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BACK STORY WITH DANA LEWIS
Dana Lewis is a veteran World Affairs Correspondent. He's been everywhere. From global war zones to the streets of London where he is based.
He has been based in Jerusalem, and Moscow.
And he loves talking to people about whats behind the headlines. Award winning. "A real in the trenches reporter". Great interviewing skills and easy to listen to.
BACK STORY WITH DANA LEWIS
Nuclear Escalation: Global Arms and the Ukraine Russia Conflict
How close are we to the use of a nuclear weapon in current conflicts?
Join me, Dana Lewis, as I discuss the nuclear arms race with Rose Gottemoeller, a distinguished former arms control negotiator. We dissect the deployment of long-range ATACMS missiles by Ukraine into Russian territory, exploring the nuanced strategic implications and potential nuclear fallout.
And marking the milestone of 1,000 days since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, we reflect on the relentless assault on Ukrainian infrastructure and the role of Western military aid. I am joined by Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksiy Goncharenko who says any deal with Russia has to bring peace, not just a ceasefire.
attack on Russian territory. Does that bring us to the brink of some kind of possible nuclear exchange with Russia, or is that just alarmist?
Rose Gottemoeller:Well, I think it takes a lot of caution thinking through how these systems will be used, the ATACOMs. If I were in the White House and were advising the president, I would advise very strongly that the Ukrainians be not permitted to launch any attacks against nuclear targets.
Oleksiy Goncharenko :With this permission it can make a difference, at least in that part Hi everyone and welcome to another edition of Backstory.
Dana Lewis :I'm Dana Lewis. Nuclear threats, a new arms race, russia, america, china arms control is broken down, war in Ukraine and the Middle East Are we at the brink of the unthinkable? This week, former arms control negotiator Rose Gottemoeller tells us exactly what the dangers are and President Biden approves long-range attackums for Ukraine's use inside Russia, just two months before the end of his term and as North Korean soldiers join Russia's shock troops in Putin's illegal war. Joining me from Odessa, ukraine, on the day the city was bombed and 10 were killed, ukrainian lawmaker Olexei Goncharenko All right, I don't think anybody knows more about arms control and nuclear threats than Rose Gottemoeller. She was the deputy secretary general of NATO and before that she was the chief arms negotiator for the US on the nuclear arms agreement known as START with Russia. And Rose is now a senior lecturer at Stanford University in the US and joins me from there. What do I have to do to get into your classroom?
Rose Gottemoeller:Well, you have to sign up and pay Stanford tuition, which is I'll do it To be able to listen to you as somebody who was in the room.
Dana Lewis :What a privilege.
Rose Gottemoeller:Thank you, dana. I actually worked on the treaty that we call the New START Treaty. The START Treaty entered into force in 1994. I also worked on that one as a very young staffer at the Department of State, but New START is the one that we completed in 2010. It entered into force in 2011.
Dana Lewis :President Biden has given a green light for Ukraine to use long-range American-manufactured and supplied ATAKOMs on Russian territory. Does that bring us to the brink of some kind of possible nuclear exchange with Russia, or is that just alarmist?
Rose Gottemoeller:or is that just alarmist? Well, I think it takes a lot of caution thinking through how these systems will be used, the ATACMs. From reading the press, I cannot tell what kinds of limitations the White House may have placed on the Ukrainians with regard to targets. For example, if I were in the White House and were advising the president, I would advise very strongly that the Ukrainians be not permitted to launch any attacks against nuclear targets like bases where nuclear weapons are stored or nuclear deployment sites like silos for intercontinental ballistic missiles. I would specifically exclude nuclear-related targets from the list. But for targets that are relevant to what the Ukrainians are suffering right now, which is severe attacks against their energy infrastructure, yeah sure, but it all depends on what instructions or guidance was given to the Ukrainians.
Dana Lewis :And I think they're being careful not to release all of that, and it may be that they're just using ATAKOMs in the Kursk area, just over the border. I mean, it's only 180 mile, 190 mile range on the ATAKOMs. You know the idea that these missiles are going to be flying into Moscow or something, it's just silly, right. So it's really against, you know, supposedly against arms depots, command and control centers, any of the launch sites that they may be hitting Ukraine from. If they can reach them with those, attack them.
Rose Gottemoeller:Yes, and I also have read in the press that it appears that the North Koreans, who have come to aid the Russians, are now preparing to launch attacks in order to regain the Kursk region territory that the Ukrainians have seized from the Russians. They did that last August and have been holding it ever since, and apparently the North Koreans are going to be thrown into the battle to try to get that territory back, into the battle to try to get that territory back. So perhaps the Atacoms will have a special role in defending that territory?
Dana Lewis :I think you just answered my question. Why now?
Rose Gottemoeller:Well, a number of reasons. No doubt, one is that the president is in his final months in office and I think it's incumbent on him now to decide what additional major decisions he wants to get made in that time and carried forward. And so that, I think, is doubtless one reason. But there has been a long consideration of the situation that Ukraine is suffering this winter, and once again the Russians are launching mass attacks against energy infrastructure. An attack against the city of Sumy only last night killed a number of people, including two children, and left a lot of people seriously injured. So, in addition to the attacks on energy infrastructure, the Russians keep going after civilian targets. In this case they hit a couple of schools as well as other civilian facilities in Sumy.
Dana Lewis :So it's really quite well, it's awful, what they're doing Something like 900 missile and drone attacks last week, 200 of them alone on Saturday. I don't think. Unless you're there on the ground, you really can't kind of digest the scale at which Russia is coming after Ukraine right now. Digest the scale at which Russia is coming after Ukraine right now and do you think that they're winding up the throttle right now because they anticipate that they want to be in the best position as a new Trump administration talks about possible ceasefire talks?
Rose Gottemoeller:Yes, I do think that that's coming into the calculations as well in all capitals Kiev, moscow and Washington, as well as the European capitals, as they think through what the dynamics are going to be as President Trump arrives in office on January 20. And so, for that reason, there's a very interesting transitional dynamic going on now that I think everyone's trying to get into the best possible position for upcoming negotiations as President Trump incoming. President Trump has promised that he will end this war, famously, within 24 hours. I'm not sure he can do that, but he seems to be wanting to get into a negotiation very, very quickly.
Dana Lewis :You know Putin and the Kremlin. They watch the news just like the rest of us. They think that maybe President Trump will be more sympathetic to the Kremlin on the issue of Ukraine. Do you think that that may be a miscalculation If Trump pushes a ceasefire and doesn't get what he wants? In fact, this could go the other way. It could escalate more.
Rose Gottemoeller:Absolutely. Mr Trump really prides himself on being a master dealmaker, and if he doesn't see the deal he wants shaping up, he's easily able to walk away from the table, as he did with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, during his first term in office, the North Korean leader during his first term in office. And so I think that all along we've heard from Putin this very kind of zero-sum approach. I'm going to deal out a crushing defeat to Ukraine, to NATO and to the United States of America. Very zero-sum approach, winner-take-all and I think that what he's going to have to consider with Donald Trump is that that's not the kind of deal that Trump will go for. So Putin's going to have to decide where he can give a little as well, and we'll see how that works out. But I really do think that this is not going to be a winner take all kind of negotiation but going to have to have some win-win solutions for all participants.
Dana Lewis :Do you worry about the state of NATO? I mean, you were there. You know what the alliance has been able to accomplish in terms of security for Europe in post-World War II. Do you think that the Trump administration and Trump specifically, rather than just trying to make a deal understands what NATO has brought to the stability of Europe and you worry about whether he's prepared to abandon that?
Rose Gottemoeller:The NATO that Mr Trump will find now is much different from the one that he visited a number of times and, in a very tough manner, demanded that the NATO allies pay more. This was during his first administration, when I was the deputy secretary general and I observed the president come to NATO several times. He was really rough on the allies and said pay up or I'm not going to fulfill the Article 5 commitments. That's in the NATO founding treaty, the Washington Treaty. It's Article 5 is if one NATO ally is attacked, then other NATO allies must come to its assistance if asked for help. So he said I'm not going to help you If you don't pay up. Forget about it.
Rose Gottemoeller:Or at times he threatened even withdrawing from NATO. But he's going to find a much different NATO now. The allies have gotten it clear in their minds that they need to pay more for their own defense at least 2% of their gross domestic product, which is a different attitude than they had five years ago and that was born of Putin's aggression in Ukraine. I think Mr Trump started the momentum toward more defense spending, but it was Putin's invasion of Ukraine that was the real wake-up call and certainly NATO has, I think, performed very well in terms of assisting Ukraine.
Dana Lewis :Rose, could NATO survive without the United States in it?
Rose Gottemoeller:I believe it could. For one thing, I don't believe that Trump would completely withdraw from NATO. It's possible that he'll attempt something like I've called a soft withdrawal, that is, refusing to appoint a US ambassador to NATO or perhaps even refusing to appoint the Supreme Allied Commander. Europe SACEUR, always the top military man at NATO, has been a four-star general officer admiral from the United States of America. So he may just refuse to put the leadership in place, but I don't think he'll withdraw the United States completely from NATO. He's got an interest in continuing to have a presence in Europe and to be seen as a leader in Europe. So he may try to neglect NATO a bit, but I don't think he's going to try to withdraw completely.
Dana Lewis :Are too and I get lost in the official names of them all. You can correct me on this, but are the nuclear treaties which for years have governed the number of weapons and where they're deployed and the information sharing between the two biggest nuclear powers? Are those agreements dead right now or are they somehow surviving despite this war in Ukraine?
Rose Gottemoeller:Yes, they're hanging on by life support. The New START Treaty is the treaty currently in force. It limits the United States and the Russian Federation to deploying 1,550 nuclear warheads each on 700 delivery vehicles. Those are missiles and bombers and so forth, so there are limits in place. However, the Russian President, vladimir Putin, suspended implementation of the New START Treaty in February of 2023, one year after the invasion of Ukraine and he did so, you know, saying as long as the United States and NATO are assisting Ukraine, no more nuclear arms control treaties, which to me, is that's shooting himself in the foot, because it's, you know, he needs to keep the United States under control as much as we need to keep Russia under control. So it's a weird situation, but that's where it stands.
Dana Lewis :Both countries are If I can just jump in, it's because it's just not about the numbers, right, it is about confirming what the other side is saying. It's about information sharing and the Russians, if you can explain it to me, got just as much as the Americans did out of those deals in terms of understanding. Where are the weapons, where are they deployed, where are they moving to? Do we know that they're not readying for something? There's a lot of, there's a lot of in those agreements, the ability to make the other side feel safer.
Rose Gottemoeller:Absolutely. These treaties are completely reciprocal. They're all about mutual predictability, so that the Russians can't surprise us with a nuclear attack, and vice versa. And heaven knows, a nuclear attack could be the beginning of a very bad day, an existential threat to humanity. So in this case we had on-site inspections, we exchanged data regularly about the deployment of our nuclear forces and the numbers that were deployed, and we also on a the silo and send it to a maintenance facility. But they had to tell us that, and then we'd use our overhead satellites to check that what they notified was correct. So there's a whole lot of checks, verification and monitoring measures that ensure we know what they're up to and vice versa, and that's what Putin suspended. We continue to be confident that they're not building up again because we can watch with our overhead satellites what they're doing. But on the other hand, we don't have that day-in, day-out fidelity into what they're up to with their nuclear weapons systems.
Dana Lewis :What about China Rose? Do you feel now? I mean, they have 500, I think probably when you and I first started doing interviews, you know, when you were still in Moscow, you know they had 300 weapons. Now it's 500. They're heading for 1000.
Rose Gottemoeller:Yeah, exactly when we were talking in Moscow 15 years ago or more, the Chinese we didn't even consider them a threat. Aside from, they had some weapons that they kept for retaliation in case they were attacked. They said they had no first use policy and we didn't think they were going to ready a surprise first strike. So we were rather relaxed about their nuclear weapons systems. These days we are not, because they are clearly modernizing, building up their forces. They are headed to 1,000 by the year 2030. That is what the Department of Defense in the United States says and by 2035, the Department of Defense believes that they could have 1,500 warheads. So that is a big buildup over the next 10 years and it is very worrying to Washington and to people who focus on nuclear threats, because it could mean we are facing two countries, russia and China, each having similar numbers of nuclear weapons deployed and targeted against us.
Dana Lewis :And as you say that the United States has an aging I don't want to use the word failing, but you might say that nuclear arsenal that you know. I think you've said in other interviews that the Minuteman model you know, in some of the silos across America you're not even sure whether they would exactly fire. I mean, I assume most of them would. But so there's this incredible now rejuvenation program of the US arsenal of $1.4 trillion. Some people say it'll be $1.7 trillion by the time it's done and we know that these things tend to escalate beyond that. But is it needed and do you have a concern about how it's going forward?
Rose Gottemoeller:about how it's going forward. Yeah, dana, let me just stress that I do think our currently deployed weapon systems are safe, secure and effective. If they had to launch, they would launch. They are weapons of deterrence. We don't think about them as weapons we would use in fighting a nuclear war, in fighting a war period. They are to deter the other side from attacking us. But I am very confident that they're effective. It's just that they're old.
Rose Gottemoeller:The Minuteman III has been in deployment some of those missiles now for 30 years or more. And in the case of the Ohio-class submarines, the first Ohio-class boat was launched in the late 70s. So you know these systems are old and they need to be modernized, they need to be replaced and that's the program that you referred to. It's a modernization program. It's replacing our existing weapon systems with this. You know, basically the same kind intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and bombers that are able to launch cruise missiles and also gravity bombs, drop gravity bombs. So it's a replacement, one for one, and we're not building up. People say oh, you're modernizing, you're increasing. At the moment the policy of the United States is to replace those systems but not to build up and increase. There is worry with what China's doing, but for the moment I think we can be confident in our nuclear triad and in the modernization of our nuclear triad.
Dana Lewis :I know you're an advisor to the Council on Strategic Risks in the US Andy Weber is there the former Undersecretary of Defense and others that I know that they have come out and raised concerns about some of how this modernization is taking place. I know it's very detailed but just if I asked you two examples of it that might concern you would one be the fact that they are doing dial-a-yield weapons that somehow contemplate the use of a nuclear weapon on the battlefield, a smaller yield weapon, and also the fact that they're incorporating nuclear warheads into cruise missiles, which are also used in conventional war and in a conflict one side or the other may make a mistake and think that an incoming cruise missile has a nuclear warhead on it.
Rose Gottemoeller:Right? Well, I'll tell you honestly, Dana. These are problems that have been around since the 1980s. The United States warheads that exist already have a variable yield, so to say, and can be used at different yields. There is a new warhead that is being developed that's explicitly designed to, I guess, be easier to use from that perspective.
Rose Gottemoeller:But again, these are weapons of deterrence.
Rose Gottemoeller:They're not for fighting a war, they're designed to stay on the shelf and to be able to deter a possible aggressor at any level. That's why people say, well, we need some lower-yield weapons, because the Russians deploy lower-yield weapons. So there's this notion that we have to have equivalents in terms of the capabilities available. I don't personally agree with that, but that's where we are, that's the decision that's been made, so there is a certain logic to it. Now, in terms of the dual-use cruise missiles, they have been in existence since the 1980s and we have, I think, up to this point, done a lot to try to differentiate between, for example, air launch cruise missiles that are associated with our strategic delivery vehicles, like our long-range bombers that could fly far enough to if they had to strike Russia from the United States, to strike Russia from the United States. Those are ones that we associate with nuclear warheads, but ones that are being used in, for example, in the war in Syria. Those are clearly conventionally armed and have been only associated with delivery systems that are for conventional fighting.
Dana Lewis :Final thoughts. Rose Will, I still have you. I mean, it's a very wobbly dangerous time worldwide. What's number one on your list that worries you?
Rose Gottemoeller:that's going on in Ukraine and the dynamics there are very uncertain. Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin, those around him, they keep rattling the nuclear saber, and I think we have to take these threats seriously. I haven't seen anything like this since the Cuban Missile Crisis, way back in 1962, so I do think that this is a time to be worried about the possibility of nuclear use once again, and it's something that we have to avoid. We haven't seen nuclear use in wartime since Nagasaki and Hiroshima back in 1945, 80 years this coming summer. So we need to keep it that way.
Dana Lewis :Yeah, and oddly enough, as you say that, it occurs to me we kind of shrug our shoulders and get used to another nuclear threat coming out of Russia and say, oh well, they didn't deliver last time, they're probably not going to deliver this time, but it's, I mean, you just can't imagine a worse scenario, more serious threats than that. So, rose Gottemoeller of Stanford University, now, thank you so much. Always a pleasure to talk to you.
Rose Gottemoeller:Thank you, dana, great to be with you.
Dana Lewis :All right. Alexei Goncharenko is a member of Ukrainian parliament and he joins us now from Odessa. Alexei, welcome.
Oleksiy Goncharenko :Hello.
Dana Lewis :You've had a hell of a weekend in Ukraine, and I know I was looking at your video on Twitter that you posted, and just behind you was the building where one of the missiles hit and you described it as a horror. You are living days of horror, one after another, but what happened there, specifically over the weekend? David Pérez-Pérez-Pérez-Pérez-Pérez-Pérez-Pérez-Pérez-Pérez-Pérez-Pérez-Pérez-Pérez-Pérez-Pérez-Pérez-.
Oleksiy Goncharenko :Yeah, the last several days are especially tough, and especially for Odessa, my native city. And first it was a missile attack yesterday early morning, after which we are in blackouts. There is no electricity in most of the city still already from 7 am yesterday, so it is more than 36 hours already. No water supply, no heating, electric transfer doesn't work, schools don't work, so it's bad from this point of view. And today there was a missile attack in the center of the city and the missile fell just 250 meters from my home and I ran there and it was very loud and I ran there. I've been there just minutes after it happened and it was a horror. I didn't want to show it on Twitter because people in blood and wounded killed people, so it was very bad and, yeah, so it is one. Tomorrow will be 1,000 days of Russian full-scale invasion, so it is 1,000 days of horror, but these last days are, like in my city, especially especially tough.
Dana Lewis :What do you think Putin is trying to do right now? I mean, he's sitting everywhere Anything civilian buildings, electrical infrastructure, whatever they can hit. There were something like 900 missile attacks last week missile and drone attacks. What are the Russians trying to do? Right?
Oleksiy Goncharenko :now, just yesterday, towards the attack, it was more than 200 altogether missiles and drone. And when I yeah, it was 120 missiles, I think, and something like 90 drone, something like this, just one, just one morning, and when I'm hearing, just step aside, about, oh, that we will give a permission to ukraine to attack in the russian territory. Finally, it took 1 000 days and thousands of ukrainian lives to make the decision. But the question is, how many missiles will we have? Because a week ago french defense minister said we, like he said, oh, good news we are sending to ukraine new uh delivery of both scalps called missiles, 10 missiles, 10, again just yesterday, one morning, 120 missiles I'm not drones which were used by Russia. So, with all respect, and we are very thankful for these 10 missiles, for any missile, for any bullet we are receiving, but it's nothing comparing to what the scale was going on here. So, yeah, and this is tough, sorry, I made a step aside and a little bit lost your question.
Dana Lewis :But yeah, that was my question anyway, because now we have President Biden announcing that finally, you know, they're going to allow ATACOMs to be used on Russian territory by the Ukrainian army, most likely, though, in that area where North Korean troops are with Russian forces now that want to take back Kursk. Is it going to make any difference?
Oleksiy Goncharenko :The question is how many missiles will we receive? It will be 100 missiles. With this permission, it can make a difference, at least in that part of the front line. Also, that will threaten Russians. They will need to change their logistics to go further inside the territory and decentralize, and so on. So it means I don't want to tell you and I don't want to look like a person who is not thankful for the help. We are thankful. I understand we're living through this horror. Uh, united states are far away, european countries not so far away, but still not here. And I understand it's our pain. But the question is, the problem is our pain today can become, I'm sorry, your pain tomorrow. All this horror can go further, to other countries, to other parts of Europe, to other cities. That's the thing and that's why we can't understand why the world can't make a decisive step to stop the devil.
Dana Lewis :It's funny. That argument, though, was lost in the United States, and it was certainly lost in the election, but it's not lost on Eastern European countries who understand Russia better, and the former Soviet Union, the Baltics, Poland. They're in no doubt that, once Putin is finished with Ukraine, that he'll turn his attention to going further. He won't stop.
Oleksiy Goncharenko :Absolutely, and he just wants to rebuild this empire. And I just want to remind those who are not, you know, say, in Eastern Europe, but not only Germany, dear Germans, it was 35 years ago you were divided. It's 35 years ago. From historical point of view, it's nothing, it's a moment, it's a second. So Putin, and Putin was Russian agent there, in Eastern Germany. So if you are asking Putin what he wants and if you're going to give to him what he wants, you need to be prepared to give him at least half of Germany, eastern Germany, why not?
Dana Lewis :What do you say about President Trump, who comes in and 24 hours, will do a deal, will make an arrangement, kind of like a mafia don. We'll give them some land and we'll get a ceasefire in place and bada bing?
Oleksiy Goncharenko :I clearly understand that with President Trump, we're moving from rules-based international order to deals-based international order. That's clear. We want Trump to be successful. I mean, who else who, more than us, want this war to be finished? Who suffers from this war more than Ukrainians? The question is that the finish should be a real finish. First of all, it should be a peace, not a ceasefire. Secondly, it should be a fair peace, because in other cases it will mean that I don't know when I'm hearing oh, are you ready? Many media are asking you know, are you ready to cede part of your territory, to give up part of your territory to Russia? We do not agree and we will never agree, and nobody in the world make us accept that our territories are Russian. These are our territories. Yes, that's true that without American military support, at least for the moment, we can't reclaim this territory by military force.
Dana Lewis :Elon Musk, who is advising Trump and working with the Trump administration, suggested in a tweet that Zelensky is a comedian for saying in the end, we will be the ones that decide, ukraine will be the ones that the Ukrainians will be the ones that decide this, and he said that that was comedy.
Oleksiy Goncharenko :In effect, yeah, I mean it's. I don't know what is funny for Elon Musk here. Maybe, yeah, he made this kind of funny comedian joke. It's not about Zelensky and where. I just want to people like Elon Musk I understand probably he's not looking at us now, but I just want to explain to other people who are watching us now.
Oleksiy Goncharenko :When such things are said about Zelensky as the president of ukraine, it's, it's a joke about ukraine. It's a joke about us for dying every day. It's a bad joke, nothing funny. You can help or you cannot, can not help, it's up to you. But to to, to to, to smile on it too good, to laugh on it, I think it's too much.
Oleksiy Goncharenko :I'm not a fan of President Zelensky. I don't like President Zelensky. I should be friends with him. But it's my president, it's our president and we in the side of Ukraine we can smile on him, laugh on him, we can be angry with him, but Elon Musk can't, and nobody else, because it's about our state, it's about our country. And I will never laugh at Donald Trump because he is elected by American people, not because I like him or I don't like him, it's because he's elected by American people, and that will be kind of unrespect from me towards American people which they do not deserve. So that's the same about Ukrainians. And I think Elon Musk. He is a great entrepreneur, but to be a great entrepreneur and to be a great person and to be a smart man, a smart politician, it's a big difference.
Dana Lewis :You said it should be a peace, not a ceasefire. A lot of people would say you're not going to get to peace with Russia right now. They're not going to easily withdraw to peace with Russia right now. They're not going to easily withdraw. Take a ceasefire, bring in international forces so that they can keep that kind of like between North and South Korea, some kind of no man's land, maybe a promise not to join NATO for a decade or two. You don't see that flying.
Oleksiy Goncharenko :I don't like such the end. The fact that I don't like such end, the fact that I don't like it, doesn't mean that I'm telling you that it is impossible. But the question is when I told you about peace and ceasefire, what I meant first of all is security guarantees, because if we in any way, we will end hostilities in any way I'm not now discussing in what way, even but if there will be no security guarantees to Ukraine, one thing we are sure about, that Putin will attack again. Maybe it will be. For example, maybe it will be after President Trump, because we definitely know that in four years the United States will elect a new president. Trump can't run anymore, so his personal assurances will not work in four years. Oh, it will be earlier. Oh, I don't know.
Oleksiy Goncharenko :Yeah, it can happen something with Russia. Maybe there will be a revolution there, maybe they will fall apart, maybe they will go to another war. I don't know, but in any other case this empire will attack again. So I want to know what security guarantees ukraine will receive. And that's not because I am like somebody owes up and like, oh they, that other countries are in depth towards us.
Oleksiy Goncharenko :No, but in 1994, united states and united kingdom gave us security guarantees of Budapest memorandum when we voluntarily gave up our nukes for the first time in human history. If we would have our nukes today, we would just destroy today Moscow completely to rubbles, after what they did in Mayodessa, and never, ever anybody in the world would do this to us. Nobody would ever attack us if we would have it, but United States and United Kingdom. I'm not speaking about Russia, but United States and United Kingdom took our nukes from us and instead gave us a piece of paper which we now can take only to toilet, which is called Budapest Memorandum, and that will never happen with us again. We don't believe anymore in such things, so we want security guarantees in any case, whatever is discussed. So that's the most important part.
Dana Lewis :Could you final question to you? Could you talk about political process? If Trump somehow convinces Putin and Zelensky to do a deal, whether it be a ceasefire, whether it be a peace deal, zelensky could just not sign a piece of paper on his own, can he? So what would have to happen inside Ukraine?
Oleksiy Goncharenko :No, zelensky can't do it on his own. Definitely, zelensky should go to Ukrainian people, to Ukrainian civil society, and say that's the situation, that's where we are, that's what we can do and that's what we can't. And in this situation, we need to make some decisions. Maybe these will be painful decisions, but let us talk and let us make this, but it will be a decision of Ukrainian society. Yes, and I don't know. It depends from so many things. I the most important what will be inside this package? So-called yeah, we can say, I just don't know. And also, yes, this is the what should happen. Because you should be absolutely aware of one thing in february, march 2022, it was not zelensky himself as a person, it was not uh, with all respect, javelins or anybody. It was ukrainian people who were lying under russian tanks, who stopped russia, and that only ukrainian people and ukrainian society can decide what to do next. Uh, we are waiting for the proposition of Donald Trump. We believe that this proposition will be fair towards us, because we deserve it.
Dana Lewis :Alexei Goncharenko, member of the Ukrainian parliament. Thank you so much for taking your time. Thank you and stay safe, I mean. I know it's very difficult, dark days.
Oleksiy Goncharenko :Yeah, it is. Thank you very much.
Dana Lewis :And that's our backstory. This week we are at a critical moment in the Ukraine-Russia war. The incoming president-elect, donald Trump, will try to freeze the conflict. He sees it as a deal he can broker with his pal, president Putin. But will Ukrainians sign on? Will Europe abandon Ukraine after a thousand days of fighting? Not likely, but it looks like a ceasefire may be in the offing. As always, the devil will be in the details Territory security guarantees and a promise that Russia will reign in its war machine. Does anyone really believe the Kremlin will? I'm Dana Lewis. Thanks for listening to Backstory. Share the podcast and we'll do more. No-transcript.
