Juno News - What is the West's role in Ukraine？

In this episode of the podcast, I sit down with Canadian academic and Ukrainian-American relations expert, Piotr Karczak, to discuss the Ukraine crisis and what the West should be doing in order to help. We talk about the importance of Ukraine's sovereignty, the role of the West in supporting Ukraine, and what it looks like to win the Ukraine conflict.

00:00:00.000 I want to ask you, because right now, the decision as to what the West should be doing

00:00:05.340 in order to help Ukraine is of major debate in the U.S. presidential election.

00:00:09.900 It's increasingly becoming more of a debate in Canada as well.

00:00:13.280 What do you believe the West's role should be in Ukraine?

00:00:16.460 Is it to continue what they're doing?

00:00:18.940 Is it to move towards boots on the ground?

00:00:20.620 Or is it to push for a diplomatic end to this war?

00:00:24.160 What do you think the West's role should be?

00:00:25.600 It's a very good question and an incredibly difficult one,

00:00:31.020 and one that I have on a personal level very, very mixed emotions about.

00:00:37.180 I've been to Ukraine recently.

00:00:39.740 I traveled through the country.

00:00:43.160 I met with many people in the military, met with many people in Kiev,

00:00:46.720 Harakiv, and Line Zero.

00:00:48.980 And it's an incredibly difficult, look, it's a horrible war

00:00:57.600 that is costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

00:01:02.000 I think that the decision at the end of the day lies in the hands of the Ukrainian people

00:01:07.420 and the Ukrainian leadership.

00:01:08.860 If the Ukrainians have the will to keep fighting and the desire to keep fighting, 1.00

00:01:14.200 and if they believe that they can defeat the Russians,

00:01:19.240 and I don't think it's an implausible proposition,

00:01:22.560 then I think we can only respect their wishes.

00:01:27.240 I don't think we can force and decide for the Ukrainians.

00:01:30.820 I wouldn't really want to speak for them,

00:01:33.460 especially because I'm not Ukrainian.

00:01:36.320 I've spent a lot of time in Ukraine.

00:01:38.120 I lived there briefly in 2018 and 2019.

00:01:40.600 And it's a country I have a great fondness for and a great affinity for.

00:01:46.180 But I think they have proven on a military level

00:01:52.020 that they are capable of at least holding the Russian bear back.

00:01:58.760 And they've done it with impressive success.

00:02:01.340 You know, the three days theory of Kiev will be taken

00:02:04.340 and the Russian propagandists who are sort of prophetizing the demise of Zelensky

00:02:11.440 and his administration within days couldn't have been more wrong.

00:02:15.620 So credit where credit is due.

00:02:17.560 I think that obviously there are some concerns to be had,

00:02:22.840 especially about corruption.

00:02:23.900 Obviously, it's far worse on the Russian side,

00:02:26.640 but I do think that unfortunately there are some issues with corruption in Ukraine.

00:02:30.360 But yeah, if Kiev believes it can keep the fight going,

00:02:34.760 and if Ukrainians want to keep fighting,

00:02:37.420 then I think we should leave that decision to them.

00:02:40.120 Right. And what do you think victory looks like?

00:02:42.540 It's not something that we often get an insight into from the Canadian side

00:02:47.240 when we fund the effort.

00:02:49.280 We don't know what that victory looks like.

00:02:51.400 So in your opinion, what would that be?

00:02:52.920 Would that be taking back the occupied territory?

00:02:56.020 Would that be solidifying lines and just downing tools?

00:03:00.220 What do you think that looks like?

00:03:02.520 From a Ukrainian perspective, victory is very obvious.

00:03:05.580 Victory is a return to the internationally recognized borders 0.99

00:03:10.060 before the Russian aggression.

00:03:12.140 And I'm not talking about the aggression of 2022, but of 2014.

00:03:15.680 Right. So that's from me as well.

00:03:17.460 From a Western point of view, correct.

00:03:19.140 From a Western point of view, for me speaking as a Polish citizen,

00:03:27.140 to me, victory would most certainly be an end of the Putin administration in Russia

00:03:34.360 and a disintegration of the Russian Federation into multiple states.

00:03:40.400 This isn't, I don't believe this is a stated goal of the Ukrainian administration.

00:03:43.800 But that from a Western perspective, I mean, I think that obviously this is a complicated matter

00:03:51.240 for Americans to understand and for Canadians to understand.

00:03:54.560 Even though I know you have a physical proximity to Russia that we forget about

00:03:59.260 because the world is a globe.

00:04:01.120 But being Polish and having a very difficult history with our Russian neighbors,

00:04:08.900 two of my grandfather's brothers were massacred in the mass graves of Katyn and Starobjelsk in 1940,

00:04:14.500 part of the purchase of the Polish intelligentsia.

00:04:16.860 It is a very personal animosity to me.

00:04:20.820 We really believe that, you know, Russia is an existential threat 1.00

00:04:26.280 and it is an imperialist power that has not given up on any of its imperialist beliefs.

00:04:32.160 Just as the West exactly has given up these ideas of imperialism

00:04:36.840 and retreated very much from large parts of the world,

00:04:39.840 that the Russians have and the Russians see certainly my country, Poland,

00:04:44.380 as their rightful sphere of influence.

00:04:47.040 So to me, Russia is still, is a terrifying neighbor 1.00

00:04:51.600 and it's a terrifying power even in its current sort of weakened form.

00:04:58.740 So a disintegration of Russia into multiple states would be kind of,

00:05:02.300 I think that would be victory to me.

Juno News - August 26, 2024

What is the West's role in Ukraine？

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript