With slow progress in the counteroffensive,
and winter setting in – there’s a growing number of voices
calling for a rethink of what the priorities should be in
Ukraine and how to achieve them.
On this special edition of Conflict Zone from
the Berlin Foreign Policy Forum, I am joined by Ukraine’s ambassador
to Germany Oleksii Makeiev.
Is Ukraine getting closer to being forced to consider
tough compromises?
Ambassador Makeiev, welcome to Conflict Zone.
Thank you for having me.
There has been slow progress in the counteroffensive
and you are facing a lot of challenges including war fatigue,
which we will talk about.
But first — a growing number of voices are looking at the challenges.
They're calling for a rethink of immediate priorities and
how to achieve them.
For example, former NATO secretary general and longtime paid
adviser to Ukrainian politicians Anders Fogh Rasmussen has proposed
that Ukraine join NATO, but stripped of the territories
occupied by Russia.
What do you think?
Well, I think everybody is absolutely correct about the fact that the best
security guarantee for Ukraine or for any European country of today
is a membership in NATO and strong armed forces.
We have second, but we don't have first.
And it's absolutely clear that in order to win this war,
we need to return our territories and our people, which are...
What if you can't get security guarantees for all
of your territories?
Well, security guarantees is just to liberate the territories
and then security guarantee, as we know it from Euro-Atlantic
security is the membership in NATO.
So there is no better security guarantee in
Europe today for Germans, Dutch or Czechs as NATO membership and
strong armed forces.
Should Ukraine consider Rasmussen's proposal, should NATO
allies consider the proposal?
No, we don't trade our territories.
So no, it's not something that you would consider.
You know, in the meantime, there is this so-called
Kyiv security pact.
These are intended bilateral security arrangements
intended to bridge to full NATO membership.
G7 countries have agreed to provide bilateral guarantees,
but none has done so fully so far.
How do you see the prospects for accelerating the bilateral deals?
Oleksii Makeiev: Well, the bilateral negotiations are going
on with a number of countries.
The first round of such consultation between Ukraine
and Germany also took place recently.
So we are in the process.
And indeed, the Kyiv Security Compact foresees those security guarantees
on the way of Ukraine to NATO, while supporting
Ukraine with weapons, with financial help and to make sure
that we can win this war.
But again, you know, talking about the timing, one of the
arguments of Rasmussen is that time is really of the essence
that you can't wait, that this maybe needs to happen
within the next year or so.
And I'd like to highlight one of the reasons for that,
because you are facing the challenge of shaky support on
the political front, both in the EU and the United States.
Let's begin first, here in the EU, where you are serving
as an ambassador.
Not all EU countries are backing Ukraine anymore.
Let's have a look.
Slovakia, once one of your biggest supporters, will stop
its military aid.
Hungary blocking new EU funding for the war.
We're waiting, of course, to see the makeup of what the government in
the Netherlands will be and what they will do.
How concerning when you look at the picture in the EU, is all of
this for you?
And do you worry that other countries might break away?
Well, look, when I as diplomat, look at what our guys and girls
are delivering at the front line, I think it's absolutely possible for
us diplomats to deal with respective governments,
which might be skeptical.
And winning the hearts and minds of people and politicians is, well,
my job here in Germany and the job of my colleagues overseas or in
Hungary and in Slovakia.
I think that Europe of today realizes its power and
importance and its role in the international relations.
We've been talking today a lot about leadership here at this,
at this forum.
And this is something which I think Ukrainians who are fighting
this war against the powerful Russian army, are expecting
from leading European countries, for example, from Germany.
Well, one thing is the expectation.
The other is what is actually getting delivered.
So let's hop across the pond to the United States,
because US support is also at a critical juncture.
Biden and Defense Secretary Austin have announced more weapons,
but getting aid packages through Congress has been blocked.
It's been said by the White House that more than 90%
of the approved military funding for Ukraine has been spent.
How risky are these delays in getting additional funding
approved for Ukraine?
And is there the risk that you could start to feel
this on the battlefield?
Well, on one hand, I'm happy I'm ambassador to Germany,
not dealing with the United States and cannot command that in details.
But on the other hand, I absolutely agree with you.
If you just think a second that every day spent in this war means
dozens, even hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers dying,
then every day counts.
And this is also my clear message to all the decision makers.
Think in terms not of territories, but of people,
of military and civilians under Russian occupation dying every day.
And with those stakes being so high, again to bring it back to the funding
and the political support.
You know, your politicians have been saying how
vital the support is from your Western partners.
What happens if Donald Trump or, you know,
a politician who shares his beliefs, wins the White House next November?
Because there's within his party, the Republicans, a vocal group
opposed to further aid to Ukraine.
It's a real issue.
It's a potential problem for you, isn't it?
Because, I mean, Trump, he's demonstrated an affinity,
for example, in Russia and he hasn't always sided with your
country, has he?
Well, it's about American people to decide who will be governing...
What if that's their decision?
What if they decide on him or somebody who's like him?
Well, I'm happily not the ambassador to the United States.
What would that mean for Ukraine?
How are you preparing for that prospect?
...But
I know what Americans value at most is freedom and democracy.
This is, these are core American values, by the way.
Also core European values.
And I do hope that the broad support in the United States
for this fight for democracy and freedom will also
reflect in the results of the elections.
How high do you see the risk that your partners can't keep up the pace
to meet Ukraine's needs?
Well, from what I heard from my German colleagues and from
what I hear from my fellow colleagues,
diplomats and ambassadors of Ukraine to different countries,
the support will not be diminished.
And I got direct calls from my colleagues from
the Ministry of Defense, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany, saying:
Guys, we will continue to support you and look at the figures
in the budget of the Ministry of Defense of Germany
for the next year for support of Ukraine, it's doubled.
And this is the right way to to approach things.
I agree,
we all, not only our partners, we all face this problems of
ammunition, enough air defense systems, because I can count
all those systems.
And just imagine where, if I were a kind of chief of staff,
where can I place those 5 or 6 air defense systems,
which we got from Germany.
Where is a place for some 50 of Gepard Flakpanzer to
protect critical infrastructure, which has been daily shelled by
Russians or to protect our troops.
This is why our call is to give us the weapons to defend,
defend cities and the troops and to advance.
And for advancing we need aircrafts, we need battle tanks and infantry
fighting vehicles and of course, artillery.
This is the war which combines features of the World War One
with artillery barrages and "World War Three "
with immense use of drones and artificial intelligence.
We've been hearing from the Ukrainian administration
that one of the biggest priorities has been pushing
to increase your own production of weapons and equipment.
Tell us, why is this so important and how quickly can you do it?
In a meaningful way, to really make a difference.
Well, because we need to reconsider the way the weapon is being produced.
For example, the usual delivery of an air
defense system will be supported by a number of rockets,
which will be delivered to the client.
So the number of rockets, which is being delivered
in peaceful times, we use within 1 or 2 days.
That means, that if we get a Patriot system or IRIS-T system in
times of war, it must be supplied by a bigger number of rockets.
The same is with tanks and howitzers.
How many shells are being shelled by a howitzer in
Germany in peaceful times?
We do it kind of hundreds a day.
And this is a different approach to production
system and to technologies.
And this is why we say and invite producers of weapon
systems from Germany and from all over, all over the world
to start R&D and production localization in Ukraine.
This is the place where the weapon is needed.
So then give us some concrete examples of the types of contracts,
indeed, that you're hoping to attract and sign, because you're pushing
these joint ventures with companies from around the globe
to manufacture in Ukraine, as you've highlighted,
there's a big industry conference in Washington next week.
What do you want to come out of that?
Just briefly?
Well, I have seen a list of companies, which are being invited
from what I understand...
There's a lot of hopes riding on this particular.
Pardon?
There's a lot of hopes riding on this particular conference though,
isn't there?
Well, we had a first defense industry forum in Ukraine back in September.
The Minister of Strategic Industries was a part of Ukrainian delegation
back in October here in Berlin, meeting main German companies.
And we cannot exclude that such a bilateral forum with Ukrainian and
German defense companies will be held later this year or next year.
But the first company, I think the first company which will open
a repair hub, would be a German company in Ukraine.
Why would these companies want to do business in Ukraine?
Because the challenges, there's some major challenges ramping
up domestic production while war is raging, investors in particular,
and this has been highlighted as the biggest one.
They're concerned about an unreliable legal system and corruption.
These, of course, are not problems that are easily
solved and they predate the war.
Oh, no.
When you when you talk about this with a German business,
they first think about security.
Security of premises.
Security of people.
Well your finance minister has had the corruption and the legal system
is what he is hearing of some of the biggest things,
among these concerns of these companies.
In times of war, there is no tolerance, zero tolerance
in our population towards corruption.
Just imagine every morning Ukrainians wake up,
look at the reports about air defense system downing
Russian rockets and drones and just...
Sending the money to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
How those people would accept any signs of corruption
in the government.
So eradicating corruption, and we have established in the last
six years a highly effective system of countering
corruption, which is, by the way, was highly evaluated by
the European Union in terms of preparing Ukraine to
grant us the status of the country to start negotiations.
So then tell me, when we look at the Defense Ministry,
you have a new defense minister as of September, his predecessor,
he made some big promises because when we're talking about
in particular corruption, we have to look at that ministry.
There have been allegations of mismanaged military contracts.
It's really put a stain on the ministry, the former minister,
who was not personally implicated, he said when he left
office that he was confident the ministry would return
prepayments to suppliers that have gone missing.
We're talking about about $980 million in weapons
contracts that missed their delivery dates at one point
this year, some prepayments for weapons simply vanishing
into overseas accounts of weapons' dealers.
Can you really guarantee that all of that will be well sorted?
Well, I hear it for the first time about overseas accounts.
And once again...
Those are according to reports made to Parliament.
And again, our government and this minister changed
the team and introduced a new mechanism to make sure there is
no possibility for corruption and look at the interest
of the defense companies to step into the business.
They are sincerely not talking to us about any legal terms
or problems or allegations about corruption.
They see here no challenges, but opportunities to help us creating
a future and modern Ukrainian armed force.
And this is what we need.
And many of European countries need that too.
I'm going to move on now because, you know,
besides what we have been discussing with
regard to corruption, especially in the Defense Ministry,
there are also a lot of public disagreements that have
been gathering attention recently, in particular between your president
and your commander in chief, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi.
Zaluzhnyi made this comment, saying that the war is at a stalemate.
Unless you have some sort of massive technological leap to
break the deadlock.
Zelenskyy very publicly has refuted this.
Such a public display of disagreement between your top
general and the president has raised eyebrows,
including among your partners in the West.
Are there cracks in unity at the top?
Oh, no.
You know, I just jumped in to help to communicate about
Ukraine for my Minister of Defense.
And I'm absolutely sure I would jump in for,
for everybody from, from my government.
Of course, it's a, it's a good sign of diplomacy to always speak with,
with one voice.
This is the most effective way of communication.
But still, this is also a kind of democracy.
You know, we've been dealing with a huge problem of trying to persuade
people to manage expectation on the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
So it was kind of back in Mar-, May and June this year.
So we expect Ukraine now to break through.
But then if you come back...
And we're going to get to that, we're going to get to that.
But I want to talk about the politics for a
second here and the leadership because, you know,
Zelenskyy further to that, appeared to publicly swipe General Zaluzhnyi,
reminding him of the hierarchy and warning that the country's
military leadership should not be entering politics.
Zaluzhnyi, when we look at him as a figure,
he's a career military officer, he's hugely popular.
He is seen potentially as a threat to Zelenskyy,
if he were to ever choose to enter politics.
Do you think Zelenskyy is scared of that?
Is that what's really a play here?
Well, this President Zelenskyy is a man
who knowingly said: 'I don't need a ride.
I need ammunition' back at the beginning of the war.
So if you if you think Ukrainians can be scared by
some way of disagreements, which came to the public, but no,
we are not scared by Russian rockets and Russian troops
and in the vicinity of Kyiv, there is nothing that can scare Ukrainians.
And you know this, this is the reality of of today.
Sometimes I think we are working 25 hours a day
and President Zelenskyy and General Zaluzhnyi see each other,
I think, several times a day.
Let's just quickly come back to General Zaluzhnyi's comment,
the substance of it, which was: Ukraine and Russia are
at a stalemate.
Do you agree or disagree?
We do not see major advances of Ukrainian troops.
And what General Zaluzhnyi also meant...
So you agree?
That we have no major advances?
Well, define major.
That's yes.
We... in comparison with what we achieved back...
That sounds like a stalemate.
Well, it might be a stalemate for the moment,
but it's not a "Zugzwang". (game theory situation)
The president's office, though, says that that,
and I'm paraphrasing here, this was one of their swipebacks,
that that essentially plays into the enemy's hands.
Discussion plays into the enemy's hands.
Well, quite, quite possibly.
Are you admitting that you might be at a stalemate.
But the stalemate is not because we have discussions.
The stalemate is, because we're not armed enough.
The stalemate might be or insufficient advance might be,
because we got from our partners a bit more than 50 tanks,
or we have three IRIS-T systems from Germany, which is the
maximum Germany could deliver within those two years.
But as I always say, just place those three systems with
the range of 40 km on the territory of 600,000km² in Ukraine.
This is the reality.
So, you know, one of the things that has been raised
when you're talking about that and what's going on on the battlefield is
that ultimately you need more manpower as well.
It's not just the supplies that are coming in from
your Western partners and the ones that you were trying to
generate on your own, you've had to resort to a draft.
The war has been prolonged.
It's been said there are limited opportunities for rotation of
soldiers on the line of contact.
There are reports of some even evading the draft.
We understand that Zelenskyy is going to get a list of reforms this week
about what might be done to improve mobilization.
And I'm just wondering, in your personal opinion,
how can you counter war fatigue and motivate your
citizens more for what might be a long war?
Well, in order to understand this, you need to to travel into Ukraine.
So any time I'm back home or I am corresponding with my with my
friends at the frontline, with Ukrainian soldiers who
are being trained here in Germany, or with my parents,
there is no such thing as fatigue in Ukraine.
But from time to time, I see this fatigue here in Germany.
But this is not a fatigue from the war,
but rather from media reports about the war.
You know, in times where, when you are protecting your home and
your family, you cannot just fall back and say, "it's too much for me."
There is so much at stake for Ukraine.
It's our democracy.
It's our freedom.
It's our future.
This is what we are fighting for.
You're up against a country that has three times your population,
and time doesn't really seem to be on your side.
And I'm just wondering, you know, when you talk to the top politicians
of your country, you always hear that the goal is to
recapture all of Ukrainian territory.
And that seems pretty steadfast.
And I'm wondering just how personal that goal is for you,
and whether or not you still think it's realistic,
given all of the challenges that we've been highlighting.
As soon as you start thinking not about territories, but about people,
you realize that you need to go forward.
It's about millions and millions of Ukrainians on the occupied
territories, who wait for Ukrainian soldiers to knock on
their door and say, you're free, we are here and having
Ukrainian flags on the occupied territories.
It's about people we are fighting for.
And this is why we need to liberate those who are in Russian captivity
since 2014, in Crimea and in Donbass, and in the captivity of Russians
since February 2022, in the southern Ukraine.
There are some, though, that are saying that the prospects of
you winning back all of your territory appear to be dwindling,
and that maybe Ukraine should shift focus.
I'd just like to read you a quote, and this is from Philip Breedlove,
retired US Air Force general and former NATO commander.
He says the following: " This war will end exactly how
Western policymakers want it to end."
The implication there is that it really hinges on the West's support.
Is success in some ways out of your hands?
Do you see that maybe in the next year, the next two years,
depending on what the mood is, your hand might be forced?
I think what we are lacking in many countries is the readiness to lead.
The word "leadership " I heard today a hundred times.
And this is exactly what we need, a leadership to make right things and
to help us, to win this war and to fight for the freedom
and the peace back to Europe.
Ambassador Makeiev, thank you so much for joining us on Conflict Zone.
Thank you.