>> will come to the brookings institute my name is benjamin ã i'm a senior fellow and government studies and i can't think of a more unpleasant occasion on which to gather here this is, as you know, the third anniversary of the beginning of the full-scale russian invasion of ukraine. we are here to talk about a variety of matters related to them and related as well to an immense i'm going to change of u.s. policy with respect to the war. we are also here to introduce a project that we've been working on for the last year or so. which we will talk about and

introduce, which is a project we've done with our colleagues at go rodeo on the history of u.s. ukrainian relations in the post-soviet period -- if it sounded well-timed to the moment, perhaps it is. i can't think of a group of people i would rather talk about this subject than the group that sitting on stage with me. first of all, let me just go from left to right, constanta is seated next to her is tyler mcbrien the managing editor of law fair and one of the cohost

of the escalation podcast. seated next to him is anastasia another cohost of the escalation podcast joining us from pf. to my left is the great fiona hill, senior fellow here and among other things plays a starring role in a number of the episodes of the podcast the first one and we are going to talk about that momentarily, before we do, however, we arranged this event when there was one major government r chan that was affecting western policy toward ukraine, that was the transition from the biden administration to the trump administration and the shock therapy that's applying to the situation there is no second

one which is that we did have elections in germany yesterday and these produced something of a mixed message with respect to ukraine policy so i want to ask constanta to get us started and give us a sense of what happened in germany yesterday, how we should understand this vis-c-vis ukraine and how we should understand vis-c-vis america with respect to ukraine. >> thank you very much it is a distinct aspleasure to cohost this with you. the center on the e u.s. in europe as taken a change of loss on europe and the transatlantic relationship by the russian full-scale invasion extremely seriously if we can

figure to the way we work in every possible way. i couldn't think of a better thing to do today with about a group of people so thank you. >> thank you. >> as for the german election, it's hard to process but for those of you who occasionally follow the hanews and will not escape you that the incoming both yesterday and in previous days. on u.s. need for nuclear weapons on what seems to him like the end of transatlantic relations. so suffice it to say that this is a chancellor who in like his predecessor is deeply cecommitt to europe and also to the transatlantic relationship and the friendship with america except that he's committed to the old transatlantic relationship america he grew up with.

so the current shift in washington will make it slightly difficult for him. i don't want to joke about what the deeply serious situation i just come back from nthree week and the real turmoil in the transatlantic relationship started with jd vance the vice president speech in munich on day february 14. i was in the overflow of the overflow of the overflow room listening to it because every single of the munich security conference wanted to hear it. and fiona was there as well and i think it's fair to say that europeans were profoundly shocked by it. i've been making the rounds in your i'm also coming from stockholm and the swedes who

thought they had joined nato just-in-time now finding they joined a slightly different nato than they thought they joined. there is turmoil everywhere and people are processing things everywhere. let me give you a capped version of what i think happened last night in germany. we always knew that the conservatives were going to win this oielection, they pulled at double, the polling levels of the governing spd. the question was how many parties where he have to govern with. there were thseveral very late last night with the nailbiter of accounting votes. psw the extreme left party led by the fire band, list entry into the parliament, missed 5% threshold by 13,000 %votes. it would not surprise you to know that they are going to go to the courts and demand a

recount which is unusual in germany. but there we are. i think were catching up with other countries. so friedrich mertz, based on that count, he's going to govern a coalition with etthe - i don't think he will have any compunction in supporting ukraine i think he intends to be a strong player in europe. the reservations i have about that is not last night also saw a doubling of the afdc and nearly doubling the development chair with extremely high shares in eastern germany up to

35%. >> neo-nazi party.>> that's not precise. they are good friends with neo-nazi groups but they are not by definition neo-nazi i think that's an important thing to say. there german domestic intelligence that have determined inthem to be in part or at the state level organizations fully extremist. right wing extremists. but they've been very careful and avoiding, except for some french figures and avoiding actual nazi language. also forgive me, i say that because it's they are doing this very deliberately and strategically and there's one of things that makes it difficult to outright ban them which german law would allow which no doubt the vice president of the united states would consider another depression's free speech and democracy if i was attempted. i think they will be quite

constrained by opposition by extreme right-wing party. out to split his party. i think he'll try to reach out to europe to try to reach out to nato. i'm going to put out there that ultimately i think you might end up being a transitional figure and what's going to be an evermore fragmenting german political landscape and i will leave it at that.>> fiona, you are also at munich, give us a sense of your impressions of where the united states is right rnow with respect to ukraine and with respect to european interactions on that subject. >> thanks very much and i would say it's great to be here today but i guess for all of us it really isn't it's quite a depressing, as you said at the beginning, anniversary and commemoration especially for

those here and others -- before we start to do this analysis we want to fully process what ukrainians have been through during this last three years. this is an absolute tragedy for ukrainians and one of the reasons we have to always remember the human side of this. i listened to vice president advances speech standing next to the former prime minister of ukraine who i happen to me when i went into the overflow room of the overflow room. i'm not quite sure which overflow room i was in but there was many. i tried to attempt to intercede on his behalf with people guarding them -- he was stuck standing next to me and he literally turned to me and said that he was going to cry after hearing the speech. this is a man who's been

through quite a lot. so that will put things into perspective. there is a human side to all of this that we must not forget. in a way i'm going to answer the question but i'm going to flip it around a little bit because the united states done to itself in the eyes of europeans which is really depressing to listen to. i came to the united states in 1989, when there was a complete shift in the cold war. i came here, i had starry rosy eyes became a us citizen i never thought i would find myself in a position where i was listening to europeans in the uk used to be part of europe before, and also uk and other politicians talk about the united states as an adversary, that's exactly what started to happen after the vice president speech. because suddenly it was if a switch had been flipped. i was also standing next to a prominent member of the german

green party who were refugees from the former soviet union who is extraordinarily well known. he said he was sick to his stomach he never expected the beginning of freedom and opportunity everybody y had looked towards from the cold war was suddenly basically lecturing europeans about free speech and openly siding with constanta has discussed, and extreme right-wing party. it was not something anybody could process. the europeans also know that they have themselves, this is kind of at-large something to blame for this predicament, like kestanza, spending a lot o time going around europe two years i lived in germany, five or six months, just after the so-called vikings ended, the previous chancellor olaf scholz

realized that the world had changed. -- i've been spending a lot of time in the united kingdom, my home birthplace, have dual citizenship there, i've also just been in paris, coincidently at the same time many of the european leaders shut up for an emergency meeting in the wake of the bats speech. like constanta, scandinavia, all kinds of other countries and between. there's a real feeling that the europeans really mismanaged the western not just the last several years after the invasion of ukraine but the last decade plus so what president obama basically consulted all of them think about taking their own defense

more into consideration. that was conterminous with the first invasion of ukraine that was a realization that set in and the 10 years of the 10 years behind had been really serious about their own defense.that was also the moment where it became obvious basically farming out security to the u.s. was no longer an option. and being told that nicely for quite some time in a rather brutal fashion. not just by vice president stamps but also by the secretary of defense that europe is no stlonger part of t united states. we always thought when we are looking at ukraine getting back to your initial question as we got into a war of attrition and some of your brothers from earlier discussions all kinds

of right things varies people to inhabit the one where you have a shift in the attrition is the where the external environment has a major change. this has been the major change. not as many might help to shift in the dynamics outside of russia. which has been a solid rock for the last 25 years. the shift is being here in the united states. going back to 9/11 as the interventions in afghanistan the invasion of iraq etc. etc. we hhave been literally all ov the place. that's actually where we are now with ukraine united states has shifted in europe has realized that if it ouwants to

serious about its own security and also about long term ã essential to european security then they need to change as well that's can be the big question as we look ahead we have president micron in france coming into town. he's not joining us. >> is welcome on the stage we got prime minister stein uk coming in on thursday. the right thing the writing is very much on the wall preferably that ukraine's future is also the future of european security and the fans and the swedes also don't precisely because they realize you need to have a new look of european security defend reminder software actually there probably one of the best equipped most battle ready at all times militaries because they have the ukraine

experience every chicken has come home to roost. >> i want to pick up on something you said at the beginning which is that we have to not forget the personal tragedy and experience of ukrainians in this conversation. i want you to tell us two stories first is, what with the circumstances in which you learned about the american change in policy literally were on your way from kiev to here to do this event and launch

this podcast when all of a sudden the united states switch sides. first of all, i want you to tell us about that experience and then secondly, in the back, although she may be here, is your one-year-old daughter and i want you to tell us the circumstances of ava's birth. >> it will be relevant i promise. [laughter] i will admit the aggressiveness of it all. thank you for arranging all of this. it's amazing to have an opportunity to utspeak about it all. when trump, i don't think he decided to flip the switch, what a bunch of ukrainians realized who he actually is, that's more like it, i was somewhere between the trains

and two planes and four day long travel from ukraine to here and i couldn't help but think that my whole life i have an image of the s u.s. as this kind of standard of what is right and what is good and when the dignity happens in ukraine i was tiny,, that's sort of like i have a conscious memory of my life and what's right. >> 2014. >> yes. since then i've always known that this is who we are is ukrainians, we align ourselves to the u.s. we look to europe for guidance, this is what's right and what's on the east is very wrong and we never look fair. so that always joked that we don't mind american meddling when some of my more left wing

friends would d accuse the u.s. of neocolonialism. please come in and clean everything up. get rid of corruption. jay gonzalez. many people who joke about this field for us is always in russia stop the geography really messed us up we are stuck in between two sides. the whole image of the u.s. of the barometer of what's good and bad is shattered for me in the last week. i keep saying i keep hearing people say there is no going back, that the damage that trump has done is irreversible and you will explained to me later whether that's true. but that's really depressing because now i feel like the u.s. is sort of gone and doing whatever it is it's doing, europe is really doing anything. as one friend of mine put it it

would be nice if europe was the same it would be helpful. that's how ukrainians do it. ukrainians have had bad experiences with the u.s. over history and europe as well. we now really eefeel like we ar once again just like left on our own and it's not a position anyone should be in and we know don't even have a standard of institutionalism are values and liberty. we are being accused of being a dictatorship which is laughable. this is prevailing feeling of disappointment that everything i've always thought of as right and good connected to the u.s. is all shattering in front of my eyes and affects the entire country. that's really depressing. so the spicier story, my daughter is sleeping, thank god. she is very much cooperated for

the event. she was born on december 31 in 2023. that's already crazy enough, the whole thing is crazy enough, what's even crazier about the next day after that russia launched one of its biggest ever aerial attacks against ukraine. i think it was january 1 through january 2, the time that we were still at the hospital, we have it checked out and left home yet at 5:00 a.m. somewhere there's a massive attack on almost b,100 or something. i might be eaexaggerating. it was really big. at that point was called one of the biggest in years. was just incredible. we were all taken to the underground shelter with thousands of very pregnant women and i was very thankful i already got her out so i don't have to go through that experience in a bunker. that was helpful. i just think we remember the feeling that me and people

around me other moms would like one-year-old babies we weren't scared because we had been at this for years at that point. we were just very annoyed, there was like this frustration that we really shouldn't be dealing with this. like in any htcircumstance but especially right now i really didn't it didn't start fear in people's eyes it was more like one is this gonna be over. can we just go have a life and take care of our babies. i think it's tragic that those were the emotions because that means a lot of us are pretty much numb at this point. .. se we see this gruesome this and this tragedy every single day and at some point unfortunately even though i prefer we kept feeling the strongest empathy.

at some point something in your body on a biological level adapts. and you end >> drones flying around u.n. you're not going anywhere because god bless american air defense and you know you'll be fine most likely and you just keep on living with it and people tell you stay safe and you don't know what that means anymore because that's just your reality. and so it's just-- the fact that we've been at it for three years is insane to me because i remember having a conversation with a friend in april, early april, 2022, months since the kosovo invasion started and i was in a city in eastern ukraine and i wanted to tell my friends to come stay with me and they seriously told me they don't want to leave kyiv because they want to be there for victory day.

my friends didn't come because they had a feeling they were on the precipice for a historic moment and they were ready to celebrate it, but now it's three years later and i'm sitting here and we're going to talk about how our biggest ally is turning into something of an enemy and so, you know, that's, i guess is where we're at. >> so, i just want to say if that sounds dramatic, actually understating it. i woke up that morning to a set of texts from her which i think i still have that this was january 1st, 2024 and the first one said, the good news is i have a beautiful baby girl, the bad news is, i'm in a bomb shelter under the hospital with a whole bunch of laboring moms. >> and you didn't know what to think, on one hand it's a hospital and no one targets a

hospital, but, no, they're russians, they might. >> a maternity hospital at one point. >> yes. >> and so, all right. well, i don't mean to be glib, but the good news is we've got a rip roaring podcast out of it. [laughter] >> so, tyler-- >> are you going to set this one up. no, i mean. >> thank you. >> you've got to take lines where they present themselves. so tyler, tell us a little bit of the story of escalation and how this project had its genesis and where it came from. give us a little bit of the sort of institutional history of the project we're releasing today. >> yes, thanks, ben and thanks to everyone. i'm honored to be up here with this panel. i think the past three weeks, especially, have been a bit of a proof of concept for escalation, to say the least.

we -- this podcast started, i mean, i guess three years ago you could say with the full scale invasion, and about a year in, maybe, i had joined lawfare as managing editor. the biggest story in foreign policy in the world at that time and in many ways still is, russia's invasion of ukraine, so it just seemed like on the one hand an obvious choice to think about how we could tell the history of the u.s. and ukraine and how to explain what we were seeing. i am certainly no russia expert, i'm no ukraine expert so it's not surprising that i was surprised at the full scale invasion, but it was -- i got the sense that even people who have been watching this closely were also surprised. so we wanted to answer that question. around that time, i believe, there had been amazing reporting for the kyiv independent and ben was hosting a show called live from ukraine

and nastia had joined one of those episodes. what was important for that show, get a sense what it was like for ukrainians in ukraine at the time. i think this conflict especially is-- has been the victim of a lot of misinformation and revisionism and so, a podcast that really lays out the history of the u.s.-ukraine relationship we felt was so important to set the record straight. i'll just say, one more thing, working with her over the past year, i think you got a good sense how it was a healthy dose of perspective, every time i was maybe feeling tired and trying to finish up an edit or something, it was humbling to have someone on the other end of zoom who is eight years younger than i am, has an infant, is under bombardment, is in an air raid shelter and i think that's also what we're trying to do with this podcast

is really drive home what this experience is like and what the stakes are. >> so, i want to-- one of the key voices, perhaps the key voice in the first episode is fiona, who tells this incredible story about -- that i think most americans have -- if they ever knew of, and i certainly did at one point, because i lived through it, but i had completely forgotten about it, which is how reticent the united states administration was about the idea of ukrainian independence to begin with. and one of the themes that we've been exploring in the podcast is this recurrent cycle of american policy makers not being as fully on board for an

independent ukraine as they later imagined themselves to have been and a lot of these episodes seem to involve european cities that begin with b-u, but this one involved the president going to kyiv and making a speech, not quite against ukrainian independence, but almost against-- >> i would say it was against, just saying. >> certainly was not for. and so, fiona, take us back. you have this incredible line in the first episode where you say, you know, i graduated from my masters program and then the field that i was in went out of existence a few months ago -- later. tell us the story of president bush and his speech to the ukrainian parliament. >> you know, i'm touching on an old colleague of mine who would remember this, we worked

together in the eurasia foundation. and the new landscape after the collapse of the soviet union. >> yes, i did a masters in soviet studies which soon became history, and thinking i needed to rapidly retool after i got my degree in the june of 1991. at the same time as the last foreign minister of the soviet union was getting an honorary degree in the same ceremony and looking perplexed on the stage and i seemed to be the first president of an independent georgia. so this is taking us back a long time to 1991 because by the end of this year, the soviet union had-- it hadn't really collapsed actually, that's something that's very important to remember. that it got picked apart by some of the top, including boris yeltsin, the first president of an independent russia, they wanted to get rid

of mickhail gorbachev. they need add reform, revamping after where we're sitting at the moment of the soviet system. and the heads of the republicans of russia, belarus. bela-russia got together to dismantle the soviet union intending to keep together in some part. before this, this starts to kind of move through the whole system towards this amazing and really kind of dramatic set of events. george h.w. bush, indeed, goes off to kyiv and starts to make an appeal for, you know, the guys to keep the band together. and i mean, it's very interesting to think back on this. next year is 250th anniversary of our own independence, and king george and we'll look at what the anniversary looks like next year.

we've had a hard time despite being a revolutionary power, fought for its independence of really going along with others when they've come to that moment as well. i think in the meantime, the united states started to become an imperial power itself over time. after being helped by the french to keep the brits kind of out of the picture again during the whole period of 1812, et cetera, after that we kind of moved on, you know, pretty much doing the same thing as other great world powers were the doing at the time, too, expanding our territory, et cetera, et cetera. so george h.w. bush is feeling very uncomfortable at the idea, really kind of what he fears will be, and he was quite right in many respects, the chaotic coming apart of the soviet union. we've always told ourselves, it was almost violence and conflict-free, but that was not the case at all. in fact, what we're still in the middle of is the laws of the soviet succession. and this is kind of like 1812, it's kind of the whole uproar

all over again because ukraine had been independent, you know, for 30-plus years by the time russia tries to kind of take it back in the fold again and in some respects, remember, george h.w. bush had been the head of the cia at one point. he might not have been far wrong into thinking we were headed into some kind of a disastrous outcome down the line if all of this kind of came apart. >> yeah, it's an extremely powerful little story that i think represents something larger, both in ukraine's relationship with the united states, which is the subject of the podcast, but also the relationship with europe. because you have this moment where ukraine becomes independent, but everybody continues to look at ukraine through the lens of russia and that includes particularly

european countries who see ukraine as some degree of a transit situation for russia natural gas and i guess, you know, there's this -- we clearly see from the trump administration that this has not changed in the case of the united states. we are back to thinking of ukraine as something that you negotiate directly with moscow about without even having ukrainians at the table. has europe learned the lesson that we clearly have not learned? >> i knew when i signed up for this that i was going to be the european on this panel. >> no, you're the blessed european, are you kidding? >> it's all right. it's all good. look, i think if there is a lot of fair criticism to lob at

europe and at germany over its behavior in the past 10 years, including the fears of the scholtz-led coalition. that's, i do think that circumstances have changed completely. the other place i went to before, the security conference was brussels. i spent three days running around the n.a.t.o. and european action service and the european commission and i think, you kno -- well, before i get to that, i want to perhaps say something slightly more personal because, like you, i was a reporter for a long time and my time as a reporter began in the years after the fall of the wall. because i had trained as a lawyer and my human rights

lawyer, and my paper says human rights, and i spent time covering war crimes and war crimes tribunals and i am angry every time i read about russian bombardments of ukraine. i wake up and grieve every bloody morning and i go to bed angry about them, right? this is not -- this is not okay. right. and i think i can tell you that many of my fellow europeans and people in my field feel the same way, a visceral, profound anger at russia. there's no going back for my generation to a comfy relationship with russia that goes over the head of a country that has been attacked and is attacked every day, i want to make that very clear. i also want to say that if we

are completely fair, some of those air defenses that are protecting kyiv right now are danish and german, yes, right, and, right. and so if you look at the numbers, we have the president of the united states currently telling us that we don't do anything for ukraine financially or with military support, i think we all know that if we look at the numbers those tell another story. >> and sweden just made a major commitment over the weekend. >> and the danes and so on, i mean, and i will say the other thing here that's operating here, apart from profound anger, right, about what is being done to ukraine and the lies being told about that in moscow and elsewhere, is of course-- >> in washington now. >> why don't you just let me put it my way. the other thing that, of course, is motivating europeans is a very real, very visceral fear about the degree of

russian disinformation and sabotage in europe and in germany. there was especially, an amount of meddling in the german election that we've not seen the cold war and maybe not even then and the intelligence services across europe and also in germany, even in germany i would say, they were long reticent about this, on calling this out and contributing immediately. i think the russians have stopped bothering to hide their signature. the people i met in brussels were working day and night. working day and night to cobble together support for ukraine. we're working day and night to cobble together additional money for european defense, and we're working day and night, and literally, one of my meetings started at a quarter of 9:00 in the evening, not in

the morning. and so -- and let me make props -- end on the point that is easy to-- i mean, it's easy to say that this is all performative, they're in kyiv to mark the anniversary, that has to turn into policy, that has to turn into money, that has to turn into more weapons, but i think it would not be quite fair to say that that's not meaningful, right? all the people that i met meant it deeply and i think my generation knows that this is the conflict of our lifetime and that the future of europe depends on its resolution in favor of the ukraine. >> i'd just like to add something important to what

constanze said to you, they definitely do not feel it, and in the united states do not feel it, and i've spent time talking why ukraine is important to are the united states not just because of ukrainians, but the independence on the larger system and rooted in the transatlantic alliance and prospered about it and we've forgotten about as time has gone on. in the u.k. they forgot why europe was important, and voted for brexit and they forget where things over time where things are. in europe right now, people know they're under siege from russia all the time. as we're sitting talking, an inquest has been going on in london about the death of dawn sturgis, it's not a household name here, but in europe, she was unfortunately killed from a

bottom of perfume the russian military discarded in a donation bin that her partner brought home and spread the perfume on each other and found it's a deadly weapons grade nerve agent use today poison the russian spy's daughter in salisbury. this was found because the u.k. has a facility in salisbury, and a bit like we have in frederick, maryland, where they can detect nerve agents, biological and chemical weapons. so, only eight countries knew that this existed and it's by chance that this actually happened and it was able to be revealed. and this is only one, of course, of assassinations that have taken place on british soil. there was alexander, who was

poisoned by polonium, a radiological agent for the first dirty bomb that was used on british soil and also, spread pallone polonium. and there were constant attacks and critical infrastructure, pipelines, and cables in the baltic sea, the astonions. >> the threats to our freedom and democracy. >> et cetera. >> all this have is real in europe, so europeans know that what ukraine has experienced, critical infrastructure, all of the interventions being made in ukraine's politics before is what they're facing as well.

again, we may be remote here, it doesn't feel re remote in the u.s. and a polling, the relationship with the united states is extraordinarily, and 48% said in a pole, it's more important to stick by ukraine than it was to improve the relationship with the united states, 48%. in terms of favoring sticking by the united states is in the 20's, 20% is what people said they didn't know, it's a hard point to be put, but we see a shift here, people in europe now see that their situation is on the line. so, again, what we mentioned before is real. it's a really sobering thought and as i said before, chickens have come home to roost and it is real, the security threat in europe. it's not just imagined, it's not disinformation and it's

viscerally felt. >> so, tyler, i want to ask you -- i referred earlier to the cycle that began with what came to be called georgia h.w. bush's chicken kyiv speak so named by the columbiaest william sapphire in which, you know, sort of ukrainians expect american backing and they don't get it at the level that they expected or that we promise it and this is a-- we may be going through what i think is the sort of fourth and most dramatic cycle of that where we actually side with the russians, but all of those episodes have to do with ukraine's relationship with russia and one of the roles that you play in the podcast is kind of as the sort of naive american who is kind of never-- >> it came pretty naturally.

[laughter] >> it's a persona because tyler is anything, but naive, but you're the guy that is like, gee, i didn't know this happened. >> yeah, and to any other naive americans listening for younger listening, chicken kyiv is used pejoratively, you may not know because it's a delicious dish, but, no, i mean, you're absolutely right. it is the history of the u.s. and ukraine since independence in 1991 has been one of misunderstandings and betrayals and one of our episodes is called the worst of both worlds because-- >> also features fiona. >> right. >> in one of her prior lives. >> the new york times had an editorial, i believe, over the weekend in which it condemns what they called a complete 180 in u.s. foreign policy toward ukraine. and i was thinking that it's not maybe absolutely true. you know, the u.s.-- you mentioned that the u.s. has used ukraine --

viewed ukraine through russian lens, there was a ukrainian diplomate on the podcast says the same thing, the u.s. always looks at ukraine through russian glasses and sort of plays by their terms. and so, you know, it's still-- it seems that the trump administration is looking at this history and picking the worst lessons in accelerating them and acting on that. i will say though that there is reporting, i believe, this morning out in bloomberg that the u.s. may commit to a sovereign ukraine in the negotiations, which is heartening. whether or not they listen to the first episode of escalation, i'm not sure, i can't confirm or deny that, but it seems like that's obviously the bare minimum. >> can i just point out that we've done that before. like, that's the budapest memo, right?

(inaudible). >> exactly. >> so walk us through a couple of those cycles because there are -- as i joked earlier, they do tend to be named for cities in europe that start with b-u and the first cycle is the independence of ukraine itself, right, the chicken kyiv speech. the second chicken comes only a few years later what happens? >> i believe you're referring to the budapest memorandum which i think maybe a few years ago, you asked americans, even americans who are well-versed in foreign policy and in u.s. foreign policy and history may not -- it's not a household name, let's put it. in ukraine it very much is. >> by the way, the only moment of true comedy in the entire podcast is at the beginning of the second episode where our

producer max, who is sitting here in the front row, asks a young ukrainian activist who is sitting back there, maria, what do you think of the budapest memo and she exclaimed, oh, my god, it's a total fail. and you know, this is something that is not in the consciousness of the average american, but you ask a ukrainian about the budapest memo, this is fresh in the front of her mind. >> you have to hear how she says it for full drama. make sure to listen to that. >> to catch us up to speed in broad strokes after the fall of the soviet union, a large part of the nuclear arsenal left by the soviets actually was in ukraine. they couldn't really operate it, a lot of the command and control was back in moscow, it was very expensive to maintain, but ukraine weapons comes with some degree of security, but the deal that was struck was that ukraine would give up the

nuclear weapons for financial incentives, as well as from the american perspective, assurances of ukrainian security from the ukrainians' perspective, i think there was an understanding it was more of a guarantee, there was two different translations, actually, and i think this is emblematic of the relationship, the u.s. wanted ambiguity to give more room to maneuver, that room only left russia to take advantage of the ambiguity. and also by saying that in learning about this, i think it's very important for ukraine to give up ukraine weapons. nastia disagreed and it was a microcosm every time we would argue about an episode and the narrative arc and everything. but i think that the budapest memo is a great example. >> yeah, so, one of the striking things about that story when we talked to

diplomates at the very senior levels, when we talked to people who were literally in one case, my sister's college roommate who was a 22-year-old diplomate at embassy kyiv at this time is how guilty they feel about the budapest memorandum and you know, there's actually sound from bill clinton talking about how much he regrets it. it's a remarkable thing that i learned from the reporting of this, which is just how many people have regrets about what we did in that context. fiona, there's another city in europe that begins with b-u, another european capital where there was an understanding reached that you played a substantial role in, a number

of years later that also shows up as one of those kind of recurrent cycles of our not being able to kind of form a coherent policy. tell us what happened in bucharest? >> yes, quickly on the budapest memo, the president of georgia, to see if they could keep one or two of the nuclear weapons, and talking about the budapest memo. and because he basically, he had been, of course, the soviet foreign minister and said he'd seen documents about what would happen, if any of the soviet republics tried to secede and you mind find them handy later. and a nuclear state and belarus as well and belarus has pretty much been swallowed up by russia and ukraine probably would not have been invaded.

and costanze and others have been noting in germany and other places, and europe, and what is the message to japan, south korea and other countries who feel threatened and bucharest, so we can get back to this point as well, becomes important in that context because it's another effort to give ukraine and georgia at the time, now, some kind of guarantees for their future security. now, bucharest was actually more about georgia than about ukraine at the time. and this is the reference to the worst of both worlds comes. in ukraine, at the time of the bucharest n.a.t.o. summit which was in 2008, there wasn't a great deal of enthusiasm for joining n.a.t.o. at that point. we have to remember that the ukrainians, the politics in ukraine had taken all kinds of twists and turns. ukrainians were kind of aware, this is at the popular level,

of the population, there wasn't a great overrounding support for going into n.a.t.o. it was more of kind of an elite project thinking around the ukrainian president. but in georgia, there was a full-throated desire the popular and the elite level to become part of n.a.t.o. and georgia had been supporting the united states in iraq and afghanistan, and was pushing for a membership actually to n.a.t.o. and it was thought and i'm still trying to-- and years later trying to piece together who thought this, because it seems to have been a whole collection of people from all kind of different backgrounds, that georgia's case would be strengthened if ukraine joined in as well. so this was the kind of fateful decision. a letter ras written to george w. bush asking for george's support and being a good texan, was more enthusiastic about supporting the feisty countries

of georgia and ukraine and this is of course after the united states had well and truly waded into iraq and trying to pursue the freedom agenda. and bush thought that ukraine and georgia and i know because i did a deep dive for the president and these are the things that he said. if they made an appeal on military terms it looked like they had the wherewithal to contribute to n.a.t.o. and georgia already has and ukraine at that time as we now know, sizable and capable army certainly in terms of being able to be seen over the last years, keep the russians somewhat at bay, then he would support the membership action plan. the problem snobody else really supported it elsewhere. and part of that had to do with perceptions of him and his role, others knew that ukraine wasn't fully on board at this particular point and there was a lot of resistance. so, what happens, though we briefed the president, i and

others, that this wasn't likely to happen, we actually briefed against it because we think under the idea if you push for something you can't get it's not a great idea because it just sort of shows weaknesses and divisions. and once president bush decided to go ahead, there was bucharest, as we now know and heard from chancellor merkel's memoirs, and opined some of the solutions to some of her eastern europeans counterparts, one day they'll get to n.a.t.o. that. casual aside one day they might get into n.a.t.o. was passed on by many of the europeans at the table who were quite supportive, a handful who were supportive of pushing for ukraine's membership action plan as well as georgia's. that was kind of turned into the text of the bucharest memorandum. why it was the worst of both worlds. one day they would get into n.a.t.o., it wasn't an

immediate promise. it was kind of an open door and putin wanted to slam the door and bash the door off in ukraine and georgia's face and in august of 2008, russia does inside georgia in the pretext of basically exchanges with peacekeeper, which myself and other colleagues had been warning for some kind of flash point in georgia and so a good year before that, they were certainly tensions building up between georgia and russia. and ukraine realizes at that point that it's completely exposed in terms of security. membership action time isn't article 5, it doesn't bring you anything at all. the big flaw in all of n.a.t.o. as far as russia was concerned was it was back stopped by the united states. at this point europe hasn't really been contributing, as we all know, to the extent to which it was required. all this have comes down to single points of failure, which is the united states willingness and backs up

article 5 and from then on putin is trying to test whether the united states is willing to fight and defend any of its eye lies and certainly in the georgia, and in 2014, certainly not ukraine. >> did you have something to-- >> i just wanted to point out since fiona mentioned proliferation. >> there's been in my view, a rather academic debate about nuclear weapons, just in case the americans for one reason or another decided to pivot to asia and that's academic debate has just gone with comments by the incoming chancellor before the election saying that we -- that and in response to the speeches by secretary of defense hegseth at n.a.t.o. at

brussels and then by vice-president vance in munich, that europe was going to have to head uppist own nuclear deterrent. that would mean that the french and british deterrent is passe, which is not enough to expand to the united states, and germany. i cannot overemphasize how much of a sea change that is in the politics of my country. that used to be a complete taboo and we're signatory of the nonproliferation treaty, but i think that what we are seeing here coming out of this white house is taking the lid off of many things, including our proliferation worldwide. i think that is -- and i do not need to describe to anyone the escalation risk inherent in that, right? we have similar debates in

asia, namely in japan and in south korea and i will say that i was at a dinner at n.a.t.o. before the munich security conference where an eastern european said well, we're going to have to get nuclear weapons, too. that's where we are and that's not a good thing. and let me end this by saying i personally feel not only do i think that that is ill-advised, but it is a clear-- it is, of course, a response to the fact that russia has successfully employed the threats of nuclear weapons use in its invasion of ukraine and has-- and that that has served as a significant deterrent against escalation by both the biden white house and the schultz chancellor. so, you can understand the political mechanics this have. but the truth is if we -- that discussing european nuclear deterrent is in many ways a

distraction from a much more urgent issue, which is the traditional currencies, and that we need to dramatically increase our industrial production and defense spending. so there are-- i just want to point out that there is an n.a.t.o. summit in the hague this summer and there are extremely urgent questions hanging over that summit and you can see from the calendar of eu emergency summits that's now beginning, the council, then a european union in the third week of march. i think you'll see picking up of news out of brussels, out of europe, on developing an independent deterrent of whatever kind. >> all right, we're going to go to audience questions momentarily. if you have a question flag for

me. if you do not formulate your question in the form of a question or you prattle on, i will cut you off with a shocking lack of due process. please do wait for the mic and while we are -- you know, he who moderates most aggressively keeps the show going. while we are-- while you wait for the mic, i want to ask nastia one more question, which is in this conversation we've focused a great deal on american follies and betrayals, but in the podcast we actually spend a bit of time on some ukrainian follies and fiona alluded earlier to the politics of ukraine being all over the place. as a ukrainian who was not born

when any of it happened. >> some of it, but not all. >> so many of it was more recent. tell us a little about the experience of looking back on ukrainian history in the course of doing this work. >> that was actually extremely fascinating for me because as you said, a lot of i haven't lived through, but i was walking into this show with a, you know, being aware of the responsibility of, you know, spreading ukraine's message and that's why we have an american co-host and a ukrainian co-host, i had to make sure that ukraine's history was written right and given justice so we covered a lot of extremely important topics that are underreported or that western audiences don't understand, but, for example, we spent a great deal talking about language politics because everyone is utterly confused about it. we had to explain it. but, yeah, there were moments where it was very uncomfortable

for me and quite eye opening that actually it's not just evil americans who messed it all up. [laughter] >> i mean, i'm exaggerating, of course, i always knew that was not the case. it's easy to see that americans and europeans had problems, but often the ukrainian government has messed up badly again and again and we really made ourselves look unreliable and corrupt and often a lot like russia as well and so that that was very interesting and very important for me as well to -- hi, baby. [laughter] >> and so it was very important for me to be objective as neutral as possible and put my ukrainian hat off and my journalist hat on and i'm proud of all the work that was done and i think it's going to be amazing to see that each issue that was covered each summit, each city,

each event has the two distinct viewpoints of it and kind of two roots from the american ran the ukrainian point of view and i hope all of you enjoy it. >> so, we have a lot of people who want questions. so please keep questions brief and if you can direct them to an individual that would be great. >> michael with insider, this is probably for fiona and -- the united states government was in possession of at least a an approximate russian invasion plan in october of 2021. the russians knew we had that plan because bill burns went to moscow and told them. russian, kremlin controlled domestic media was showing in the three months before the start of the invasion all of the airplanes coming into kyiv with javelins and stipulating

stingers and portraying ukraine to war. >> we need to head to a question. >> talks about how ukraine is armed and prepared for war. and on the evening that the russians are actually sent in, the soldiers are woken up in the middle of the night stripped of cell phones and they don't even see putin's announcement of the special military operation in which he calls ukraine a hostile anti-russian pumped up with questions. >> okay, we need a question. >> does anybody think that was weird? >> i don't know how to interpret that. >> well, if we think about the preparations that putin-- i know this period inside out because i was constantly asked to comment on it and watching carefully. the russians were preparing the ground, as we knew for what they were calling a special military operation and they wanted to have a pretext. there were a number of other

things that were happening around this time. given all of the machinations in ukrainian politics, and in this period, the gentleman who is ukrainian very close to putin and putin is the godfather of one of his daughters, it was also basically arrested by the ukrainians and putin is always one person never to let one of his men go. as you know, the assassin in the garden, one of the reasons that all kind of people were taken into custody is basically to trade for him and that kind of work as well. there were all kind of things happening that are kind of certainly affecting putin's calculus about the reasons that he wants to go into ukraine because he feels irrespective of what you're describing showing out on russian television, is the ukrainians getting away from russia's grip

and this has been going on, now, for a very long time. in 2014 russia moved to seize crimea, the role not just to take the donbas, but also to odesa. if you want to look back at 2014, you will see that russia launched a campaign in europe russia to retake the territory that was first brought into russia by the katherine the great. if we go back to the early 1990's, before you were probably paying any attention to what was going on in russia, there were all kinds of assassinations of crimea tartars and ukrainians because russia didn't want ukraine to pull out of the commonwealth of independent states. i'm going to be 60 next year and i have a long memory and living this since the 1980's when i was a student in moscow.

my first visit to ukraine when it was still part of the soviet union. so i've been working on this issue for an extraordinarily long time and if you take all of this in totality, what you will see is right from the very early 1990's, when ukraine was being pushed to give up nuclear weapons, there were constituents in moscow and in russia who saw every move that ukraine made as basically a violation of the relationship between ukraine and russia and didn't want ukraine to have any other options to go anywhere else. so every move that ukraine makes from all this way on can be very well documented as seen from russia perspective. by the time you get to the things that you're discussing there, putin has decided that ukraine has no rights and should not go anywhere at all. it's not just ukraine, it's also belarus, it's also maldova, it's also kazakhstan. it's not just about how things are depicted about ukraine. you can see the depictions about many other places and

when georgia was invaded by russia 2008, the depictions as happening on russian television. and i think you're presenting sthat you're saying that russia had cause for this, but russia only has cause if you still believe that everywhere is part of russia's. perhaps we can take this outside so you can clarify, but it's of course, it's weird from the point of disinformation because it wasn't actually accurate, but russia has been gunning for the return of ukraine basically since the 1990's when ukraine first got away. >> ma'am. >> thank you so much. this is a question for fiona, what would be your advice to u.k. prime minister starmer when he's approaching those conversations concerning ukraine later this week? >> well, i think the prime

minister has figured out that it's a consequential meeting not just because of ukraine, but for the whole future of european security and the united kingdom itself. the u.k. and united states have extraordinary important defense relationships and it's going to be very difficult for european members of n.a.t.o. to be able to make the transition to taking charge of n.a.t.o. of their being exhorted to without some kind of transitional bridging by the united states. and also, the u.k. has made some pretty strong commitments to ukraine and polling in the u.k. showing there's sizable large considerable support in the u.k. in ukraine, as there is across the rest of the europe. the case is going to have to be made and prime minister starmer has already made some commitments about the depth of u.k., you know, even willingness to deploy some troops onto the ground in early

peacekeeping operations. the important thing is to get this across to president trump, you know, in the best way he possibly can. i don't want it put words into his mouth. i'm sure he's thinking very carefully and president macron is already here. we're seeing that all european leaders at this point realize it's the dawning very much of a new era and they have to really figure out where they, themselves stand, but how they're going to manage the relationship with the united states not just with ukraine moving forward. >> we have time for one more question and it is yours. >> so let me thank you so much for an intellectually stimulating, but also emotionally troubling discussion. i'd like constanze and fiona to look at a reversal on the on united states, how to punish russia if there's a cease-fire.

if the united states takes one approach to sanctions, to lift, but europe doesn't, if europe wants to punish war crimes, but the united states doesn't, what will this do to the dialog? thank you. >> it's a good question. to be honest. and i think that there are a number of things here that are in place, sanctions. the use of the russian frozen assets as collateral for further expenditures on behalf of ukraine. ukraine's eu membership, ukraine's n.a.t.o. membership to which we've paid lip service, but which i think requires some sort of a commitment and then, of course, a security guarantees of whatever kind. a german friend of mine,

commentator says security guarantees is a pompous word for further weapons deliveries, which i think at this point is a correct description of what we're talking about. there's still a proposal of putting european troops into the theater, most notably endorsed by u.k. starmer. that's something that the russians vehemently opposed and i frankly, to be completely honest here, i can envision a situation where the europeans want to be more muscularly supportive, where the white house says that's not what we want and we are doing the opposite of that, and where there might be quite unpleasant conversations between the white house and individual european countries on whether it was advisable for us to do what

we're trying to do and i'm not sure i think that will then be another sort of very decisive moment for the transatlantic relationship which, like the german chancellor, i have grown up with and which every german has a sort of-- you know, all europeans like to say they have a special relationship with america, right? i think arguably, german feelings about america, which was a benevolent occupying power for west germany for more than 40 years, and then mid wived not just the reunification of germany, but europe whole and free through the enlargement of the european n.a.t.o. this is very hard for a country of 80 plus million germans to digest that this is no longer a benevolent relationship, but this appears-- i would not call america an adversary or an enemy, but what we have certainly seen is

hostility. >> fiona, you get the last word today. >> well, i think one thing to bear in mind, as well, forgets your question, that this is an actually a global conflict and we haven't mention that had and now we open up a whole as we're closing at the session. for most of the rest the world, ukraine is a proxy conflict with the united states. china is supporting russia, north korea is supporting russia, troops are fighting against ukrainian troops and watching to see where they're spilling over also into ukraine. and iran is also supporting russia, and natis talked about the shaheed drones. shaheed is the iranian word for martyr and they're helping to construct drones on a mass scale in russia because the russians don't have the capability of doing that themselves at the moment with so many people at the front for

this conflict. the peace talks that president trump has called has been in saudi arabia, so, you know, the middle east i mentioned because of iran there is very influential. one of the people involved in the talks is the head of the russian -- behind the scenes involved in the abraham accords. so you can see here there's all kinds of linkages and points here and south korea and japan have been supporting ukraine because the south koreans wonder that north koreans troops are being prepared or exercising there for some kind of action against south korea. and japan is extraordinarily concerned about what the implications are of china supporting russia in all of this. so as we talk about a negotiation between the united states and russia, we've left out all of these global dynamics as well and the chinese have told the ukrainians i've learned from one of the ukrainian foreign

ministers, look, this isn't about you, it's never been about you. you know, china was a massive investor in ukraine before the war and we'll invest again when it was all over, but this is really just about the united states. so, us, we kind of contemplate the way that we've flipped on europe, there's a whole host of other discussions going on around the globe, but what this war is and what the aftermath of it might be. will north korea turn its attention towards south korea. what will south korea and japan be facing and will china really be kind of the beneficiary in some respects of this as the country that then reconstructs ukraine or also then moves back, you know, basically into a relationship with europe at the munich security conference there were several prominent chinese officials trying not to gloat over the rift between europe and the united states, but saying to the europeans,

they were very open, we'll be there for you europe, kind of when this is all over as well, but they have also, china been aiding and abetting theest largest land war in europe since world war ii, and to be continued. >> i think. >> indeed. we thank you for joining us and our spectacular panel. if you could remain in your seat while the panel evacuates the room and heads to a shelter in a local hospital. thank you to nnastia, tyler, fiona, escalation, you should download it, the first episode is now available.

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