about Eastern Europe.

Nataliya Gumenyuk is a Ukrainian author and journalist specializing in foreign affairs and conflict reporting. Gumenyuk is the author of the book “The Lost Island: Tales From Occupied Crimea” (2020), based on six years of reporting from the annexed peninsula. You can read some of her recent work here: 

• Full-scale war in Ukraine is not inevitable. We journalists must stop suggesting the contrary. (Vox Europe)
• Ukrainians can't afford to be afraid (The Washington Post)
• What makes Putin fear Ukraine? (The New Yorker)
   

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Oleksiy Honcharuk
Former Prime Minister of Ukraine
2021 Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow at CDDRL and the Freeman Spogli Institute

Democracy is one of the primary threats for Putin. Russia invaded Ukraine because of our choice to be a free, democratic country. That’s why the war between Ukraine and Russia is not a regional conflict – it is an important part of a larger war for democracy. 

Global democracy has been in a recession for at least the last 15 years due to a lack of democratic leadership around the world. It looks like the West has forgotten about the real value of democracy and has taken it for granted. This was a mistake and Ukraine is already paying a big price for it. Ukraine is now a beacon of democracy for millions of people in Eastern Europe and Asia, and we cannot lose this battle. 

I want Ukraine to be a successful, free country but Putin is trying to destroy it. I'm not scared and I am ready to fight for democracy.

More from Oleksiy Honcharuk:

• Ukraine vs Russia: War for Democracy (2021 Liautad Lecture)
   

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Oleksandra Matviichuk
Head of the Center for Civil Liberties (Ukraine)
UELP 2017-18

Russia under Putin has finally turned back into an empire. Unfortunately, the empire cannot remain stable. Putin thinks in terms of the Soviet Union. But now Russia does not have enough resources to play a full game, so the Kremlin is betting on war.

This is not about the war between Russia and Ukraine – it is about the war between authoritarianism and democracy. Thus, Ukraine acts in an unexpected role as an outpost that protects the values of the free world. Putin does not fear NATO, but the values of freedom in the post-Soviet space because it threatens his authoritarian regime.

We are preparing for a new armed attack by Russia. Recently, the President of Ukraine gave a press conference to foreign media, which raised many questions. However, there is something that the Kremlin cannot understand and that is underestimated in the West: People in America and the EU have lived for years with efficient and stable state institutions. We have never had such a luxury in Ukraine, so we are not used to relying on the government at critical moments.

I have been working in the field of human rights for more than twenty years, the last eight of which were focused on the war with Russia, so I have no illusions. Human rights defenders, journalists, and civil society activists will be the first targets of Russia's armed aggression. We have seen this before during the seizure of Crimea and Donbas when in order to gain rapid control of the region a non-violent minority was physically destroyed or driven out for their resistance. I have talked to my fellow human rights defenders, and I can say the following: We will stay in Ukraine and protect human rights as much as we can.

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Nataliya Mykolska
Strategic transformations expert, Member of the Board Ukrhydroenergo JSC
UELP 2018-19

The Russian aggression against Ukraine and potential military invasion is not only about Ukraine. It is about democracy prevailing in the former CIS region and Ukraine being a success story. A truly independent and successful Ukraine is a major threat to Putin’s autocratic regime in Russia and his short and long-term prospects in the region. 

We, Ukrainians, are ready to fight for our values, our freedom, our dignity, our country, our land, and the future of our children. We have done so in 2014 and have continued to do so for eight years. There is no other way for us to move forward.

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Ivan Prymachenko
Founder, Prometheus
UELP 2018-19

In 1946 George Kennan famously wrote the following about the Soviet state: "impervious to the logic of reason it is highly sensitive to the logic of force. For this reason, it can easily withdraw – and usually does when strong resistance is encountered at any point."

In 2022, this description is still fitting for the self-declared successor of the USSR – Putin's Russia. The best way to provoke Putin now is to show weakness. The best way to achieve peace is to demonstrate strength by preparing a devastating sanctions package against Russia and delivering modern weapons to Ukraine.

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Artem Romaniukov
Co-founder at SaveDnipro / SaveEcoBot, Co-founder at Civil Control Platform
UELP 2019-20

There are two competing points of view here in Ukraine on what is going on. The first is that Ukraine is a bargaining chip between Russia and "the West.” This means there will be no exacerbation of war, just bluffing.  

Second is that Putin for some reason felt that this was the right time to push for his agenda and started to raise the stakes, but "the West" appeared to be more united than ever before, providing Ukraine with lethal weapons and making strong claims. This means he may find himself in a stalemate with no choice except to invade Ukraine and become a pariah in the international community. 

It looks like president Zelensky believes in the first scenario. But the relevant emptiness on Kyiv streets in recent days shows that Ukrainians do not always share the government's view.

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Igor Rozkladaj
Deputy Director at the Center for Democracy and Rule of Law
DHSF class of 2018

Democracy is the best thing that we have in the modern world. But democracy needs to be trained – much like muscles on your body – or else it will become weak.

In a time of economic stress, pandemic, and uncertainty people seek simple explanations and decisions– that is the Achilles' heel of democracy. And in combination with disinformation and easy money, autocratic regimes can take hold. That's how the Soviet Union and modern Russia manipulated the Western world and did it with great success.

Russia always was and still is an authoritarian country. Nowadays under the autocratic Putin regime, we see increased militarization and pressure on independent people to stop their activities or face being arrested. 

Ukrainians, whose territories have been occupied by Russia, whose language and culture was under imperial pressure, whose identity is now denied now by Russia’s leadership, whose millions of people were killed in famines and wars know the real face of this country. The reforms we have made in Ukraine since 2014 are vitally important, from anti-corruption to decommunization. This conflict is not only about Ukraine, but about stopping Putin’s vision of  “Russkyi mir” from spreading throughout the region. 

We Ukrainians have made three attempts to wrench ourselves away from Russian influence: in 1991, 2004, and 2013-14. We have been at war with "unidentified little green men" for the last 8 years. We lose our best people to protect our country from Putin’s ambitions, and yet still fight. The question is what will prevail: corruption and kleptocracy from Putin or the democratic values that millions of Ukrainians have sacrificed for.

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Olexandr Starodubtsev
Deputy Head at the National Agency for Corruption Prevention
UELP 2017-18

The war that Russia started in 2014 is hybrid in nature. Misinformation and cyber-attacks by Russia have become commonplace in Ukraine since then. Of course, Ukrainians feel worried today about the latest news, but we see the support of international partners, including supplies of weapons. We hope that these weapons will not have to be used and that the latest signals from Russia are just another attempt to intimidate Ukraine and the global community.

For our part, we at the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) are preparing for a new Russian cyber-attack. The NACP maintains several strategic portals, such as a register of e-declarations of all public officials, and has access to 17 other government databases. It is important for us that these data do not fall into the hands of the enemy. The last big cyber-attack did not affect us significantly because of the high level of training of our IT specialists. Therefore, we are confident that we will be able to resist future attacks.

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While the West is trying to negotiate a de-escalation of Russia’s buildup of forces on the borders of Ukraine, Putin renegotiates the world order. It’s not only Ukraine’s NATO integration he is concerned with. Putin wants informal veto power in NATO and the EU as well as a quiet funeral ceremony for the rule-based international order. The West needs two things to counteract such a scenario. First, unity and readiness to defend its redlines, which can be costly.  Second,  a long-term comprehensive strategy to withstand Putin. Because even if we succeed in stopping his invasion now, make no mistake, it will not be his last move.

More from Svitlana Zalishchuk:

• Digital Disinformation Forum: Francis Fukuyama interview with Svitlana Zalischuk

STEVEN PIFER: You would not see American or NATO forces on the ground, fighting the Russians on Ukraine's behalf. I don't want the Ukrainian government to make a decision based on a miscalculation of how much help they can get from the West.

Listen on NPR

During the last two months of 2021, Russia created a crisis by deploying large military forces near Ukraine and demanding security guarantees from the United States and NATO.  In mid-December, Moscow publicized draft U.S.-Russia and NATO-Russia agreements encapsulating its demands, many of which were clearly unacceptable.

Over the past four days, U.S. and Russian officials have held bilateral talks, the NATO-Russia Council met, and a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe took place.  Russian officials now have an idea of what is and is not negotiable.

The question remains as it was in late December:  does the Kremlin seek a genuine give-and-take negotiation, or will the Kremlin use rejection of certain of its demands as a pretext for military action against Ukraine?  Unfortunately, it increasingly looks like the latter.

By the end of 2021, the Russian military had deployed some 100,000 troops on or near the Ukrainian border.  U.S. intelligence projected that the number could reach 175,000 soldiers early in 2022.

In December, Vladimir Putin called for security guarantees for Russia.  This seemed ironic.  The Kremlin controls the world’s largest nuclear arsenal and the most power conventional forces of any country in Europe, and Russian military forces are deployed—unwanted—on the territory of Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova.

In mid-December, Russian officials gave U.S. officials a draft U.S.-Russia treaty and a draft NATO-Russia agreement and promptly made them public.  The fact that the drafts contained provisions, such as NATO foreswearing further enlargement, that Russian officials had to know NATO would not accept, their immediate publication, the inflammatory rhetoric pouring out of Moscow, and the continuing troop build-up near Ukraine raised questions about whether the Kremlin truly sought a negotiation.

Presidents Biden and Putin held two video conferences in December.  The U.S. president outlined the costs that would ensue if Russia launched a new attack on Ukraine—new, more punitive sanctions, greater Western military assistance to Ukraine, and a bolstering of NATO’s military presence on its eastern flank near Russia (all in addition to the costs that Ukraine would impose in resisting the Russian assault)—but he also expressed a readiness for dialogue.  The two leaders agreed to discussions in January.

U.S. and Russian officials met for nearly eight hours in Geneva on January 10.  Deputy Secretary of State Sherman afterwards told the press that some Russian ideas, such as limits on missile placement in Europe and reciprocal constraints on military exercises, might provide a basis for discussion and negotiation.  However, the Americans were firm “in pushing back on security proposals that are simply non-starters for the United States.  We will not allow anyone to slam closed NATO’s “Open Door” policy [on enlargement].”   

Officials from NATO allies took similar positions when the NATO-Russia Council met in Brussels on January 12.  Following the four-hour session, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg told the press that NATO allies “reaffirmed NATO’s Open Door policy and the right for each nation to choose its own security arrangements” and “made clear that they will not renounce their ability to protect and defend each other, including with presence of troops in the eastern part of the Alliance.”   However, NATO was prepared for a discussion of concrete proposals on military transparency, arms control and reciprocal limits on missiles.

Sherman separately said “Thirty sovereign nations spoke separately—NATO allies—and also spoke as one.”  They made clear “that all countries must be able to choose their own foreign policy orientation, that sovereignty and territorial integrity are sacrosanct and must be respected, and that all nations are and must be free to choose their own alliances.”

The Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe session in Vienna on January 13, in which Ukrainian officials took part, concluded with no movement reported on resolving the tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

The Kremlin spokesperson gave a downbeat assessment of the U.S.-Russia and NATO-Russia discussions.  He noted that, while there were “some positive nuances, positive elements,” the sides disagreed on what Russia considered the principal issues [Russia’s demands that NATO agree to no further enlargement and remove military forces deployed to countries that had joined the Alliance after 1997].  Other Russian officials likewise depicted the West has showing no movement on Moscow’s key demands.

While Russian officials suggested that there might yet be written responses to their proposals, U.S., European and Ukrainian officials consulted intensely in the run-up to this week’s meetings.  There is no reason to expect that any written response would differ from what Russian diplomats heard in Geneva, Brussels and Vienna.  Moscow now should have a good sense for what in their draft agreements would and would not provide a basis for negotiation.

The Kremlin has largely framed this as a crisis between NATO and Russia.  Putin is unhappy about how the post-Cold War situation in Europe has evolved, especially the enlargement of NATO.  He would like to wind back the clock, something NATO members will not agree to do.

For the Kremlin, however, this is first and foremost about Ukraine and Moscow’s desire for a sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space.  After meeting U.S. officials on January 10, Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov said “it’s absolutely mandatory to make sure that Ukraine, never, never ever becomes a member of NATO.”  (While there is little enthusiasm among NATO members now for putting Ukraine on a membership track, as the Russians almost certainly understand, NATO will not foreswear the future possibility.)

Moscow worries that it is losing Ukraine, which it is.  Over the past eight years, the Russian military seized Crimea, and Russia instigated and sustained a conflict in Donbas that has claimed more than 13,000 lives.  Such actions, not surprisingly, have driven Ukraine away from Russia and bolstered elite and public support there for joining NATO. 

The Kremlin’s policy toward Ukraine has produced a strategic failure.  Launching a new attack now would hardly improve Ukrainian attitudes toward Russia, but the Russian military is by all appearances preparing for a major operation.

It may be that Putin has not yet decided what to do.  However, he seems to be painting himself into a corner in which military action remains his only feasible choice.  While leaving the path for dialogue open, the West should redouble its effort to dissuade and deter him from taking that choice.  But it increasingly appears that the West will not succeed. 

Click the link for a transcript of “Ukraine, Russia and the Fight for Democracy.”

The Complicated History Between Russia and Ukraine
 

Ukraine played a key role in the collapse of the Soviet Union, and it came out as the biggest independent country of the former Soviet states. Ukraine decided to be a democracy, thankfully, and this has been our path for the last thirty years.

This is a great achievement for our nation, because if you look around our country, even among hundreds of other successful European countries, there are not many other good examples of democracy. They have problems: Turkey has problems; Belarus has problems; Kazakhstan as well. We have some problems with corruption, but we are still an electoral democracy with fair elections.

Now, unfortunately, Russia understands itself as the successor, or empire, coming after the Soviet Union, and Putin has said many times that this collapse was the biggest catastrophe in the last twenty years of the last century. For him, Ukraine’s success is a tragedy.

Putin has invaded Ukraine before during the annexation of Crimea. He tried to divide Ukraine into a Russian, authoritarian Ukraine and a European, democratic Ukraine. But he failed. Our civil society worked hard to create voluntary military and paramilitary organizations and units, and Ukrainians pushed back as a nation.

And that was a moment when Putin understood, finally, that he lost Ukraine not only as an economic partner, but ideologically. Ukrainians chose freedom. We chose democracy. And for Putin, it's very dangerous to have examples of successful democratic countries – especially Slavic Orthodox Christian countries with close ties to Russia – like Ukraine. Putin needs the Russian people to believe that democracy is a weak, failing idea that doesn’t work.

A Struggle Broader Than One Country
 

This buildup of Russian troops along the Ukrainian border is not juist a regional conflict, and it's not just about NATO. It’s a battle between two conceptually different systems: the authoritarian system and the democratic system. It’s an attack towards democracy and the Western world. Our values in the Western world are a threat for Mr. Putin himself.

Putin is trying to shape the situation and to undermine the trust among countries and among people. He's trying to create destabilizing situations like an immigration crises, organize sabotages among the military, have political murders, and so on and so forth.

This buildup is only one element of this game to create one more additional crisis to attract attention, and to create a situation where Western leaders have to decide and make very hard decisions. Putin is trying to show that, “If I do attack, nobody will protect you. All of these values you have are just fairy tales. The West is weak, the West is insincere. When they tell you that values matter, it’s a lie because the only real value is money. There is no democracy.”

The Role of the West in Supporting Democracies
 

For Putin, the weak reaction from the West to the aggression towards Ukraine was a signal that it was acceptable to act like this. That's why Putin is raising the stakes and why he will continue to raise the stakes every year. Right now, the sanctions policy and general Western policy is creating a situation where time is playing against the victim, not against the aggressor.

Putin’s strategy is to wait, to use all his resources to undermine his democratic opponents, and to make sure that the next politicians in the western world will be more flexible. And maybe in 10 years or 15 years when the annexation of Crimea has become deep history, he will find some new trade-off with the next generation of democratic leaders.

This is why there needs to be a new model of smart or cascading sanctions where the EU adopts a package of sanctions for some period of time, maybe five, seven or ten years, and every next wave, every next package of sanctions will automatically come into power if the problem is not solved. So every single day, it automatically raises the price for the aggressor.

Supporting fragile democracies is not just about making a morally right choice; these countries on the frontlines that have paid an additional price – an additional tax, if you will, for democracy, and have taken on additional burdens, because they choose the democratic path. Whether it’s Ukraine or other countries, we need Western support now in a much bigger way than we have it now.

For more from Oleksiy Honcharuk, listen to his his remarks on "Ukraine vs Russia: The War for Democracy," given as a Liautaud Lecture at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL).

Russia maintains the world’s largest nuclear arsenal and the most powerful conventional military forces in Europe. Russian military units currently are deployed — uninvited and unwanted — in Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova. As Russia’s massing of military power near Ukraine prompted a crisis, President Vladimir Putin has demanded legally-binding security guarantees for… Russia.

On December 17, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs took the unusual step of publishing draft U.S.-Russia and NATO-Russia agreements that encapsulate Moscow’s desired guarantees. The substance of the drafts and the way the Russians publicized them do not suggest a serious negotiating bid.

If the Kremlin is serious about negotiating and deescalates the situation near Ukraine, the West could engage on some elements of the drafts. Many, however, will go nowhere — as Moscow surely knew.

DRAFT NATO-RUSSIA AGREEMENT

Russia’s draft “Agreement on Measures to Ensure the Security of the Russian Federation and Member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization” would require that NATO members commit to no further enlargement of the alliance, including in particular to Ukraine. There is little enthusiasm within NATO now for putting Ukraine on a membership track, as Putin and other Russian officials undoubtedly understand. However, the alliance will not reverse its long-standing “open door” policy. That would require consensus, and few allies, let alone all 30, would agree that Russia can dictate NATO policy in this way.

This suggests that a middle ground of “not now but not never” might offer a way to kick this thorny can down the road. That is, if Moscow wishes to defuse the situation.

Another article in the Russian draft would require that NATO deploy no forces or weapons in countries that joined the alliance after May 1997. That month, NATO committed not to permanently station substantial combat forces in new members and said it had “no intention, no plan, and no reason” to deploy nuclear weapons on their territory. From 1997 to 2014, NATO deployed virtually no troops or equipment in new member states.

That changed following Russia’s seizure of Crimea. NATO now deploys, on a rotating basis, relatively small multinational battlegroups in the Baltic states and Poland. It is difficult to see NATO agreeing to withdraw them absent a significant change in Russia’s military posture. However, the draft treaty would impose no requirements for redeployment of Russian forces.

Such provisions will prove non-starters with the alliance. Others might get a more positive reception. These include language on consultative mechanisms, such as the NATO-Russia Council, and the establishment of a hotline between NATO and Russia. Indeed, NATO has proposed NATO-Russia Council meetings, though Moscow suspended diplomatic relations with NATO in October.

The draft treaty also would bar deployment of intermediate-range missiles in areas where they could reach the other side’s territory. Of course, the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty banned all U.S. and Russian intermediate-range missiles. However, Russia’s deployment of the intermediate-range 9M729 cruise missile in violation of the treaty led to its collapse.

This idea sounds like Putin’s 2019 proposal for a moratorium on deploying intermediate-range missiles in Europe. While NATO turned that aside, it might be worth a second look, provided that Russia affirmed that it would apply to the 9M729 and had appropriate verification measures.

The draft treaty’s proposed bar on any NATO military activity in Ukraine, eastern Europe, the Caucasus, or Central Asia is an overreach, but some measures to limit military exercises and activities on a reciprocal basis might be possible. There is a history of such provisions, for example, the Vienna Document’s confidence- and security-building measures.

DRAFT U.S.-RUSSIA TREATY

The draft “Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Security Guarantees” also contains unacceptable provisions. Washington likely will not agree to a requirement that the two countries “not implement security measures … that could undermine core security interests of the other Party.” Moscow has shown it has a very broad definition of what it thinks could undermine its security. Likewise, it is unrealistic to ask the United States to prevent further NATO enlargement; Washington will not agree to close the “open door,” and even if it were to do so, it could not persuade all 29 other allies to agree to change the policy.

While interest could develop in the draft NATO-Russia agreement’s provision on intermediate-range missiles, there will be no interest in the draft U.S.-Russia treaty provision which would effectively ban U.S. intermediate-range missiles from Europe while leaving Russia free to deploy such missiles against NATO countries. The provision limiting the ability of heavy bombers and surface warships to operate in and over international waters will find no fans in Washington or, for that matter, in the Russian military.

Discussion on other provisions regarding military activities might be possible. It is unreasonable for Moscow to seek a veto over Kyiv’s foreign policy direction. However, the concern expressed by Putin earlier in December and then repeated about U.S. offensive missiles in Ukraine able to strike Moscow in a matter of minutes poses a different question. That concern could prove easy to address, as there is no indication that Washington has ever considered it. Other such Russian concerns might also be addressed, along with U.S. (and NATO) concerns about certain Russian military activities.

The draft provision requiring that all nuclear weapons be deployed on national territory should go into another forum. Biden administration officials hope to begin a negotiation with Russia that would cover all U.S. and Russian nuclear arms. That is the proper place for this issue. Whether a requirement that all nuclear weapons be based on national territory would prove acceptable to Washington would depend on the overall agreement and consultations with allies.

PROPOSALS INTENDED TO FAIL?

The unacceptable provisions in the two draft agreements, their quick publication by the Russian government, and the peremptory terms used by Russian officials to describe Moscow’s demands raise concern that the Kremlin may want rejection. With large forces near Ukraine, Moscow could then cite that as another pretext for military action against its neighbor.

If, on the other hand, these draft agreements represent an opening bid, and the Russians seek a serious exchange that also addresses the security concerns of the other parties, some draft provisions could offer a basis for discussion and negotiation. The North Atlantic Council stated last week that NATO is “ready for meaningful dialogue with Russia.” U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan reiterated that point: “We’ve had dialogue with Russia on European security issues for the last 20 years… That has sometimes produced progress, sometimes produced deadlock. But we are fundamentally prepared for dialogue.”

A deescalation of the situation near Ukraine would help greatly. U.S. and NATO officials will not want to engage as long as Russia hangs a military threat over Kyiv. Another question is the format. Washington and Moscow can have bilateral discussions, but negotiations have to include all affected parties, including Ukraine. The United States and Russia cannot cut a deal over the heads of the Europeans and Ukrainians. As Sullivan said, “nothing about you without you.”

The sides should come to the table prepared to address the other’s legitimate security concerns. Agreeing on the meaning of “legitimate” will consume long hours. For example, it is unlikely that the United States (or NATO) will compromise on the principle — to which Moscow has agreed as a signatory to the 1975 Helsinki Final Act — that states have a right to choose their own foreign policy course. The question of military activities in the NATO-Russia region is a different issue, and NATO has already shown its readiness to undertake commitments in that regard.

These discussions and any negotiation will be long, complex, and arduous. That is the kind of work that diplomats do. Getting started down that path, however, will require very different signals than those the West and Ukraine have seen from Moscow the past several weeks.

Originally for Brookings Institution's Order from Chaos blog