Editor’s Note: The following are remarks made by Kurt Volker, U.S. special representative for Ukraine, during a Sept. 22-23 commemoration in New York of Ukraine’s attempt, a century ago in 1918, to achieve national independence, an effort that failed as Soviet forces gained control of Ukraine by 1922. See the Kyiv Post coverage of the event here. Volker was appointed U.S. special representative for Ukraine in July 2017. He has tried to move forward the stalled Minsk peace process with his opposite number in the Kremlin, Vladislav Surkov. After his first visit to Ukraine last summer, Volker recommended that America provide sophisticated anti-armor Javelin missiles to the country’s military and these arrived earlier this year.
I’m assuring you that the things we stand for — freedom, democracy, the market economy, rule of law, human rights, security — we’re going to keep fighting for them no matter what.
The first thing I think we’ve accomplished is to clean up the language and speak frankly about what’s happening. When I started a year ago I was given a briefing by our own U.S. government team and in the briefing map, there was an acronym ‘NGCA’. I really had to think about that and it dawned on me that what this referred to was ‘non-government controlled area’ and I wanted to know how far are we going to go in obscuring Russia’s role in this conflict?
It’s remarkable.
I immediately said no more ‘NGCA’.
We have a Ukrainian-controlled area and a Russian-controlled area.
I think the reason for that obfuscation is because people become afraid of the consequences for saying it so frankly.
If that’s the case, what do we do?
And I do think that speaking clearly like that assigns responsibility. It clearly assigns responsibility to Russia.
Russia can’t pretend that it’s somebody else’s responsibility to direct those proxy entities of the two people’s [Donetsk and Luhansk] republics or the military forces because it actually has command and control.
It also assigns responsibility to the West.
It’s one thing if you say ‘oh there’s ethnic strife, there’s civil strife, all very complicated’ as opposed to saying Russia has invaded and occupied and maintained a hot conflict on the territory of another country for the last four years in violation of international law and in violation of commitments we’ve reached jointly with Russia.
What does the US care about this?
Well….we’ve reached agreements with Russia and other countries about these boundaries, about the rule of law, about respect for territorial integrity, about the rights of states to decide their own affairs – and if we don’t stand up for that who will?
So I think that responsibility also assigns responsibility to Ukraine. I’m going to quote our former ambassador to Ukraine, Geoff Pyatt, who said that Ukraine is the hardest country in the world to help. [amidst laughter] I know exactly what he means.
I admire and love Ukrainians and I believe the trauma of this conflict overt the last four years has helped cement a sense of identity, of mission, of purpose, of political orientation. I think it has really helped strengthen a Ukrainian lens of purpose and identity.
But I have to say that Ukraine, despite having made great strides on reform of its institutions, of its legislation, of its economy – greatest strides it’s ever made in the last four years.
No question about it. But it has such a long way to go that it makes us worry: can we get through to the other side?
I would say that a couple of challenges are…that the economy is controlled by a very small number of people and because of that vast economic power, the influence it has on the political system and the judiciary, and the perception that average Ukrainians have that there institutions are fair and the perception that people have in these conflict areas that their government doesn’t care about them.
So there are serious, serious challenges and I think just as we have a responsibility to stand up to these challenges. It’s all Ukrainians’ responsibility to stand up to these challenges.
I am convinced that Ukraine will make it – I have no doubt about it whatsoever.
A lot of my career has, serendipitously, involved smaller countries like Hungary or Georgia or Slovakia or Kosovo.
I’ve lived in Sweden, the United Kingdom, Belgium, France and I’ve seen – I’ll take Georgia as an example – this is a country that 25 years ago at four and a half million people, probably four million now as so many have left, including because of Russia’s invasion and occupation.
But the people have such a strong sense of identity, whether culture, language, Georgian Orthodox Church, territory – nothing is going to wipe out Georgia – and that’s a country of four and a half million people.
Ukraine the territory, the soil, the sun, the sky, the religion, the history – there ’s no way that Ukraine is ever going to fail or disappear.
The only question is how hard or how well can Ukraine be successful.
So what have we accomplished – I think quite a bit and you can look at it as the glass half empty and say Russia is still occupying Crimea and Donbas.
Before we get to that I mentioned the frankness: the perception of Russia’s responsibility inside Ukraine has changed fundamentally in the world in the last year.
I think there was an acceptance of this obfuscation by Russia [of responsibility]. I think that is now gone.
Russia helped itself: the Skripal [nerve agent poisoning in the United Kingdom] attacks, the expulsion of American diplomats, the video of the cruise missile flying along and hitting Florida – Russia has herself convinced people that there is a problem. But the candor with which we now deal with that problem. That’s an achievement to change that narrative within the space of a year.
Second is that we have seen the sanction regime put in place by the European Union and the United States for over four years.
I am convinced that when President Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine it would be like invading Georgia – that people would forget about it within six months and move on. That’s exactly the opposite of what has happened.
The EU has held its sanctions and in some cases increased them and the United States has held sanctions and in many cases increased the sanctions.
I know that the Trump administration gets a lot of criticism from a lot of quarters but on these things, I have to say, this administration has implemented a much tougher, more forthright policy on sanctions and has given arms to Ukraine, on holding there transatlantic community together, on not recognizing Russia’s annexation of Crimea and according to the [U.S. Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo definition of July 25 and proposing ways for how Ukraine can actually get the territory back. So I think that you can say what you want about the [Trump] administration but on these issues, I don’t think we’ve had a more solid policy than we’ve had today.
What we have not done is to get Vladimir Putin to change his strategy. I believe it’s pretty straightforward. I think that as a leader Vladimir Putin is an amazing person – he’s very strategic, very determined, very patient and acts. We should have that. I think he’s made some miscalculations.
I think he didn’t believe the Ukrainian character is as strong as it is – he was wrong about that. I think he calculated the West would fold – wrong about that. Nonetheless, he’s sticking to his strategy and believing that he can flip Ukraine and produce a Ukraine that is back in Russia’s orbit. I’m telling you – I don’t think so.
I think the Ukrainian public is more unified, in terms of national identity and purpose, more westward looking and more jaded on Russia than Ukraine has ever been. And that’s true of Ukraine generally and it’s especially true of younger Ukrainians.
What he’s hoping is that time is on his side and that Ukrainian elections will somehow produce something better [for him] than the current state of play. He’s willing to gamble on that. I’ve not seen Russia take any steps toward peace, toward a cease-fire, to withdraw heavy weapons, no steps to withdraw Russian forces.
No steps to implementing the Minsk agreements.
That’s Putin’s strategy.
He’s going to stick with it I think we’re going to see this for a long time to come.
So that gets us to the third point – what’s our strategy?
I keep getting asked if this peacekeeping operation [Volker’s proposal to have all Russian forces leave Ukraine, the border on the Ukrainian side to be handed over to Kyiv authorities and armed United Nations peacekeepers taking control of the occupied areas] doesn’t ever happen or if Ukraine doesn’t, what’s our ‘Plan B’?
My answer is always the same – let’s focus on ‘Plan A,’ which is a successful Ukraine, that’s democratic, prosperous, that is secure, that is able, where it’s people are respected, where they have opportunity, and there’s rule of the law and this country makes it.
That is ‘Plan A.’
Doesn’t matter exactly where the line on the territory is today – I believe this will get solved.
But in the meantime don’t let’s waste time to bring about success in Ukraine. And here we have important things to do.
As I alluded to one of the key things Ukraine has to do is what the United States did in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
We need to not to be dominated by a few barons of industry, we need to make sure we have a competitive system where competition allows different forces to come to pass.
If we focus on anti-corruption: the solution to corruption is generally seen as prosecution.
In a system, where the system needs reform, it’s reforming the system, not necessary the prosecution….there’s got to be a way to break up the oligarch system, to force the sale of assets, people get to keep their money and not go to jail and you create competition and rules going forward that will make Ukraine competitive and successful as a normal, major economy in the world.
So I think that’s one major thing we need to do.
I also think that we need investment.
The more foreign investment there is in Ukraine, the more people will import expectations about rules, about the judiciary, about the investment climate, banking, repatriation of assets – all those things.
Need to encourage investment in Ukraine and encourage investment that demands the highest standards.
Another thing that you can do is tell the story.
There’s a Russian narrative that easily gains traction that Ukraine is not a real country, Ukraine is kind of hopeless, Ukraine is corrupt. So tell the story that Ukraine is a real country, it has a people, it is successful and it deserves support just as much as Germany and France and the Netherlands deserved support in the 1950s and 1960s and Hungary and Poland and the Czech Republic deserved in the 1990s.
Ukraine deserves our support – these are people who share the same core values, who have the same rights to freedom, prosperity, security as any other European people.
