In thirty-three years of diplomatic service, Marie Yovanovitch was never one of those Washington creatures aglow in self-regard. The big public profile wasnt her thing. Indeed, if you told her that she would end her diplomatic career by being fired by Donald Trump and testifying in his first impeachment proceedings, she would have been mortified.
Masha, as almost everyone calls her, was in my college Russian class years ago, though her skills were, as the pitiless transcripts reveal, infinitely better than mine. She served in Embassies in Somalia and Russia; in various roles at the State Department; and then as the U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, to Kyrgyzstan, and, from 2016 to 2019, as an Obama appointee, to Ukraine.
In Kyiv, Yovanovitch spent much of her time trying to cajole Ukrainian officials and businesspeople to move beyond a culture of corruption, an impulse that earned her some influential enemies. In 2019, she fell victim to a smear campaign organized by, among others, corrupt officials in Kyiv, Trumps lawyer Rudolph Giuliani, and the right-wing media. Deemed disloyal to Trumpa stooge, according to Giulianishe was summoned back to Washington and summarily fired. Meanwhile, Giuliani and others were trying to get the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, to dig up dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who had business dealings in Ukraine. Trump, in his fateful telephone call to Zelenskya crucial milestone in the chain of misdeeds that led to impeachmentsaid that Yovanovitch was bad news. Yovanovitch, in her testimony to Congress, four months later, said, Our Ukraine policy has been thrown into disarray, and shady interests the world over have learned how little it takes to remove an American Ambassador who does not give them what they want.
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Yovanovitchs parents emigrated from Europe to Canada after the Second World War and then came to the U.S. She grew up in Kent, Connecticut. After her appearance before Congress, she became a kind of Trump-era folk herothe modest professional diplomat turned whistle-blower. Her memoir, Lessons from the Edge, will be published in mid-March. We recently spoke about events in Ukraine and Russia, as well as her experiences with the Trump Administration. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Masha, it must be painful to watch as Putins Army invades a place you lived in and cared about so much.
This is now an overused word, but its devastating. Its devastating for me on a personal level. More importantly, its devastating to so many of the people whom I know in Ukraine and who are bravely fighting the Russian military.
Are you hearing from those friends?
I am. Im also hearing from friends who were lucky enough to be able to leave Ukraine. And Im hearing from people who are now in Poland, who are trying to help refugees or trying to provide supplies to Ukraine. Its a desperate time.
Did this take you by surprise?
On the one hand, Putin has been signalling this for a long time, both in his rhetoric and in his actions. There was that speech in 2005, when he said that the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century was the breaking apart of the Soviet Union. There was his calling out of NATO, in 2007, at the Munich Security Conference. And there was his invasion of Georgia, in 2008, which was a seminal momentand where we reacted, perhaps, not strongly enough. Putin is a bully. If he isnt met with strength, hes gonna keep going.
Was there intelligence that Putin could invade Ukraine?
Well, I retired from the State Department back in 2020, so I dont have access to the intelligence anymore. But, yes, Im sure that there were all sorts of privileged communications. One of the things that the Biden Administration has done, which I cant remember seeing before, is quickly declassifying intelligence and sharing it with the world. Im sure not everything was declassified, but an awful lot of it was, and it took away some of the element of surprise.
Putin has a litany of resentments and reasons for his actions. They include the eastward expansion of NATO, and whatever the U.S. intelligence agencies may or may not have done to help foment the collapse of the Soviet Union. He also points to our actions in Kosovo and Iraq, the sense that the U.S. acts with impunity. A lot of people who are horrified by the invasion point to these factors, too. How would you respond?
Well, thats certainly the Russian narrative, Putins narrative. But what should we have done differently? What should we have said to the countries of Central Europe, who had fears of their own, and fears that they would be left in a no mans land? Should we have said, Yeah, were just not interested? I think that wouldve been a mistake. You know, the thing about the United States and NATO and the European Union is that we have ideas. We are about democracy and freedom and capitalism and security, as well as individual liberties. Its a fact that people are better off under democracies.
And, since World War Two, that has been the single most important driver of American influence and power. Yes, we have a big military. Yes, we have a strong economy. But its our ideas that attract others. Russia under Putin doesnt really have that power of attraction. He only has the power of coercion, and we are seeing that now in Ukraine in a brutal way.
Im not saying that the U.S. has always acted perfectly. Weve certainly made our share of mistakes. But NATO is a defensive alliance. It does not pose a threat to Putin or Russia. In fact, the leaders of Europe and President Biden were trying to ratchet down tensions before all this.
How far will Putin take this? The invasion hasnt gone the way he wouldve liked, but maybe time is on his side. The sheer volume of arms is on his side. What does he want here?
I think he wants to control Ukraine. When I was in the country, from 2016 to 2019, I always felt that he didnt really want to own Ukraine, because then theres at least a modicum of responsibility. He would have to provide services. But he wanted to make sure that Ukraine didnt have the power of self-determination. He wanted to keep it in his sphere of influence. What he discovereddue, ironically, to his own actions, particularly the annexation of Crimea and the invasion of the Donbasswas that he is the single biggest driver since independence, in 1991, of bringing the Ukrainian people together.
See the article here:
Marie Yovanovitch, the Former Ambassador to Ukraine, on Putins Intentions and Trumps Pressures - The New Yorker