‘We are not ready to surrender’: Coffee with Ukraine’s ambassador to US

Oksana Markarova, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, seems to be everywhere – on the Sunday news shows, on Capitol Hill, at swanky press dinners. 

But her most striking public appearance since Russia invaded her country on Feb. 24 may have come two months later, when she popped up in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. 

The photos she tweeted out tell a story: In one, Ambassador Markarova is clad in khaki green, standing next to the man who sent her to Washington last year – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, also in his trademark military green. In the other, she is the only woman seated at a table with President Zelenskyy and two other top Ukrainian officials. 

This brief trip home – her first since the Russian invasion – was deeply personal for Ms. Markarova, she made clear at a Monitor coffee for reporters Thursday. She saw her husband for the first time since he flew back to Ukraine, right after the war started. (Their four children have remained in the United States.)

“It was very good to be back home even for one day,” said the U.S.-educated ambassador, who previously served as Ukraine’s finance minister. She added, “It was surreal.” 

Ms. Markarova slept in her house, which is on the outskirts of Bucha – a suburb of Kyiv, where Russian forces massacred hundreds of civilians a month into the war. And she got to see her dogs. But her in-laws’ nearby house had been destroyed. 

Before her return, she had been seeing the war through her husband’s eyes – “through his videos, through talking to him,” she says. “It’s one thing to see it on video. It’s another thing to witness yourself,” she adds, noting that by the time of her visit, the bodies had been removed from the streets.

Ms. Markarova spoke, too, of her mother, who resisted government warnings to evacuate her home.

“I have to tell you, it was a special operation to convince my mom to move,” she notes, a rare moment of levity in our hourlong session.  

So how did the family get her mother to leave? 

“Well, my husband did,” Ms. Markarova says. “He gets all the credit.”

The C-SPAN video of the session can be viewed here. 

During our coffee, the ambassador addressed how Ukraine would define victory in the war; reports that Russia will soon annex more parts of Ukraine; the status of President Joe Biden’s massive $33 billion request from Congress for more aid to Ukraine; Russia’s frozen assets; and NATO aspirations.

The following excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity: 

What does victory look like for Ukraine?

All we want to do is just live peacefully within our internationally recognized borders. In 2014, when Russia attacked us, we always said that we will never recognize the illegal annexation of Crimea and illegal attack on Donetsk and Luhansk. And even though we had all the legal rights to take them [back] with force, we never planned to do so. We always wanted to use diplomatic solutions to restore our territorial integrity. 

Essentially the victory for us is, one, we will have no Russian troops on our territory; when we will restore our territorial integrity and sovereignty; and when all those responsible for these horrific crimes will be [held to] account. And that’s when we will start rebuilding our country.

So does victory include Ukraine reclaiming Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk? 

Crimea was, is, and always will be Ukraine. Now, again, as our president repeatedly said, we are ready to negotiate at any point in time. We are not ready to surrender, and we are not ready to compromise on the principal issues for us. Now, how to get to that victory – that’s a question. 

On May 9, Russia reportedly plans to announce the annexation of more Ukrainian territory as it celebrates Victory Day, which marks the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in 1945. If that happens, how will Ukraine respond?

It’s very cynical of the Russian Federation to [do this] right now, when they brutally attacked a sovereign state; when they started a war in the middle of Europe; when they do exactly what Nazis did, with all the symbols, with genocide, with killing Ukrainians, only because we’re Ukrainians with, you know, ridiculous manifestations of antisemitism just recently by Minister Lavrov.

[Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently dismissed the Ukrainian president’s Jewish faith, repeating the false claim that “Hitler also had Jewish blood.” On Friday, President Vladimir Putin reportedly apologized to Israel for Mr. Lavrov’s comment.]

Progress is slow in getting Congress to approve President Joe Biden’s massive $33 billion request for military, economic, and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. Where does that stand? 

I talk to senators and congressmen and congresswomen on a daily basis. Time is of the essence here.

If you look at their public announcements, you will see that the previous bill that was adopted at the beginning of February – we already exhausted almost all that was there for the presidential drawdowns and other programs. 

There’s growing bipartisan talk on Capitol Hill of using frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine – a proposal that could open up the seizure of U.S. assets abroad. What is Ukraine’s view? 

We fully support the idea to use those frozen assets in the future to compensate Ukraine and to use this money for the rebuilding and reconstruction effort. ... It would be, I think, not only fair but actually very according to international law practices to use these frozen assets, to confiscate them and use them for the reconstruction processes.

Does Ukraine still aspire to NATO membership, despite the belief by some that Ukraine’s Western orientation contributed to Russia’s decision to invade? 

With the legacies that we have, you either are part of the Euro-Atlantic community and the West ... or you will be occupied or attacked by Russia. And it happened. 

You know, we were neutral for 30 years. It didn’t help us. Ukraine always said that we would like to join the European Union and we would like to join NATO. That hasn’t changed.