Andriy Parubiy, first vice-chairman of the Parliament of Ukraine, conducted an official visit to Washington on February 23-26. Mr. Parubiy is past secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine and commander of Maidan Self-Defense forces.
Oleksiy Skrypnyk, vice-chairman of the parliamentary Committee on Science and Education, who was in Washington at the time, joined Mr. Parubiy at a number of meetings in Congress. Also, at several conferences and roundtables hosted by Washington think tanks and universities where Mr. Parubiy was the featured speaker, a number of experts from Ukraine participated, among them Mr. Skrypnyk; Roman Mashkovets and Stanislav Bondarenko, both former officers in the defense forces of Ukraine and senior fellows at the Center for Defense Reform; Vasyl Filipchuk, chairman of the International Center for Policy Studies; Mykhailo Honchar, president of Strategy XXI Center of Global Studies; and Anatoli Pinchuk of Ukraine Strategy Institute.
Mr. Parubiy’s official meetings were held with members of the newly established Senate Ukraine Caucus (SUC) and with the co-chairs of the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus (CUC) in the House of Representatives. Mr. Parubiy also held separate meetings with Rep. John Boehner, speaker of the House, and Sens. John McCain and Jack Reed, chair and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He held high-level official meetings at the Department of Defense, Department of State and the National Security Council. Mr. Parubiy also had interviews with the editorial board of The Washington Post and with the Wall Street Journal.
National Deputy Skrypnyk and a group of experts from Ukraine met separately with senior advisers to the members of the Senate Ukraine Caucus and the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus. Together with Mr. Parubiy they participated in conferences and roundtables hosted by the National Democratic Institute, Brookings Institute, U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, Center for U.S.-Ukrainian Relations, U.S.-Ukraine Business Council, Jamestown Foundation, Georgetown University and American Foreign Policy Council.
The Ad Hoc Committee for Ukraine was instrumental in facilitating the public meetings and interviews, and helped in arranging a number of meetings in Congress. The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv and Ukraine’s Embassy in Washington were responsible for the official meetings, including with the executive branch.
As readers may recall, the Ad Hoc Committee for Ukraine was established in September 2014 to better unify efforts to advocate on behalf of the Ukraine Freedom Support Act and for the establishment of the SUC. Subsequently, the committee has been working to assure implementation of the act and to expand membership in SUC. Representatives of the Ad Hoc Committee for Ukraine, Mykola Hryckowian, Marta Farion and Borys Potapenko, organized and participated in the meetings of experts from Ukraine with the senior advisers of SUC, CUC and Senate Foreign Relations Committee. They also organized and participated in Mr. Parubiy’s public appearances and talks, as well as interviews with major newspapers.
A major issue at all venues was the question of providing military assistance, including lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine.
At the outset, Mr. Parubiy provided an effective presentation from a unique perspective as one of the principal leaders of the Euro-Maidan – the “Revolution of Dignity” – and as secretary of the National Security and Defense Council during the transitional government and the first months of the presidency of Petro Poroshenko, as well as from his vantage point as the current first vice-chair of the Verkhovna Rada.
He recalled that on the day the Maidan was covered in blood, Russia began its armed aggression against Ukraine in Crimea. He also noted that Russia’s war against Ukraine had begun long before the Euro-Maidan protest; employed as weapons were disinformation, energy, the economy, corruption and sedition with the goal of undermining the government and making Kyiv subservient to the will of the Kremlin.
Ukrainians understood that signing the Association Agreement with the European Union was the only way to join the West and defend the country against aggression from Moscow. Ukrainians understood that Ukraine was the lynch pin for restoring the empire Vladimir Putin seeks. Ukraine is a nation that survived the Holodomor and other crimes against humanity of the Stalin era and all Communist regimes. This is why Ukrainians are prepared to do whatever it takes and make every sacrifice to preserve their independence. For only within a truly independent country can the very existence of the Ukrainian nation be safeguarded.
Therefore, removing Mr. Putin’s puppet, Mr. Yanukovych and his dictatorial regime, became an absolute necessity to secure the independent statehood of Ukraine. Today, Ukrainian defense forces, the army and volunteer battalions, are fighting not only for Ukraine, but also for the civilized world. If Mr. Putin were to take Ukraine then other countries would be next, including members of NATO. Mr. Putin has thrown down the gauntlet and challenged international norms. He is doing everything he can to divide the Euro-Atlantic community, separate the U.S. from Europe and break the unity of the West.
However, Ukraine must not only fight the invading Russian army, it also must also, simultaneously, restore its economy and implement reforms at all levels of governance. This is akin to making major repairs to an airplane while it is in flight.
During the Yanukovych dictatorship, Mr. Putin’s agents operated freely at all levels of government. The new government began to govern only several months ago and is working under extreme pressure. Reform of the military, the Defense Ministry and the military-industrial complex is only beginning. At the same time, reforms in all other areas of governance, including in the judiciary, also are under way. New legislation is being acted upon to assure full transparency of government operations. Despite all of the difficulties and continuing aggression from Moscow, the country was able to successfully conduct presidential and parliamentary elections. A coalition of 300 democratic national deputies has been formed in the Verkhovna Rada and a new government has been established. The president, the prime minister and the Cabinet of Ministers are hard at work.
However, the old guard of the former regime has not been fully defeated. Mr. Yanukovych’s people have not disappeared. This is why removing them from the bureaucracies of all government structures and agencies is an essential condition for consolidating the nation-state.
The military component is only one part of Mr. Putin’s war in Ukraine. There also is a vicious war of disinformation designed to breed chaos, confusion, divisions in society and suspicions. Destabilizing society and all state institutions, and sowing disaffection in the nation – this is the method of the FSB against Ukraine from the very first day Mr. Putin came to power. It is understood that Mr. Putin’s tactic is to create distrust among the people in their government, to destroy social cohesion and then to impose his own order. This was the role Mr. Yanukovych played under the direction of Mr. Putin.
At all appearances at Washington think tanks, academic forums and in Congress, Mr. Parubiy, the other representatives from Ukraine and, significantly, all high-level participants from the U.S., expressed the need to impose more severe sanctions against Russia – especially its oligarchs and the banking system. However, the greatest consensus was on the necessity of providing Ukraine defensive lethal weapons to counter Russia’s aggression.
Mr. Parubiy emphasized that, irrespective of what the West will do on the issue of providing weapons to Ukrainian defense forces, Ukrainians will continue to fight for their country. The tragic history of Ukraine makes clear that without their own independent state, Ukrainians will be an object for political and physical annihilation as a nation by Russia. This is why Ukrainians will not, and cannot, settle for anything less than full national independence on its internationally recognized sovereign territory. The question of military aid is not a deciding factor, because Ukrainians will continue to fight. The Maidan was a watershed in the history of the country that forever closes any possibility of the nation returning to the past.
Speakers agreed that President Poroshenko signed the Minsk 2 agreement because of intense pressure, including economic, by Germany and France. There also was agreement that the U.S. must assert leadership among its allies to unify support for Ukraine and to prevent the restoration of Russian hegemony.
The newly formed Senate Ukraine Caucus was an important factor in the visit by Mr. Parubiy, as were the hearings on Ukraine at the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations that took place the same week.
Together, the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus in the House of Representatives and the Senate Ukraine Caucus are important in mobilizing congressional support, in lobbying the White House and in keeping Ukraine in the forefront of the American public’s attention. Therefore, it is imperative for the Ukrainian American community to further unite and coordinate activities to achieve our collective goals.
Borys Potapenko is chair of the Legislative Subcommittee of the Ad Hoc Committee for Ukraine and vice-president of the International Council in Support of Ukraine.
Marta Farion and Mykola Hryckowian contributed to this article.