Transcripts For CSPAN Ukrainian 20240706 : vimarsana.com

Foundation for defense against democracies. Im going to have to pull my troops because you will not give me the ammunition i need to fight the ukrainians. This is an extraordinary thing. Imagine the u. S. If two generals went after each other in the u. S. Army on the record like that. Amb markarova during this very difficult time when russia reinvaded ukraine the war, they started the war with us in 2014. Even in the face of this war, all russian criminals, armed forces and other groups which call themselves mercenaries, but of course, they are there because the russian government told them and russian president told them to be there. Have always been bragging about how they will take back moot. The fight in the east has been particularly brutal. To see him publicly on the record attacking other parts of the war criminal group that is waging the war in ukraine is saying the truth, first of all, that he is disclosing the fact they are running out of ammunition. That means sanctions are working. It also means that there is an opener for us to continue with what we have to do to liberate our country. How shall we look at this and we ukrainians look at this . It proves all the priorities which we are working with u. S. First and foremost, but also allies, more weapons to us, more financial and other support for us to be able to faster liberate our land, but also more sanctions to russia. This is what we should be thinking about. We have to double down, because we can win it faster. I think we shall see more of this. What are russians fighting for their . There are many more of them. They have more equipment here and lets not underestimate the enemy. All of our soldiers, men and women, who have defended our homes, there is a very clear motivation there. This is the only home we have and we will defend them with every thing we have. What is their motivation . Unfair war and war crimes in ukraine. There is none. Let me get to you to elaborate on this. Some of the bigger questions. Would i be one to think of this war as ukraines word independence . Amb markarova yes. You would be right. We have been occupied. It is very much our war for independence. For our territorial integrity and sovereignty, for our right to exist. If you listen to putin and everyone from russia, they have been very clear about their objective. Essentially since we became independent in 1991, all the countries that became independent who were occupied by the soviet union, other countries, they have always seen the breakup of the soviet union as a good thing. Some think that generations of ukrainians something that generations of ukrainians fought for. Russia is the only country where consistently the message from russian leaders, this has been the greatest tragedy and they want to reconstruct. It goes deeper than the soviet union. When you listen to them, you clearly hear that soviet union or russian empire or the Russian Federation now is something they want to expand and reconstruct. Again, return older nations and older countries that they were able to occupy at some period of time. For us, our fight for independence never stopped. We became independent together with finland in the fight. We fought for it even after the war was over. People in ukraine fought for independence and all the way up until 1989. In 1991, we thought to create and do institutional reforms. Russia tried to change it. The orange revolution in 2004 and the revolution of dignity, the reason for that was both times before the revolution, russia was able to install prorussian government officials who wanted to return to the russian integration reoccupation , rather than continue the path of european integration. People of ukraine repeatedly said, no. In the referendum in 1999, or the elections in 2004 or 2013 and 2014 and when there was nothing else we could do. We went out and the public and say, no. It is all about freedom and independence. My theory on putin, i am sure you thought about who he is and what he believes. It is my pet theory, i have been following russia for more than half a century. He sees himself as the czar. It is the czars duty to bring all the russias back together. The empire under the czar, his mission in his part of his life, what do all of the russias mean . It means belarus he can say maybe instead of know, sometimes. Maybe. He would like the baltics. He would like because extent. He would like central asia. He took everything back and more. I think that is what he sees himself as trying to do, restore the russian empire because he is the czar. He is both yvonne the terrible and ivon the terrible and the great. Amb markarova i think it is probably part of that. Unfortunately for him, he is not a czar. [laughter] amb markarova today is not 19th century. The world is different. The ideas that empires could be successful in the 21st century, i just are just not physical. We see it. With development of nations, with corporations we have between ourselves, with the freedom of press, the social media and everyone having access to this and being able to record and show like his own did yesterday how can you create something that is so outdated . That was not even visible at the beginning of the 20th century . That is why the empire started collapsing. I do think that putin and his closest allies, xi jinping and allie communion, they are empire builders. There is a chinese empire. Xi jinping is part of the chinese empire. Definitely once an empire and has one in lebanon and syria. These are empires of the 21st century. Whether they succeed or not, my question is very much out. I think it is important to make the case that ukraine both is a separate nation from russia, putin denies that, and has a right to be a separate nation from russia. Maybe just talk about that for a minute. Amb markarova of course. First, we existed before russia was created. If we had more time, maybe i would do a separate discussion on the histories of ukraine or kyiv has been in the center of european history. There is a lot to discuss in so many centuries dating back to 2000 years ago when we adopted christianity in ukraine. We have separate language. We identify themselves as ukrainians. We always thought of ourselves as a different people. There was definitely a separate country and separate nationality. Despite the fact that we were occupied by literally almost 400 years, because after the fall of when peter the great was able to take it and did exactly what we have seen in mariupol and other places. He destroyed the whole city and he killed everyone, including children. We are separate people. The difference between ukrainian and russian is almost exactly the same as between spanish and the french. It is a different language. We see now, especially with russians who engage in the illegal war in ukraine on the battlefield, how difficult it is for them to understand. They have no idea where they are. They do not understand. That is not the case, because in the modern world, we do not think in terms of nationalities. We think in terms of International Rules and the borders that are recognized by everyone. Our borders have been recognized by all the countries, including russia, in 1991. Our people, 92 of them, voted for independence in 1991. Actually, out of all former soviet union or soviet union occupied countries, we not only our parliament that proclaimed independence, we had a referendum. We ask our people. That also has to do with a very long, traditional democracy in ukraine. We always say we are democracy on steroids. Ukrainians, really free in expressing opinions. It is a very ukrainian joke. When you have two ukrainians, you have three point of use. We like to discuss everything. You see that in our relations with government in ukraine. People are not afraid to voice it. People are going to the elections, they elect their government and protect their choice as it happened in 2004 when the elections, they tried to steal the election and the president tried to proclaim himself and elect him president. We are different. I want to play devils advocate a little bit. Apologists for putin, people i would call isolationists, they may call themselves restraints. Putin was threatened because nato was getting close to his borders. Ukraine had not been accepted into nato, there was talk it would. He felt that was threatening to russia to have nato so close to his borders. Nato enlarging, nato expanding. Talk about why that is nonsense. Amb markarova there are several elements of that. First, nato was never in our region, was never expended. It was always individual countries that wanted to join nato. The enlargement of nato, the extension of nato look at any country that became members during the previous 30 years. All of them wanted to join. The people wanted to join. It was a very great, safe, decision for them to become members of the same family with the same value. Second, putin was never threatened by that. It is actually vice versa. Ukraine wanted to join nato. Since 2004, leadership has been clear on that. Unfortunately, leadership before that was not clear because after we broke out from the soviet union, the first people in ukraine, the first leaders for ukraine had been the previous soviet ukrainian leaders who became ukrainian leaders. Essentially, we did not build our own institutions from the start. All of them had been handmedowns from the soviet union. Forgetting about the Historical Perspective in a country that had been occupied for such a long time, centuries, power and government was not always something ukrainian. It was always russians who dominated in those. Since 2004, it was very clear to us that the situation is blackandwhite. You are either part of the civilized world were occupied by russia. We started working towards it, but we were still neutral. We were neutral in our constitution that was written. We were not part of nato, together with georgia. When we were not part of nato, that embolden putin and he attacked us in 2014 and again reinvaded us in 2022. We only formalized our desire to join nato in 2018 when we included that into our constitution, because more than 60 of ukrainians are in favor of that now. Before that, we cooperated with nato. We became in 2020, the partner in nato. That happened after russia attacked us in 2014. Look at finland. Look at sweden. The push for them, for their people to join nato, came as a response of russia. It is actually vice versa. It is not putin who is threatened. It is all of us, democratic states, that are threatened by russia. That is why we want to stick together. Again, i think we listen sometimes too much to putins explanations of why he did something. Sometimes, it is nato. Sometimes, it is ukraine that was going to attack him. Sometimes there are all kinds of lies, literally, lies. We have to call them that. The truth is very simple. He just wants to attack neighboring countries. He does it on a regular basis. That is the only way for him to consolidate the power inside the country and state president. We have to stop it. He is not stupid. He never thought german, hungarian, turkish troops would come and try to take over moscow. He knows better. Amb markarova who would want that . [laughter] who would want that. Something else that does scare him, i was an election observer for the last parliamentary elections in ukraine. He sees people being free. He sees people voting. What struck me as an election observer to the extent to which ukrainians were very proud, we are doing this right, let me show you by the way, there were prorussian in that election. I think they made up 13 of the vote rate i talked to people from those parties. Some of them were more prorussian. People could vote freely. For russians to see that across the border, i think saw that as a threat. Amb markarova absolutely. Free, democratic and prosperous ukraine. This is a threat to russia, because this is a bad example for his people. Ok. People are talking about a spring offensive, a summer offensive at this point. Spring is muddy in ukraine right now. There is only so much you can probably tell us. People are making productions, including a number of people who we think a lot of. Ben hodges retired you retired general, he thinks there could be serious successes in the spirit i know mark milley talked about ukraine has significantly enhanced capabilities to conduct offensive operations. Tell us what you can about planning and what you hope to achieve. I think it is important we can agree on this, the United States, americans, if they see ukrainians making progress, that is important. If they see stalemate, they will say, we have to push for negotiations because this is like world war i were nobodys getting anywhere. Amb markarova first of all, russians attacked our land. They are committing horrible crimes and atrocities everywhere. After we will we were able to liberate kyiv, we have seen what happens in the territories where russians occupy them. They are killing people. They are torturing people. They are raping people. They are stealing our children and forcefully deporting them to russia. And, simply destroying the city. Look at mariupol, look at the recent videos and shots that are available. Literally, the city does not exist. More than 90 of the city is destroyed. For us, it is not a question of when the counteroffensive and how many. The overall goal is to defend our country and liberate all ukraine. Within internationally recognized borders. It will take one counteroffensive or many, whether it will take days, months, weeks or years, it does not matter to us. The goal is clear, to restore territorial integrity and to phase as many ukrainians as we can. That goal was there since 2014. We have been forced to answer in courts because there was no alternative. After the country was robbed blind by russians and the russian government before 2013, after their armed forces work completely destroyed by the Russian Ministry of defense, our secret services were also severely damaged by the Russian National who led the secret service. When they attacked us the first time in 2014, it came at a time when we it was difficult for us to fight back the way we should have. And the way we have done in 2022. Right now, and we spent eight years very important, i think people forget it. We spent eight years working on a diplomatic solution to restore our territorial integrity, even though the minsk courts were not fair to us. It was impossible and sometimes impossible in order to get back our country and get back illegally imprisoned people by means of diplomacy. Russia used all the time to attack us. It is very clear to us now that there is no alternative to us, fighting for every inch of our territory and every ukrainian, to save them. Doing this for 436 days, we have seen a couple of counteroffensive, a couple of successful ones. We reintegrated kyiv over. We liberated one of the few, large cities they were able to occupy during this time. Of course, right now, everyone is focusing on counteroffensive. Again, we trust our military command. Everyone from the supreme commanders, zelenskyy, to our chief commander and others, they know when and where we could do the most and in the most effective way. The way our military is planning their operations is in a responsible way. If you look at how we were liberating hassan, military people will tell you that they were doing it in a very careful way to save as many ukrainians, the civilians, because it is our people that have been held hostages there. We all pray for all of our counteroffensives to be successful. I can only say that we still need more weapons. This is the Main Objective now. Regardless of when it starts, regardless of how many counteroffensives we will have, we need to build an endurance plan for the future. After we liberate all ukraine, and we believe we will, and i think it is not only dangerous to ukraine, it is not only in the interest to ukraine, it is in the interest of all of us, we have to show it is not ok in the 21st century to violate the border of a soviet country through brutal force. After we do that, russia will not move anywhere. It was d it will still be within our threat. Not only the democratic world, there are Food Security threats, Energy Security threats. Right now, we are one of the largest and definitely most capable armies in europe. We are defending and liberating ourselves, but also defending other European Countries. We will continue to do so going forward. Hopefully in the future, as a member of nato. We agree with this and under a under john hardy and analysts, a new report called advanced u. S. Interest by giving ukraine the weapons it needs now and it specifies what we think based on our analysis you need in order to prevail in this. I just commended to everybody listening. You mentioned diplomacy, there are a number of analysts on the left and right and in the u. S. And in europe. What they keep saying is, we have to push both sides to negotiate. I understand how you can push ukrainians to negotiate. What i do not understand is, how you push putin to negotiate . Do you threaten him with sanctions . Do you give him weapons . Have you seen any indication, through macron, that putin thinks, i want to compromise, i want to find a way to end this . Is there any indication he is open to diplomatic solution . Amb markarova first of all, i think you can only negotiate if two sides are ready to negotiate. Russia never wanted to negotiate. They wanted to occupy, attack, destroy and kill us. Right now, we definitely are not in a position to negotiate with invaded criminals until they leave their our country. You can only negotiate around the table what you can achieve at the battlefield. They will only negotiate with us if we are definitely winning everything and liberating all of our territories. Until then, i do not think we should expect even russia to negotiate. When russia talks about negotiations, what they need is operational force. We clearly see it, from the video from yesterday and others. They want a pause in order to get their resources together to attack us even better. Why would we give them an operational and their military objective . If you ask any people who study war, there is always three element of that. The intent, the window of opportunity and the capabilities in order to be able to complete it. Russias intent did not change. It was there since putin became the president , to restore this empire and occupy and destroy us. It is still there during all these years, they still want to occupy us, kill us you see everything they are doing. All the war crimes is a genocide of ukrainian people. The window of opportunity, they thought they had it in 2020 two. That is why they attacked us. They still think they can do it, they can outlast us. They can outlast the west. They are trying to drive the wage between us through wedge between us by whatever means possible. They are thinking because they can endure more, they have more weapons or their people are less active and will not be able to go and demonstrate, they can do that. Again, i do not think we can change that. I think all the influence we all can have on is there capacity and capability to fight. That is why more weapons to us and more sanctions to russia is the greatest tool in order to bring peace faster. You originally had a conversation with xi jinping, china supreme leader. He said it was a long and meaningful conversation. It was hard for you to answer because you want to be diplomatic. I can be less so. I think xi jingping is thinking, what is in my interest . It is not about peace, he is thinking, what is in the interest of china right now . Do you think he is going to be helpful, or is it impossible to say . Amb markarova it is very easy for me to answer from the standpoint what our president s goal is in this. He has been very clear. You have seen a detailed readout of the quote our administration put out. Very clear about what this war is about. If russia had attacked us, we are not ready for concessions and there is a plan on the table. Ukraines peace plan. President zelenskyys piece plan which he presented as early as last october during the u. N. Discussions. It is a 10 step peace plan which is very clear. About, how to restore peace, how to restore it and how to reach the just in peace. We are ready to cooperate with anyone who is ready to help us. When we presented this piece formula, we said any countries like the u. S. Or other departments are welcome. Any countries who are ready to work on some of these steps are welcome. If china finds it in them to actually send a clear message to russia that what china says they pull up they publicly believe in, like the u. N. Charger, russia has violated the you repeatedly. There violated the you in charger repeatedly. The court actually mandated russia to stop this military operation. Russia, which is the Security Member of european of u. N. , just ignored it. Why are they members of the Security Council . That is a another key question. And why members of the u. N. , that is a good question. They were never cofounders and never went to the proper procedures to join the u. N. Another charge made by critics of ukraine is there are nazis or neonazis within the military. It is interesting because has an oped in the wall street journal. He is talking about the as all three grade brigade. He says, i met with these people. They are like the jews in masada. I wanted you to respond to that criticism, that there are these terrible neonazis within the military in ukraine and that is why we should be supporting ukraine. Amb markarova this is one of the most pathetic and really, in ukraine, difficult to understand claims of russia and russian leaders. First, lets look at the facts. Ukraine and the tolerance there are so many different nationalities living in ukraine. Historically, we are on the crossroads of everything. Of europe, asia, east, west. It was such an and all commission of different people among galatian of different People Living together. Ukraine always had a very low numbers, even compared to some European Countries of we are number four in the list of righteous who was saving the jews during world war ii and lots of horrible crimes that they committed. To accuse our president , who is jewish ukrainian, of being a nazi that is another level of idiosyncrasy that the russians have on that. It is clear to me why they tried to label an old regiment of the National Guard as such, because these are the boys and girls who stopped putin and did not allow him to take mariupol in 2015. That was very clear and very personal. They would manufacture anything it is interesting, we were researching that and citing some of the footage and videos they were putting out excessively so that their propaganda, especially in 2015, 2016, trying to attack and others, the majority of those were able to trae to trace to russian united organizations. They would show ukrainian National Guardsmen over those regiment in uniform. Then, they would show the swastika. We even reviewed it saying, here is a guy here. He undresses, there is nothing like that on him. It was a big part of the propaganda, trying to reach the people in either European Union or the u. S. To make it difficult to support ukraine. For some time, especially engage in propaganda heavily before 2022, unfortunately, it worked somewhere. They put massive resources into it, together with their cyber interventions everywhere, together with their malign influence through social media. It worked in some areas. The truth is, the only instrument we are so grateful to the journalists in ukraine now. Who are on the front lines, who are in kyiv, who have been interviewing. We are fortunate. We have lost so many. Ukrainian and international journalists, during this war. But it is because of them that we have seen the truth. About this issue, it is them who shot at the beginning of this. It is them who attacked mariupol. Would unfortunately could not save we could not unfortunately save the jews and ukrainians in mariupol. There was one woman who died, who survived the holocaust as a girl. She was nine. She saw her parents being killed. She lived in mariupol. She had to spend two months in the basement of her residential building. She died in her mid90s from russian attack. We just have to share the news, share the truth, explain, explain, explain about that. It is actually russians who have to fight their xenophobia. I have more questions. I am only going to ask one more. While i do, we have questions coming from our guests. I will ask this question, a big question. There are those who also think that, if putin takes ukraine, it is over. I do not think it is over. I think it will have an impact on other expansionist regimes. I think you agree with me, that putin if putin should win in ukraine, he has other goals, other countries on his list. Maybe address that very quickly. Amb markarova i will answer that quickly. It is very much a 1939 moment. We have to listen to what he says. It is not only about ukraine. We can stop him in ukraine, then it is over. If we liberate ukraine and ukraine winds. If god forbid ukraine falls, then he is going to be all over the he himself named the countries he believes are the enemies of his autocratic rules. Central baltic states, poland, a number of states, including in central asia. No, it is actually more than ukraine and vm location then that is much larger than just russiaukraine. Identify yourself and ask your question. Vivian from the wall street journal. Always to see you. I want to try to get to questions and. You touched upon the role china could potentially play if they are sincere in bringing russia to the table. Im curious if you feel there is a changing appetite, may be growing appetite, in washington recognizing there are limitations to them dealing with moscow. The fact china could play a constructive role in leased and getting russia to the table, convincing them to come to the table to support whatever ukraine is trying to get on the table. Second question, i wanted you to talk to the state of Ukrainian Air defenses, how those conversations are going with the u. S. And nato allies, whether you feel there is progress being made to support the upcoming counteroffensive particularly with regard to the strain on air defenses. Amb markarova on the first question, i think we should focus on not how to bring russia to the table, but how to get them out of ukraine. For that, every country can play a role. We actually talked to everyone, unless they support russia like iran or belarus. By supplying weapons to them, or allowing them to use their countries as again, the priorities from us does not change. Weapons, support to us, sanctions and maximum isolations to russia. I think it is premature to talk about the negotiations now. There are no two sides to this. It is not like we attacked each other. It is not like there is a war that is happening on ukraine and russian soil. It is a very clear, brutal aggression of assault over aggressive country against a sovereign country. We have to focus on how to get them out. Whatever any country can do to motivate them, either to support us or to send clear messages to them, or to stop buying oil with russia, gas, or other, or stop supplying them with other so we will engage with everyone trying to explain what is it about to give them the information because in some countries, the russian propaganda is still strong and in some countries the media environment is so controlled there is nothing information. I think direct engagement, especially from our president , who from the beginning of this war has became a communicator directly with people. Very unconventional for the leaders of the state. Just to tell him, what is it about so they will stop telling us what concessions to make in order to get peace. It is the other way around. What can we do in order to make russia stop . Whether by direct help to us or anything else. I am sorry the air defense, very important. You have seen during, since the beginning of this war, the indiscreet air attacks from russia have been there signature war crime. Whether it is the drones or the different types of missiles or the ground systems that they are killing literally civilians on a daily basis with. There is definitely a big need in air defense. This is, as you have seen, a priority for discussions in previous several. The Ukraine Group meetings, this is not something red available readily available. It has been remarkable how the secretary assist him engaged with now more than 50 countries. You have seen the capabilities we have on the ground now including u. S. , which a year ago, seems like too sophisticated capability. We have always been clear we need the capabilities. It will take a village to win this war. The air defense, especially because since last october when russia engaged in targeted destruction of our energy systems, the air defense again became a number one priority. When i say air defense, i do not mean just these capabilities to protect our cities, but essentially what the air force calls air defense. All of it, from all the capabilities that would constitute the integrated air defense. We understand all the difficulties to do it, but ukrainians have shown we can train much faster. We can deploy in a very creative ways. We can do it. This is a priority. I can say the majority of our partners understand it is a priority and there is active work in order to get it into ukraine. Hi, ellen mick meyer, thanks for doing this, ambassador. You said very flatly that ukraine had nothing to do with the drone on the kremlin. Can you say the same for ukrainians . Is there any indication you have seen or can you rule out that private ukrainians used on the drone machine . I wanted to ask you after the leaks, are the ukrainian leaders having to be more cautious about sharing operational plans versus with the u. S. Right now in the interest of their own . Amb markarova i can only repeat that we had nothing to do with it. We saw it on tv, but neither we or the United States there is no point in that for us. We have discussed it repeatedly when russia falsely claimed him thing happened in russia because of us. We are defending our country, we are defending our territory. Important to the u. N. , we have the rights including the suppress of the areas there is no point in doing what you saw with this. Ukraine has nothing to do with it. With regard to the leaks or whatever, first, we always look with a great distrust at any that russians have put out. Whether it was leak or stolen or created by them, it does not matter. Whenever they put out and whatever they produce and manufacture from the leaks is definitely not in the interest of ukraine, not in the interest of anyone else. With that particular situation, we just saw what happened and it is clear to us that russia is trying to do. With regard to our Global Communication with the u. S. , i do not think we have had that level of communication and trust between us and u. S. I will not go into detail of what we are sharing with each other, but we are very happy with our cooperation and i think this will only increase. Thank you. This is j solomon. I want to draw out more on china. The chinese, a special envoy starting to visit other countries to promote their idea of a peace plan. Is ukraine comfortable with the chinese playing this role and i guess the question, do you think they are an honest broker . I think the special envoy might have been based in moscow at some point. Do you think they are an honest broker . Amb markarova first of all, i do not think we are calling we do not need a broker. Nobody needs a broker for russia to get out of ukraine. There is a plan. President zelenskyys peace plan. We are ready for any country to work with us on either the steps or some of the steps and we would gladly meet with any ambassadors when they come. We will be very honest with them by delivering the information. What happens on the ground and what our objective is. Again, i think right now the goal remains the same for us to liberate our country. Whoever can help us with it, really help us liberate the country, of course we will talk and work with them. I think it is too early to call someone a broker or something else. Thank you, ambassador. Dave waller from axios. You touched on the cebit. I wanted to ask specifically yesterday, john kirby from the white house said ukraine received 98 of what it requested for the purposes of this counteroffensive and the u. S. Had done everything in its power to put ukraine in a position to succeed. Would you agree that you received 98 of what you have asked for and what is the 2 or whatever, what is the most urgent thing you have not received that you are still looking for . Amb markarova i will not talk in terms of percentages. I will leave to the military to discuss it. The goal is to win today, to win tomorrow and build an endurance trend. For the war, nobody can predict how anything will happen. We have seen counteroffensives like we have seen very difficult battles. We do not know. We trust our military commanders. We trust they will do it in the most efficient way. We have to be prepared for any type of offensive or actions of the russians. There is still a lot of ground to liberate. Like i said, after we do it, after we completely liberate all territory, all country, we need to continue building our capabilities and endurance in order to be able to stop any other attacks from russia in the future. That is why when we are talking about our cooperation, we are discussing very large list of capabilities that we need. I want to just go back to, we are focused on the war face, but in 2001 and president zelenskyy came to washington, we signed on that day a Framework Agreement between our minister of defense and it is a fiveyear plan. There are a lot of areas in which we should Work Together in order to advance both of our countries strategic objective in that. Ukraine is not only important for ukraine to win now, but we all do not want the black sea to be the russian lake. It is an important element of their security in not only our region, but globally. We can go on and on and on and a number of areas. Whether there was a discussion about some particular operation and the percentage, it is like, i do not know. I would like our military people to comment on it. We clearly know and our partners clearly know what the needs are and we are discussing all of them. Thank you. Ambassador, max from hartfords belford center. The Prosecutor Generals Office and doj have been working on war crimes accountability. One question for you how it relates to reconstruction, what will ukraine do on the environmental war crimes . There has been a total destruction of the area. If you could tell more about that. Where do you see the u. S. And the private sector engaging in this effort . Thank you. Amb markarova thank you. Three questions for the next hour. First, justice. Coming back to the president zelenskyy peace formula, justice is such an important element of peace. We have in that area, a general prosecutor is literally working daily with counterparts from the u. S. We are now using pretty much everything in the justice, all the instruments available to us. We have more than 80,000 cases of war crimes or crimes related to war crimes in ukraine that are opened by our investigative prosecutors. We are doing it as we receive them, our courts are hearing this. We hear russians which were captured in prisoners of war, our legislation allows us we are doing this in due process of law. We have more than 24 countries who opened their own criminal investigations on the russian war crimes in ukraine. We are cooperating fully with them, providing evidence and asking for more support there because can you imagine how much additional stress for the whole system in addition to the other investigations to do that . We are very glad a number of countries, dozens, are doing that. We filed our cases with all three International Courts available to us. International criminal court, International Court of justice and the European Court of human rights. One of those, that is where mr. Putin and the known criminals, the dip or station of ukrainian children the deportation of ukrainian children, there is an arrest warrant for them. In that landscape, only one is missing. The tribunal for crime of progression. We have in ukraine, the case of crime progression. We cannot prosecute putin and others. We need this tribunal in order to prosecute the mother of this crime. Not only what they have done on the ground as a result of it, but the fact they decided, they made the decision. This is where we are discussing, there is a core group of countries that together with us are discussing the crimes of this tribunal. We really hope we will end up agreeing there is going to be an International Tribunal and we will move ahead. Justice is an important component. Yes, it is helping a lot with individual investigations, with providing support to our investigators or prosecutors. There is a lot of evidence, how do you do it, how do you process it, how do you interview . It is a very difficult part, a lot involved in how to do it, not to be victimized for them revictimize. My home was under occupation for 32 days. I can only imagine people under occupation for a year. Justice is a very important element of that, as well as reconstruction of ukraine. If you look at president to linskys peace formula, we build in plan, rebuilding ukraine. It is also an element of the piece and of course it has we are working on it actively, we have already a platform, International Platform or g7 platform or i5 countries that got together and then we have a sign on the defense cooperation, Energy Platform for g7 countries, and now we have this big coordinated platform on the future construction. Because again it will take a village to do that but it is not something other countries have to do for us. This is where we can do it together in a beneficial way for all of us because rebuild ukraine, especially the way we see it, the innovative ukraine. We dont want to just bit just rebuild what it was but open it to new technology in energy and Everything Else and ukraine can be a solution to so many global problems with all the Rare Earth Materials we have , agricultural sector, we can double and triple the productivity easily. So construction is very important but what is going to be there their source for that. First is the russian money. The russian sovereign funds are either frozen or in many countries it is very important. Russian oligarch money and the money theyve stolen from those people but they use them in order to fight this war and i think we have to the when the prosecutor general was here with the attorney general, they started the first case of, what is his name over here . The russian oligarch, 5. 4 million, but it is a start. That system through the Court Decision transferred to the department of state to get used for the Development Programs in ukraine is a great start. So this would be also business. During difficult times when we are not only fighting for our homes and loved ones but we are continuing the reform. I know this is not something that is talked about, that our european integration and reforms that we are continuing to do in ukraine, continuing reform in our judicial system, in our anticorruption infrastructure, in reforming the administration and others because we also want right after we win but even now because businesses even now explained it in ukraine to create this level Playing Field and attract as many businesses into ukraine. But answering your third question, business will be a very important element for the future success of ukraine. We promised the ambassador we would keep this conversation to an hour. I think it was a fine conversation. If we could give a round of applause to the abbasid her. [applause] thank you so much and thank you for taking the time to join us today. Thanks for our online audience, cspan audience, our russia program, visit their website. Hope to see you again soon. Thank you again. Thank you. Thank you. [indiscernible chatter] es