A Ukrainian MP Takes Stock of the NATO Summit and the Prospects for Peace

The leaders of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance, just finished their annual Summit in The Hague in The Netherlands, as Ukraine continues its existential fight against Russia’s full-scale invasion that began more than three years ago. That invasion, preceded six years earlier by the capture of Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine, set off the biggest war in Europe since World War II. 

How do Ukrainian leaders see the outcome of the NATO Summit? What are the prospects for negotiations, and how are Ukrainians faring in the meantime? And what about relations between Ukraine and the United States under this new administration in Washington? And with its European partners? 

Washington Senior Editor Viola Gienger and guest host Lauren Van Metre spoke with Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko to answer some of these crucial questions. 

Show Notes:

• Just Security’s Russia-Ukraine War archive.
• Just Security’s tracking of Russia’s Eliminationist Rhetoric Against Ukraine
• Hidden in the U.S. Army’s New Reform Initiative Is a Warning for Europe by Jennifer Kavanagh
• Can Trump Seize a Win in Ukraine? By Ambassador Daniel Fried
• International Law at the Precipice: Holding Leaders Accountable for the Crime of Aggression in Russia’s War Against Ukraine by Mark Ellis

Transcript

Viola Gienger: The leaders of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance, just finished their annual Summit in the Hague in the Netherlands, as Ukraine continues its existential fight against Russia's full scale invasion that began more than three years ago. That invasion, proceeded six years earlier by the capture of Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine, set off the biggest war in Europe since World War Two. Expert estimates and leaked data put the number of Ukrainian soldiers killed at 80,000 or more, and the Ukrainian civilian death toll at more than 13,000 with 33,000 injured. The Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington recently estimated that as many as 250,000 Russian soldiers have died in Ukraine, and more than 700,000 of them have been injured. The Trump administration says it wants to stop the fighting, but preliminary talks so far have been unsuccessful, though they have led to prisoner swaps that released the largest number of prisoners of war to date. How do Ukrainian leaders see the outcome of the NATO Summit? What are the prospects for negotiations, and how are Ukrainians faring in the meantime? And what about relations between Ukraine and the United States under this new administration in Washington and with its European partners? 

This is the Just Security Podcast. I'm your host, Viola Gienger, Washington Senior Editor of Just Security, and to discuss these questions and what's ahead for Ukraine, we're joined today by the honorable Oleksiy Goncharenko, a member of Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada. He's a member of the European Solidarity political group in Parliament and a member of the Budget Committee. He also serves as President of the Committee on Migration, Refugees, and Displaced Persons in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. MP Goncharenko is joining us today from Strasbourg, France, where he's attending the PACE Summer Session, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and joining me in co-hosting this episode is Lauren Van Metre, who is in Lviv in western Ukraine as we speak. Lauren is a guest author of Just Security and a former director at the National Democratic Institute and former associate Vice President at the United States Institute of Peace. She's a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center and an adjunct professor at the Elliot School of International Affairs at the George Washington University. She's a longtime Ukraine expert, and has most recently supported local women's organizations in Ukraine, providing humanitarian support to communities on the war's front lines. 

MP Goncharenko, thank you so much for joining us. Let's start with the situation in Ukraine. First, can you briefly outline for us the state of the fighting currently, the condition of Ukraine's forces and weapon supplies? Where geographically have they been most successful, and where are they struggling?

MP Goncharenko: In general, the situation is next. Ukraine is now in defense. Russia is trying to advance on all parts of the front line. They have some successes and the most endangered parts now are the most northern part, it's Sumy region, it is near Russian Kursk region, where Ukraine still control a very small part, but still controls several square miles of Russian sovereign territory in Kursk Region, and Russia is attacking and trying to get closer to the regional center city Sumy. And during last week, Ukrainian forces stopped Russians. But there is a heavy fighting there, and Russians are dangerously close to Sumy, meaning, speaking close, it means that they can use FPV drones to attack the city and to terrorize people, civilians there, and that is really very, very hard for people. One more very difficult part of frontline is near Pokrovsk. It's near the administrative border between Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk region of Ukraine. Russians try to enter Dnipropetrovsk region. So if they will succeed, it will mean that they entered their sixth, no, the seventh already, Ukrainian region from the beginning of war in 2014. So that's important for them politically, and they are aggressively trying, not counting the losses, to get in Dnipropetrovsk region and to try to take the city of Pokrovsk, which is situated on the strategical road to Dnipropetrovsk region, and to city of Dnipro. These probably are two most difficult parts of frontline, but the situation is quite hard everywhere.

Viola: Yeah, that's understandable. What's your sense of how are Ukrainians faring through this? 

MP Goncharenko: Oh, definitely. So we are tired, we are exhausted, the situation is not the best, but we know what we are fighting for. We clearly know, you know, we are saying when Ukrainians are fighting against Russians, thousands die; when Ukraine is occupied by Russia, millions die. So we know this. Russia organized genocide against Ukrainians already 90 years ago, and we clearly know what they will do, and now they organize a new genocide. We clearly know what will be the consequence of defeat. So we are fighting, and we will continue to fight as long as it will be needed. But definitely we are tired, and we are exhausted, and we are looking to have more support from our allies. 

Lauren Van Metre: MP Goncharenko, in the last few weeks, we've seen that Ukraine and Russia have conducted a series of prisoner swaps. The swaps have returned the most seriously wounded to Ukraine, and happily another group, the youngest prisoners of war, have also returned. These groups include defenders of Mariupol and the Azovstal iron and steel plant on the site of that iconic, months-long siege of Ukraine's southern port city in 2022 So may we ask you, do you think these exchanges can create the basis for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine on other issues? And if so, what might those issues be?

MP Goncharenko: It's today again, it was one more prisoner exchange. So that is important, but I don't think it leads us to some bigger, bigger breakthroughs in peace, establishing in achievement of peace. Unfortunately, I think Russians feel themself emboldened now. I understand that President Trump wants peace, but to achieve peace, he chose the way, trying to convince Russia, trying to be neutral in this situation. But that's I think, that it is mistake. I think it will never lead to result, because the only language Russia understands is the language of strength, the language of force. So in order to have Russia at real negotiation table with real will to find solution, or to at least to freeze the conflict, Russians should be hard, hardly punched. That's the only way. So before President Trump and United States will put a real hard pressure on Russia, there will be no real negotiations, and Russians will continue. And they are quite open in this, you know. At the beginning they played this game, ‘so we want peace.’ But when Ukraine said, ‘Okay, let us stop fighting right now. Let's have an unconditional ceasefire today,’ from that moment in March, they are looking all the time, for some, ‘Oh, no, we can't, because of this, because of that,’ but recently they started to speak openly. They are saying, for example, press secretary of Putin Peskov. He said, ‘Why should we stop the war when we advance?’ It was quite clear, and that's what Putin says, but not in such clear words, but exactly the same idea. ‘We advance. We're taking more new territories. We don't want to stop.’ And they will not stop. And when President Trump said in Hague that Russia has territorial conditions beyond Ukraine, this is exactly true. So it means that Russia, Russia is aggressor. Aggressor never stops himself. Aggressor only can be stopped. 

Lauren: I'd like to turn next to the economic situation in your country. We know that Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues to cause staggering losses to Ukraine's economy. Poverty has risen since the beginning of 2022—in fact, the World Bank estimates some 9 million Ukrainians now live below the poverty line. And yet, there's also significant resilience. Children are attending school. We see social services and healthcare still running, still being effective. Where do you think the economic impacts of the war are most being felt today in Ukraine, and which populations would you say are the most vulnerable? 

MP Goncharenko: It's a very good question. Ukraine is very dependent from financial support today from the west. Our economics gives us possibility to finance our army, which makes near 50% of Ukrainian budget. All other funding is coming from the west. So from one point of view—and one more additional thing, many countries of the West, they do not allow Ukraine to use their funding for military purposes. So it means for us, it's very important to keep economics afloat, because we can, we can finance our army and our defense only by our own money, which we earn. So it's important to continue to earn this money and to support economics. Thanks to Ukrainian businessman, Ukrainian employee, our economy still work. We have a big export, first of all, agriculture, but not only very important here is Odessa and the fact that Ukraine opened the Black Sea, because this is vital for Ukrainian economics to open the ways for agricultural experts. It's also very important to the world, because food security of the world is dependent from crops from Ukraine. So, yes, this is a big issue. Many people live in poverty. Unfortunately, that's true. I can tell you that very important is resilience of Ukrainian people and mutual support of people, a lot of is done by volunteering organizations, charity foundations and organizations, international but mostly Ukrainian. And I have my own experience, I have found and run the biggest in Ukraine, network of educational cultural centers, which are called Goncharenko Centres. 41 centers throughout the whole country for education and culture. And we continue to operate and all our courses are free of charge for adults and children. So we are a kind of a drop in this ocean of Ukrainian social volunteering, and this is a very important factor of Ukrainian resilience. 

Viola: So let's turn to this week's NATO Summit in the Hague. MP Goncharenko, how do you feel about how that turned out for Ukraine?

MP Goncharenko: I think it's better than we were afraid of but definitely it's not what we were expecting a year ago in Washington during last summit. What do I mean? We did not receive an invitation to NATO and that is bad, but it was already clear for quite a long time that it wouldn't happen. But at the same time, we have a good things, because the decision to increase the spending on defense for NATO member states is very important, first of all, because it makes NATO stronger and more resilient against Russia and other adversaries. But also, there is important part of this decision that money which the NATO member states provide to Ukrainian defense capacities, capabilities, account into their share of GDP spent on defense. So we hope that it will lead to increase of military support to Ukraine from, first of all, European countries. Probably it's not about the United States, but it's about European countries, and that can have a serious positive consequences for Ukraine and strategical ones for years ahead, at least medium term, not just short term, but medium term. Second important thing is that Russia is mentioned in the decision as a long term threat to NATO, and this is good, and that shows that despite rhetorics, NATO member states, including United States as the main country, understand that Russia is a long term threat. So I am cautiously optimistic about the results of Hague Summit.

Lauren: MP Goncharenko, earlier you discussed the impact of the policies of the Trump administration, which in your opinion, have emboldened Russia. Yet in the US, we also see Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Republican, and Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, had showed bipartisan support for Ukraine by championing legislation for stronger sanctions against Russia by targeting its energy exports in an effort to leverage Russian participation in the negotiations. In fact, they were in Ukraine at the end of May to promote their effort, and the legislation now has 82 co-sponsors in the Senate. My question to you is in two parts: do these sanctions sound to you like they would be effective? Are they that punch you think that Russia needs? Second, what do you think about the role the US Congress is playing in relation to Ukraine right now?

MP Goncharenko: Yeah, I would like to thank Senator Lindsey Graham and and Senator Blumenthal and all other senators, as I know 81 senator from 100 signed the bill. And this is very impressive. And I don't know, Are there many topics in the United States right now that can unite such a big majority of American Senators from both parties? So it is important. It is, it is impressive. The problem is that it is a bill, not a decision. The problem is we can't understand where is position of US administration, President Trump's administration. Recently, State Secretary Marco Rubio commented, and he said that, how you imagine that we will punch Russia with the heavy sanctions when we try to establish peace? I really, it's kind of another attitude, because, like recently, United States punched Iran to achieve peace. So with Iran, United States understand that the only way for such countries, the only language they understand, is language of strength, is through strength. But with Russia, there is a different attitude and different approach. I don't know why. And again, I think it is mistake, and as a result of this mistake, Russia is emboldened. Putin becomes more aggressive, both in rhetorics and in his attacks against Ukraine. June will be one of the worst months during the war, with the number of civilian casualties because of Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities. So this is very disturbing. So I think it's time to start to move this bill. I think this bill can be super effective. I think that if President Trump will start to move this bill, Putin will change his behavior immediately, and then it can be a real result, what President Trump is looking forward, I mean peace and freedom of this conflict. So that's what I think. Congress is important, but we understand that, at least for the moment, President Trump is a superpower in the United States, so I don't think that Republicans in the Congress will seriously argue with President Trump. I hope, and I don't want the—I mean, I'm not coming into internal politics of the United State, it's up to American people and American politicians to decide what to do, but I hope that American Congressmen and Senators are trying to convince President Trump and administration to change their approach. 

Viola: It's really important to have your perspective on that. I want to turn to the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe now. As we noted at the beginning of the conversation, you're in Strasbourg, France right now attending that assembly. The Council of Europe promotes democracy, human rights, and rule of law, and includes the European Court of Human Rights, and it has commendably set Ukraine as its priority issue, which is interesting. So President Zelensky yesterday signed an agreement there with the Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset to establish a special Tribunal for the crime of aggression in Strasbourg. The crime of aggression is the international crime when one country illegally uses armed force against another to violate their sovereignty, territorial integrity, or political independence. In other words, Russia's invasion of Ukraine. What do you see as the biggest hurdles to ensuring the effectiveness of that tribunal? 

MP Goncharenko: Yeah, it was quite a historic moment here yesterday in Strasbourg, signing of agreement and beginning of establishing of international tribunal. It is for the third time, Nuremberg, Tribunal against Nazi Germany, then Tribunal on the War Crimes in former Yugoslavia, now this. So it is important, because it's about, it couldn't be impunity for such crime of crimes, crime of aggression. And it is about Russian political, military leadership, and not only Russia, also Belarusian and North Korean. So it is important moment. We clearly understand that this tribunal, it will take maybe years. Also we understand that for the moment, not like in Nuremberg, where Nazi Germany was already defeated. Nazi Russia is still not, Nazi Russia is still not defeated, but in any way, it's right direction. We need to name villains, villains. We need to name criminals, criminals. We need to name spades, spades. We need to show to other aggressors that they will be taken to responsibility sooner or later. So that is important moment. It will not have a direct influence of what's going on now on frontline, but I hope it will make a difference, and will have influence on what will happen in the world in the next decades. So it is important and my job here was also to move this tribunal. So I'm happy to see that this process is on its way. 

Viola: That's great to know. And is there one other issue that you think is really top of mind for Ukraine right now at PACE?

MP Goncharenko: There are a lot of issues which are important recently here in PACE, two days ago, we adopted Resolution on Ukraine, by the way, also addressing United States, asking to know, to continue to support Ukraine and to put pressure on Russia, all that we spoke about. It was supported unanimously by Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly. Think that this is also important signal. Also we adopted my amendments which I proposed were supported, about Russian shadow fleet as a main source of Russian war chest. So these are important issues. And Council of Europe is the only organization, international organization, which kick off Russia from its members to the beginning of full scale invasion. So I want to thank all our colleagues here in PACE for coming work and for results. 

Viola: I just want to ask one final question very briefly and that is, what are you looking for now going forward? What do you feel should be the priorities for President Zelensky? What do you think should be the priorities for the United States, especially your counterparts here in the US Congress, and for European countries? 

MP Goncharenko: I think we have a chance to peace. We want peace as soon as possible in Ukraine. For this, we need to put pressure on Russia. This is the time. We can't wait anymore. And I hope this will be—and all Ukrainian diplomacy should be aimed on this. And I hope very much that we will have support of the United States. Without United States, it would not, it will not happen. But if it will not happen, that the question will be in the air, is the United States country you can rely on, is it a partner you can rely on? After all insurances, after Budapest Memorandum, where United States guaranteed Ukraine a territorial integrity and sovereignty, after Ukraine voluntarily gave up the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world. And after this, you just can't give up on Ukraine, because it's not already about Ukraine, it's about United States itself. The world will be much worse place to live in if we will not win this war.

Viola: Thank you so much. MP, Goncharenko, it was really wonderful to have you here. We really appreciate your thoughts. Thank you. 

MP Goncharenko: Thank you very much. 

Viola: This episode was hosted by me, Viola Gienger, and our guest host, Lauren Van Metre, and produced by Maya Nir with help from Isaac Rubinstein. Special thanks to MP Alexey kons. You can find more analysis of Russia's war in Ukraine on Just Security’s website. If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a five star rating on Apple podcast or wherever you listen.