Former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch said the United States’s support for Ukraine is needed to avoid the spread of Russia and its allies’ war to American territory.
“We have responsibilities both here at home, as well as abroad, to ensure that Americans are safe,” Yovanovitch told students, staff and others at UW Oshkosh earlier this month. “Ukraine is in keeping with American values, and that is really important because we are a country of values.
“This is what Russia and its (allies) … want to destroy,” said Yovanovitch, who is also a New York Times bestselling author of the memoir “Lessons from the Edge.”
The war in Ukraine was the main topic she discussed on campus on Oct. 19, as the full-scale invasion that Russia launched on Feb. 24, 2022 is still ongoing.
“When you think about the threat that Russia poses, both NATO and the United States have written in our strategic planning documents long before ’22 (the year when Russia invaded Ukraine for the second time) that Russia was a threat to Europe and to world security,” she said. “We are providing Ukraine with assistance that amounts to between 5% and 10% of our annual national defense budget … and the brave Ukrainian people are fighting the Russians; they are decimating Russian capabilities with no American boots on the ground. If Ukraine does not stop Russia, Russia will keep on going and we will be forced to confront Russia at a later time that may not be to our advantage.”
She said the U.S. is providing billions and billions of dollars of military systems to Ukraine. “The U.S. government is very confident that we can account for everything we have provided to the Ukrainians,” she said. “And you know, as we are staffing up our embassy — there are three inspector generals in Ukraine at the embassy to make sure that U.S. assistance is being carefully monitored.”
Yovanovitch said the role of ambassador is unique because not only do ambassadors represent the American people, but they are also the president’s personal representative to a particular country. She held the No. 1 position in the embassy and accumulated 33 years of experience in the U.S. Foreign Service before retiring in 2020.
Yovanovitch served three times as U.S. ambassador in three different countries, most recently in Ukraine (2016-2019). Before that, she served in the Republic of Armenia (2008-2011) and the Kyrgyz Republic (2005-2008). She is currently a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a non-resident fellow at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University.
A Ukrainian student at UWO sought advice from the former ambassador on how to find the courage to act in times of conflict, especially for people who are more comfortable observing.
Yovanovitch said that she prefers to understand everything 100% before she takes action but it’s not always a possibility.
“With age has come the realization that you’re never going to have 100% certainty on anything, and sometimes 60% is going to be good enough in order to move forward because you have to take a decision,” she said. “Look at somebody like (Ukraine President Volodymyr) Zelenskyy. Who would have thought that he would be the wartime leader, a leader who is setting the tone and inspiring the people to move forward? But you also have people around you who are doing things where you’re just not going to be able to do anything but take action and help in whatever way you can.”
Yovanovitch emphasized the importance of understanding that situations that take place in other parts of the world can have a far-reaching impact.
The UW Oshkosh Center for Civic and Community Engagement and the University Studies Program organized this event with financial support from the Tommy G. Thompson Center on Public Leadership from UW-Madison.
The event was co-moderated by Tracy Slagter of UWO’s political science department and Oksana Katsanivska of the anthropology department.
A recorded video from the event can be watched on the YouTube channel of the Tommy G. Thompson Center on Public Leadership.
