See the entire program for Ukrainian Week in London here
LONDON — It’s Ukrainian Week in London and the events kicked off on Oct. 8 with an impassioned call for Western strength and unity against the Kremlin from Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister of European integration and one of its most effective speakers abroad.
Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Natalia Galibarenko, introduced Klympush-Tsintsadze by noting that Ukraine is still associated with “economic hardship, corruption, war with Russia,” with not enough people around the world recognizing that “Ukraine is changing and making progress,” including providing for more economic opportunities.
But the first day of activities put security and defense issues at the forefront, in a day-long session at The Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies, a British defense and security think tank founded in 1831.
Klympush-Tsintsadze set the stage by noting rollbacks in democracy and the strengthening of populists in many parts of the world, characterized by nationalism, anti-immigrant sentiment and manipulation of freedom of press and freedom of speech.
“It’s a time of political adrenaline. It’s a time of fight,” she said. “The devils of European history are celebrating their comeback, which is cynicism disguised as pragmatism.” She said the “reckless force sitting in the Kremlin believes it has unlimited power over nations of world.”
As Ukraine is confronting this “capable, committed and powerful enemy,” Klympush-Tsintsadze said, some in Europe are still debating whether the Kremlin is an enemy. “Russia has taken that decision for itself some time ago” with its goal of undermining democratic Europe with cyber-attacks and interference in elections, among other actions that rattle the “self-confidence of Europe.”
“Russia is pushing the envelope farther and farther and not getting the response that would stop it so far,” she said. She said that the relationship between European countries is characterized by attack, war, condemnation, sanctions — and then reset, noting the “possibility of reset” is again gaining strength in European capitals.
She argued against a reset. “This would be yet another invitation to war” for the Kremlin, she said. “Our common security is best served by coming together about shared values — human rights; democratic governance, rule of law. We have to make sure we are never compromising on those values.”
Klympush-Tsintsadze said that in 2019, a year when Ukraine holds presidential and parliamentary elections and when the United Kingdom will leave the European Union, “an openly pro-Russian candidate will not win the election.”
But she worried about Europe.
“Who will be the next one to ask for the weakening of sanctions? Who will be the next one to dance with (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, who will be the next one to bow to Putin?…It’s important to open our eyes and realize what is going on and not be seduced by Russia’s lies. Why to conquer someone physically if you can conquer someone’s minds? Why protect truth if you can pretend the truth does not exist any more?”
She called for a search for “common answers” on the national, regional and global levels.
Regarding the Kremlin’s nerve agent attacks on Russian exiles in the United Kingdom and its cybersecurity attacks on the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague, Netherlands, Klympush-Tsintsadze said: “We cannot let the Kremlin get away with the attacks.”
It’s not enough for states to act alone, she said. Governments have to work intensively with business, civil society and news media to confront threats to democracy. The resilience of citizens must be strengthened through media literacy and other education methods.
She also said that the world must seek to repair the “cracks” in international institutions, such as the United Nations, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and Council of Europe, that have prevented them from responding more forcefully to threats in the world.
She said that Ukraine learned its lessons the hard way, by giving up its nuclear weapons in exchange for security assurances under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum that proved worthless when Russia invaded in 2014. The danger for the world, he said, is that nations such as North Korea and Iran will not give up the pursuit of nuclear weapons in exchange for flimsy memoranda.
“It’s too late to regret” giving up the nuclear weapons, she said. “We have learned our lesson.”
She also touched on the struggle of Ukraine in cutting the “umbilical chord’ of dependence on the Soviet past. She said Ukraine continues to root out Russian spies and saboteurs who are undermining Ukraine’s pursuit of democracy and creation of effective institutions. The infiltration by the Kremlin took place over years, and the “cleaning up” and building of new institutions “deliberately ruined from within” will also take time, she said.
In this regard, she said the independence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is “a matter of national security” so that the Moscow Orthodox Church can no longer denigrate Ukrainian history or keep its spies of the Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB, on Ukrainian soil under religious cover.
Regarding sanctions, she said, “the West should stop questioning whether Ukraine deserves support; it’s important that discussion of prolongation of sanctions should be cut from the discussions from support of Ukraine. Some are trying to suggest that support to Ukraine should be linked to continuation or non-continuation of sanctions. Sanctions were adopted because the Russian Federation brutally violated international law. Impunity would only lead to the additional willingness of the Russian Federation to attack other countries.”
She traced the West’s weak reaction to Russia’s war against Georgia in 2008 as directly emboldening Russia, six years later, to invade Crimea in 2014. In turn, if the West had responded more seriously to the theft of Crimea, “Russia wouldn’t have started attacks on the Donbas.”
She said that Ukraine deserves more support from the European Union in non-military matters, such as implementing its economic and political association agreement with the EU. Ukraine is “following the path of the candidate countries, yet the support we are getting is incomparable to what candidate countries are getting to join the EU. The EU is trying to shy away from the military and defense issues that we have to deal with.”
Ukraine is turning to the EU and NATO because, when it formally adopted neutrality, Russia attacked Ukraine anyway. “Russia only understands the language of power, unity and decisiveness. When it sees the other side behaving that way, it is ready to address the issues of the other side.” With Ukraine inside the EU, Europe “is much stronger. With Ukraine in this gray zone, we are going to be subject to many more threats and challenges.”
