The transatlantic space to support ukraine. And i do think that our leadership in this is recognized. We are having as spirited a debate as is going on theres also a transatlantic debate so that question gets asked also in our diplomacy. But europeans come at it from both sides, depending upon where they sit. With regard to ukraine and the things that need to be done, and that has been appreciated, very much by my by most of us, i would have at this point significant difficulty coming to work each day with these decisions lingering and the way that they have and us, again, not taking the steps that that many people within the administration, as i understand it, feel needs to be taken. And yet we continue for some reason not to do those things that weve acted as if we might do. I have a number of other questions that ill send in writing. And i thank each of you for being here. I realize that in all cases, yall are messengers and not the ones that have these decision memos sitting on your desk unheralded, but we thank you for your service to our country. And appreciate your candid testimony. Our first witness is former assistant secretary of state for European Affairs and former u. S. Ambassador to germany, john kornblume. Second and final witness is ambassador to ukraine and director of eurasia center, john herbst. As you all are getting seated and comfortable, we will we will begin with ambassador kornblum. Ambassador kornblum i want to thank you for being here. In particular, i know youre a resident of nashville, tennessee. Were always happy to have bright people from nashville, tennessee, here testifying. With that, if youd begin. We appreciate it. Thank you very much. I have also, you might even be more pleased to learn a very direct contact with city you know chattanooga, tennessee. And mr. Mayor burke is going to be at a meeting im organizing in berlin in three weeks to talk about the tremendous success chattanooga has had in revitalizing the city and supporting entrepreneurship there. And i think you had a little bit to do that. Ive heard that, anyway, from history. And so im very pleased to be here. Both because of my ties to tennessee and also because these are issues i worked upon very a lot in the 1990s. I was it is assistant secretary during this whole period of all these memorandum and agreements and everything and participated in negotiation of everything. Not the budapest paper but most of the others. And so to you and also to Ranking Member menendez, im very pleased to be here. I have a very special point to make. You have heard in very extremely good detail if not satisfying detail about how our government sees things but i think theres one thing that we need to think about, which senator rubio in particular talked about, and that is that the direction of this conflict and a definition of this conflict. My own view is, and ive been living in germany for a long time now, after i stopped being ambassador, and i think that i can say with a certain amount of accuracy that whatever we are doing in ukraine and with russia, we are losing the Public Affairs battle on this crisis. The narrative, as we say in the journalistic world. The narrative that is most prevalent in the United States to a considerable extent but more so even in europe, is that this is a russia which is reacting angrily because it was cheated, illused, misused by the west after 1990. And i think it is important that we focus on this fact because many of the decisions, and ill say a couple points about that, which are going to be taken in the future will depend considerably on whether the russians believe that they have the upper hand on this aspect of the crisis and whether we, in fact, can maintain a strong situation, a strong direction. The fact is that after 1990 we dealt with the russian leadership which saw the foreign the collapse of the soviet union as a liberation and not as a western attack on russia. And they knew exactly what our plans were. We talked to them in great dpee tail about it. We didnt talk to them about the details about nato in largement or eu in largement, but we told them our goal for them and europe was to establish democracy, establish free market systems, and to allow russia to join the western world. And on many of the discussions i had, ambassador herbst was along, and i think he can attest to this, we worked very hard to make this point, not only clear but to establish things to make it real. And now 20, 25 years later for me, the narrative of this crisis is not whether russia somehow is now a wounded power but the fact that the United States, three administrations in connection also working with the congress, have established between the Baltic States and now hopefully ukraine also, and the south a community of nearly a billion persons, which is democratic, which is secure which is oriented toward free markets and which wants to be part of the western and the atlantic world. Now, i say this so precisely because we have to remember what the situation was 25 years ago. 25 years ago we had the western part of the continent democrat democratized. The eastern part, was to put it mildly, a mess. When we first came into establish relations with the new governments in poland and czechoslovakia, hungary, we found they had hardly any of the basic conditions for modern, industrial western society. And so the cooperation within nato and with strong leadership of these countries has, in fact succeeded. And many of the reasons we have this conflict with russia right now is not because ukraine violated orders or not because russia has somehow felt threatened by the west. It is because russian the leadership in russia after the beginning of this century has covered its own misdeeds, own poor performance, and theyre finding that the countries on their periphery, but also until recently much of their population, wanted to join the west and not to maintain an eastern orientation. This is a basic point. And it leads to strategy, however. It suggests, for example that entering into negotiations with the russians over how to conclude this crisis are not very relevant at the moment. There isnt any new Security System which we can offer the russians which wouldnt include the sphere of influence in these very countries were trying to protect. There isnt any military arrangement which we can enter with the rushes which wouldnt defend these countries to the east which have helped to become democratic. Is there isnt any new Political Forum which we can think up which would change the fact that the real reason that putin and his cohorts and russia in general feel threatened at the moment. Its not because of anything weve done. And not because of nato sanctions, even though i favor them, but because of things such as its all been discussed here today the oil price. Russias lack of investment in the hightech sector. Russians inability to build the infrastructure necessary for a modern industrial economy, et cetera, et cetera. It also, i think, has to do with the fact that russia mr. Herbst is more an expert on this than i am has, in fact, also failed to have the Political Leadership since 2000, which helped its population come out of the shock of the end of the cold war and to understand how closely its interests are involved with being part of the west. So, we have a situation now which is important for all the reasons that our government officials mentioned to you today. They gave, i thought, a very comprehensive view of whats going on. But we are in effect, facing an even larger challenge. A challenge which is not only a challenge to europe, but a challenge, actually across the entire world. And that is that russia is whether consciously or by accident, is taking account of a growing unease around the world at the dislocation caused by what is called globalization, what is called the modern Information Technology world, what is happening with the dislocation of industries, et cetera et cetera. And that the russians have been able to harness this dissatisfaction in their own country. But i can tell you with, shall i say, a lot of experience, ive been living in berlin now for 17 years, and im still very politically active there, that these arguments are also having an affect in western europe and theyre also having an affect, as you know in other parts of the world. Added to that, one of senators mentioned, that russia is financing with very large efforts movements in western europe who are antidemocratic, who are trying to undermine the western system. And russia is also continuing to threaten in one way or the other the weakest points of our system, such as the Baltic States, such as the republic of georgia, where i worked quite diligently in recent years and so we are facing not just the question, and its a very important question. I might add that i will mention to senator murphy that my wife grew up in the Ukrainian Community in hartford connecticut, so she has been an election observer twice there already, so we are very committed to ukraine. But the real challenge of this crisis is that russia after immense efforts on the part of the west, and i must say really immense efforts, has broken out of the channel of unity and Cooperation Among the countries of europe and is now adapting an antiwestern but ultimately that means antiglobalization and antiamerican approach. And to understand the importance of this, there was an extremely good article in the Washington Post this week, talking about the rhetoric being used inside china about the west. And it turns out to be almost word for word the same rhetoric russia is using. The same rhetoric is heard in the middle east. And even in india which we consider to be a very important partner, putin has been visiting and he and the indian leadership more or less agrees with many of the things he was saying. So were talking here not just about a problem with russia which is an important one, were talking, in fact, which is why i mentioned senator rubio, a wearing away of the foundations of the western community in europe but even more so a wearing away of the ability that the west is going to have to influence, control if you will, the content of the new globalized world, which is coming up. Thank you. And so thats the main consequence that i see in this conflict. And my final point would be, im very appreciative of your personal efforts to increase our information budgets to have Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe be more active. And i think that winning back the narrative and using tools such as the ones youre financing, is almost as important as considering military support for ukraine, which i support very strongly. Thank you. Thank you. Ambassador . Chairman corker, Ranking Member menendez, thank you very much for this chance to testify. Its an honor to be here. Ive been asked to talk about sorry. Okay. Ive been asked to talk about kremlin aggression, ukraine and how to counter it but in order to take the subject on properly we need a wider lens. The reason for the simple. There are influential people in the United States, and especially in europe, who dont understand the gravity of this crisis. They dont understand it because they think the crisis is simply about ukraine and moscows aggression there. With that narrow understanding, they oppose the strong measures necessary to counter kremlin aggression and to secure a vital, and i mean vital american interest. Not simply important interest. The crisis that we face is as i think almost every senator said today, a crisis of kremlin revisionism. Mr. Putin wants to overturn the coast cold war order. This order has been the foin addition of the unprecedented peace and prosperity not just europe but the entire world has enjoyed over the past 25 years. Mr. Putin has stated that he must have a sphere of influence in the postsoviet space. Going into warsaw pact countries and he has the right to protect ethnic russians and russian speakers wherever they reside. Mr. Putin has major resources to pursue aggression. He possesses the worlds sixth largest economy, one of the worlds two Largest Nuclear args naturals and far is away the Strongest Military in europe. And we all know mr. Putin has committed multiple acts of aggression. In georgia in 2008, in crimea early last year, and since april of last year he has been conducting an increasingly overt covert war in ukraines east. In this covert war in ukraines east, he has escalated his intervention multiple times. He has agreed to two ceasefires, minsk i and minsk ii, and violated each one of them. His goal in ukraine is what the admiral said earlier today, to destabilize the country. But to achieve that, and this is not clearly understood he cannot he cannot settle for a frozen conflict. He needs to be regularly on the offensive. Albeit, with tactical pauses. He has made clear by his statements and his actions that if he succeeds in ukraine, there will be future targets. The targets may include nato allies, specifically estonia and latvia where russian speakers comprise 25 of the population. Recent kremlin provocations include the kidnapping of an estonian intelligence official from estonia and that happened on the day that the nato summit ended last september. Theyve also included the cease youre of a lithuanian ship from International Waters of the baltic sea. He is telling the Baltic States and all the states in his neighborhood, are you not secure, even if you are members of nato. We have a vital interest, and again i use that word vital, in stopping moscows policies before they move to other countries, especially to the Baltic States. I think it was senator isakson who said that the kremlin menace is the most Important National security danger we face today. I endorse that wholeheartily. Isil is a rag tag bunch of terrorists. A serious danger to americans, not an existential threat to the United States. A revaugsist moscow is an existential threat to the United States. Even iran with its Nuclear Program is not in the same order of threat as the worlds dish one of the worlds two Largest Nuclear powers on the move. If wrn leaders clearly understand this danger, if they clearly understood it, they would devote substantially more resources to dealing with it and they would draw a bright red line in ukraine. Stop putin and ukraine before he moves beyond ukraine. To date western policy has been slow reactive and all too concerned about giving mr. Putin a graceful way out of the crisis. And not sufficiently focused on imposing costs that would make it too expensive for him to continue his aggression. We had a very distinguished panel in the first two hours of the session, but they were all too reflective of slow approach. To persuade mr. Put ton put aside his revisionist dreams we need to do things that play on his weaknesses. Strong sanctions are part of this. We have to deal with mr. Putins economy. We must persuade mr. Putin that by announcing strong additional sanctions for aggression to come, i think it was senator rubio who said, why cant we tell mr. Putin now, what sanctions we will play down if he moves beyond the current ceasefire line. He asked a very good question. We need to have sanctions in place now if he moves again. That way it may deter him, but if it doesnt, if will clearly weaken his economy weaken his Political Support at home and give him fewer resources for his next aggression. I give the Obama Administration pretty good marks for dealing with sanctions because theyre trying to pull along somewhat reluctant europe. The other area we need to work on is on the security side. Mr. Putin has a serious vulnerability. The russian people do not want Russian Troops fighting in ukraine. Thats why hes lying to them. Thats why the russian dead that come back are buried in secret. Thats why the families of the russian dead are told, if you tell the neighbors your sons fought and died in ukraine you will not get benefits. If we provide defensive, lethal equipment to ukraine, that means that either mr. Putin will be deterred to going further into ukraine because he doesnt want to risk the political fallout of the casualties or if he goes further into ukraine, he suffers those casualties, his support in ukraine excuse me, at home, will weaken. This is a compelling reason to give weapons to ukraine. Some people who argue against this say if we do that he will simply escalate. Perhaps. But if he escalates, again he suffers more casualties, he weakens his support and he has fewer resources with which to pursue aggression beyond ukraine. I was one of a group of eight former officials who produced a report on this. We suggest giving ukraine 1 billion a year for each of the next three years. 3 billion of weapons total. The report provides the details. I want to mention to this Committee Just two elements of that. One, we should be providing antiarm antiarmor equipment because russians have used mass tanks in order to commit their aggression on ukraine. We should also be providing counterbattery radar for missiles, because ukrainians have suffered 70 of their casualties from russian missiles. We are giving them counterbattery radar for motor er mortars. They need it for missiles. We need to keep in place the sanctions for the seizure of cry mere yeah. The Atlantic Council just released a report on substantial systematic excuse me, russian Human Rights Violations in crimea. Two other essential elements of our policy. We need to do more in nato to bolster the deter rents to russian aggression against the Baltic States. The administration and nato have taken some good steps forward. The summit talked about deploying creating this Rapid Reaction force and deploying a company of soldiers to the Baltic States. Thats a n