Ukraine

U.S. Senator Ben Cardin discusses national security concerns, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the relationship between Russia and China, climate diplomacy, and global human rights abuses and corruption.

The conversation on Geopolitical Implications of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine during the International Studies Association 2022 Annual Convention featured Audrey Kurth Cronin, distinguished professor in the School of International Service and director of the Center for Security, Innovation, and New Technology at American University; Charles A. Kupchan, CFR senior fellow and professor of international affairs in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and Department of Government at Georgetown University; and Kori Schake, senior fellow and director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. James M. Lindsay, senior vice president, director of studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg chair at CFR, moderated the discussion. LINDSAY: Good afternoon everyone. I am Jim Lindsay, senior vice president at the Council on Foreign Relations. It is my great pleasure to welcome you to today’s on-the-record CFR luncheon discussion on the geopolitical implications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It is also my great pleasure to introduce a stellar set of panelists: Audrey Cronin, Charles Kupchan, and Kori Schake. I am going to keep my introductory remarks short even though I could talk at great length about each of them and the wonderful work they have done. Immediately to my left—at least geographically; not necessarily politically—(laughter)—is Audrey Cronin. She is distinguished professor in the School of International Service and director of the Center for Security, Innovation and New Technology at American University. She is the author of How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns. Her most recent book, Power to the People: How Open Technological Innovation is Arming Tomorrow’s Terrorists was short-listed for the Lionel Gelber Prize and won the 2020 Airey Neave Prize. So congratulations on that, Audrey. CRONIN: Thanks, Jim. LINDSAY: In the center of the stage—not necessarily politically—(laughter)—is Charlie Kupchan. Charlie is a senior fellow at the Council, and a professor of international affairs at Georgetown University. From 2014 to 2017, Charlie served as special assistant to the president and senior director for European affairs on the staff of the National Security Council under President Barack Obama. Charlie’s most recent book is Isolationism: A History of America’s Efforts to Shield Itself from the World. Finally, to my far left—again, geographically; not necessarily politically—is Kori Schake. Kori is senior fellow and director of foreign and defense policy at the American Enterprise Institute. She has held policy positions across government including on the staff of the National Security Council, and at the U.S. State Department where she was deputy head of policy planning. Her most recent book is America vs. the West: Can the Liberal World Order be Preserved? So Audrey, Charlie, Kori, thank you very much for joining me. We have agreed that we will engage in a conversation for about twenty-five minutes. At that point we’re going to open it up to everyone else in the room. Given that the title of our session is Geopolitical Implications of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine, I’d like to focus our conversation more on what the invasion means or doesn’t mean for global order rather than focus on why Russia invaded or why Putin didn’t get the quick victory that he anticipated. So where I’m going to start is a question for all of you. Vladimir Lenin once remarked that there are decades where nothing happens and weeks where decades happen. Now it certainly feels like we are in the latter situation right now, but is this really an inflection point in the global order, and if it is, is the best historical analogy for the current moment 1815? 1857? 1905? 1914? 1939? Pick whatever you want. Since I introduced you last, Kori, you get the first crack at the question. SCHAKE: No, I decline. I give Charlie the first crack at the question. (Laughs.) KUPCHAN: I was—you were going to buy time for me to think, so—(laughter). The era that most resembles—I’m going to— LINDSAY: I’m going to ask you the first question. Is this an inflection point? KUPCHAN: It’s definitely an inflection point, and I guess the decade that most immediately comes to mind would be the 1890s, and that’s because I think it’s in the 1890s that a series of developments took place that enabled us to actually see the changes in the global balance of power that were taking place slowly, but it brought them to the surface. And that’s because during that—it was during that decade the United States came online as a power with geopolitical ambition outside its neighborhood, picked a fight with the Spanish, turned into a colonizer of the Philippines and other places. Germany embarked on its High Seas Fleet in 1898. And so there was a kind of consolidation of a multi-polar setting that I think looked similar to today. And there was also a lot of domestic change and political fluidity that was the product of industrialization in Germany, in the United States. This was the progressive era dealing with large corporations, trusts, how do we tame them. This resonates with our age, both in terms of what’s happening in other places, but also in here. There’s a lot of economic or socio-economic dislocation that is taking place because of globalization. So that’s—I think I’d say 1890s. SCHAKE: So can I now confess that I was actually reading the ISA tribute to the Trail of Tears so I had to punt to Charlie because I actually didn’t know what question you were asking. I wasn’t listening, Jim—(laughter)—and now that I know it’s is this an inflection point—thank you, Charlie for stepping forward when I was unprepared—I don’t actually think it’s an inflection point. LINDSAY: Why not? SCHAKE: I think we are still litigating the end of the Cold War, that we assumed that the end was 1991 and 1992 with the unification of Germany, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the expansion of freedom, but in fact, Russia is more continuous with the Soviet Union than it is different from the Soviet Union under Vladimir Putin. And so, I think what we are seeing is a resurgent effort by the countries of the West to restrict Russian power when it is used for the suppression of the sovereignty and freedom of others. So I think we are still litigating the end of the Cold War. I hope it will be an inflection point because we succeed and we will end up with a Russia that either lives within the existing rules of the Western order or changes. LINDSAY: OK, Audrey, so we have a vote for an inflection point. We have a vote for no inflection point. Where do you weigh in? CRONIN: Well, I think that whenever we talk about historical analogies, I get really nervous because Ernest May’s book had a huge impact on me early in my career—Thinking in Time—and I think personally I’m going to split the difference, and we can choose from different analogies. So I think we do have a lot of what Charlie has talked about; certainly at the end of the nineteenth century you had globalization, you had inequality at tremendous levels. You had a huge monopolization of major companies that were controlling more and more. You had the maturation of fossil-fuel-based economies, which is quite similar to the maturation of digitally based economies, and also the equivalent to oil, I would say, is—many have said—the equivalent to oil and coal is data. The data economy is becoming quite mature. And so I think the broader context is more the way that Charlie laid it out. But I also agree with you, Kori, because I think that, you know, 1947 is a period where I would look back and say we were—I mean, I did write my first book on the negotiations over Austria, so I see that as being very comparable to what we’re thinking about in some ways with respect to Ukraine—or what the Ukrainians are thinking about. So I can certainly see the continuation with respect to the Soviet Union and Russia there, too. So I think we—you know, we have to pick and choose a little bit. LINDSAY: OK. Kori, I want to come back to you, and you can throw this question to Charlie or Audrey if you want— SCHAKE: (Laughs)—I’m listening now, I promise. LINDSAY: OK. You know, you have written a book asking about whether the liberal world order can be preserved, and you have mentioned that we have seen a remarkable show of unity and action in the West. I think the West as a term has sort of gotten a new lease on life. But the fact that there is unity at the start of the crisis doesn’t mean there will be unity at the end of the crisis. How do you assess the chances for Western cooperation to continue to be sustained? Do you think it’s temporary? Or is there an opportunity here for it to be long lasting? SCHAKE: That’s a really good question, and the honest answer is I don’t know. But I do see—and things are about to get a lot more painful for the countries of the West economically and possibly even politically to sustain the very hard line we have taken, and not just because it looks like Russia is going to turn off the gas pumps unless Western countries will pay in rubles to get Russia around some of the creative economic sanctions that the West has put forward, but also the inability to export wheat from Ukraine and natural resources from Russia. This is going to be a huge humanitarian crisis. We are going to have a food crisis, most particularly in the developing world. And that, too, will put pressure on Western governments. The good news is the amazing creativity of the treasury departments of the Western countries to come up new tools to try and impose economic costs on Russia. The bad news is it’s not yet clear what the second-order effects of those tools are going to be, and who they’re going to hurt, and who they’re going to help as they—as they sink their roots. So we have set sail in very choppy waters. We did it for very good reasons, and I think, though, that two things will help Western countries hold together. The first is Russia is so obviously in the wrong here, and in a way, that’s dangerous—not just to Ukraine; it’s dangerous to this system of rules that have made the West safe and prosperous; namely borders only changed by consent, and sovereignty is inherent in any state—large, small, weak, powerful. So having the German SPD chancellor almost triple German defense spending this year, to commit to the NATO 2 percent next year as opposed to 2035, which was Germany’s opening position, to start sending arms to Ukraine, and to agree to wean Germany off of Russian oil and gas by the end of this year—I don’t see how you walk that back. He planted his sword, and I think that will hold—since Germany is one of the weakest links in Western unity on the sanctions that have been taken against Russia, it will be very hard for others to walk back if Germany holds the line. And the second thing is the war in Ukraine is taking on the trappings of a moral crusade, right? There are good guys in this and there are bad guys in this. And it will be very hard for a country of the West to—after all they have already said, look in the face what Russia is doing—you know, kidnapping mayors from towns they have occupied, shelling apartment buildings, and it was easier for us to look away in Afghanistan, in Syria, and in other places. It will be harder for them to look away in a neighboring country as it takes on this overtly moralistic overtone. LINDSAY: Let me ask you, Audrey, since you have written about Austria, do you see the potential for a negotiated deal that could stick, particularly in light of the point that Kori just made that this is starting—at least in the United States—to turn into a moral crusade, and it’s very difficult to compromise when you are supposedly fighting over good versus evil? CRONIN: Yes, well, neutrality is not necessarily good versus evil. I mean, it’s a different plane altogether, right? So you’re talking geopolitics. You can have good or evil regimes that are neutral. So I don’t really see the question of whether Ukraine could be neutral in those kind of crusade terms. I think it’s all up to the Ukrainians and whether or not they can negotiate a deal that serves their interests. And there’s a bunch of key things that I’m really worried about. One of them is they are talking about not joining any kind of foreign alliances. So the details on that are very, very important. So if that’s part of an agreement, who decides what a foreign alliance is, is going to be very important. The second thing is that security guarantees—they want security guarantees, and they’re saying from the United States, France, and Britain, and that’s essentially an Article 5 commitment. That is quite potentially dangerous to NATO, so it could be quite destabilizing depending upon the details. What if the security guarantor were China, as well? What if Russia were insisting upon that as the agreement. So the devil is in the details in this agreement and to what degree are the Russians going to insist that there be demilitarization? I think that if the Ukrainians become neutral, it’s going to have to be very important that they maintain robust defenses. And then the last thing I’m really worried about is what’s it going to look like. What is the territory going to be? Because there is going to be partition, probably. They are going to have to give something up, and it would be the Donbas and Crimea probably—I’m guessing—and this is up to the Ukrainians, not us. But, where is that line going to be? Some people think that it could be along the Dnieper River. Some people think it could only be the Donbas region in Ukraine as I’ve just said. But exactly what it is that they’re neutralizing is crucial. We could have actually a divided Ukraine that begins to look a little bit like the divided Germany after the Second World War. LINDSAY: Charlie, you have written in the pages of Foreign Affairs just last year, that there is a need for a great power concert. But given what we’ve just talked about and Kori’s notion that we’re really sort of moralizing this conflict, what are the prospects for a concert of great powers, and what would they cooperate on in this current context? KUPCHAN: Let me tie that question back to Kori’s comment because you all—you clearly want us to disagree to get some friction here. LINDSAY: I want you to disagree nicely. (Laughter.) KUPCHAN: I will be very nice, but I—you know, I think there are some differences that should be delineated. Is this a moment of Western rejuvenation? Yes, on some level. But I also think it is a wake-up moment that will force us to confront the prospect of liberal overreach that we, at the end of the Cold War, thought that the order that we built was going to be universalized, and to some extent I think we are seeing blowback from that assumption, and may need to take a more conservative approach to the expansion of the liberal rules-based system that is more focused on us than it is on bringing others in. And I would point out that there is a big liberal democracy out there called India that has not decided to stand with the liberal democracies of the world in this conflict. Second point: I’m more worried than you are, Kori, that this kind of resurgence of moralism and Western strength will last, and that’s because all the problems that we were concerned about before February 24 are still there, and in fact, they’re getting worse. Gas prices are going up, egg prices are going up, grain and bread is going up. What—four million or close to four million refugees have arrived in Europe, and not too far off the Europeans are going to wake up and say, holy crap, most of these aren’t going to go home. Where are we going to put them? How are we going to deal with this? And immigration has been really one of the toughest issues for Europe. So I do worry that as this clock moves forward, as we head into the midterms here in the United States, this kind of burst of bipartisanship will be just a burst, and that the Republicans are going to get their knives out—I’ll defer to you on the Republican Party—but I don’t think the America First crowd is gone; it’s just quiet for now because it doesn’t play well. I expect it to come back vocally as we get closer to the midterms. Final comment: I think the impulse, Jim, is to say forget a global concert; it’s over. And to some extent I agree with that because Richard and I wrote a global concert depends upon the absence of an aggressor state. We have an aggressor state. It’s called Russia. It has invaded its neighbor. But I would also point out that we cannot afford to go back to a world that looks like the Cold War. We are in the boat together on pandemics, on climate change, on proliferation, on global economic interdependence. So I do think we need to talk about either a post-Putin Russia or even a Putin Russia, and what can be done after the dust settles in Ukraine to figure out how to make sure that the broader global agenda that we face doesn’t go by the wayside. LINDSAY: Kori, I want to get you to respond to Charlie’s point that India has not joined in the effort to sanction. And I should note it’s not just India; it’s Brazil, it’s South Africa. Indeed most of the countries of the global south have not rallied behind Western sanctions and in fact have criticized them. So what does that mean for the future of the rules-based order that you have spoken about? SCHAKE: I think it’s a fabulous challenge. So I have a couple of reactions to it. The first is I would be doing exactly what they are doing if I were a developing country, an emergent economy because Germans can have the luxury of paying double gas prices. It’s an incredibly wealthy country. The government can float bonds and pay for things in the future because there is a lot of confidence in the dynamism of the German economy. That’s not the case for most emergent economies, and they have more pressing problems than the problems we are worried about. And so I think the first thing is we need to not be so judgmental about the fact that they are solving other harder problems than what we are trying to recruit them to help us with. Second, I also think that’s good alliance management because allies very often disagree. They even disagree on really important things, so it’s reasonable that people who are not tied as tightly into the benefits of the liberal international order are questioned more what they’re going to offer for its continuation. So that’s the second thing. The third thing is I think there’s a difference between not wanting to be counted on something and opposing it. And India is an interesting case in this point—example in this case, sorry—because on the one hand they get a lot of their military equipment from Russia, and they have a budding, burgeoning relationship with the United States, Australia, and Japan; not because of Russia but because of China, and trying to figure out how to synchronize the gas pedal and the clutch on their series of concerns is actually genuinely difficult. And so, again, I don’t think we should be too judgmental about this. But we should work hard to win the argument and explain to them why it is in their interest that countries cannot change borders by force. That’s what Pakistan has attempted to do to India. That’s what China is attempting to do to India. And they have a stake in a system in which all of us work together to prevent that. LINDSAY: Do you want to jump in here, Audrey? CRONIN: Yes, I was—so jumping off of that point, actually, Kori, isn’t it interesting that China, the great defender of sovereignty, does not seem to be interested in defending Ukraine’s sovereignty, and is quite interested in supporting the aggressor in this case. But getting back to India, I think the fact that only within the last two years the Indians have been fighting the Chinese in the Himalayas. You know, they have a lot of other things to worry about. And the other thing I would say is that, what major power war can you think of where what is essentially the non-aligned movement in the world has ever aligned with those who are currently defending the global order. And then the last thing that I’ll say—to disagree a little bit since I think that’s what you want—disagree a little bit with Charlie is that I don’t think we could have a concert of Europe right now or a concert of great powers because we have a lot of new actors that are as powerful as great powers are in certain dimensions, including the major tech companies who are having a massive influence geopolitically on this crisis. So, we are not in 1815. We are in a different situation with a lot of new stakeholders and a different economic situation than the one that existed then. LINDSAY: Audrey, can I draw you out on that point about technology companies and the role they are playing? Can you just sort of spell it out for me—how you see them influencing or being influenced by the conflict? CRONIN: Yeah, so in some respects the tech companies have been—have sort of been bunged by reality because they have been very poor at dealing with situations of war. So you’ve got Meta that has been—you know, Facebook, and Instagram, and WhatsApp have all been shut down in Russia, and now Meta is being criminalized by the Putin administration—Putin regime—and so, because Meta claimed that they would go to an exception of their moderation rules and allow the Ukrainians to cry for blood against the Russians, this made them seem hypocritical and gave the Russians the excuse to criminalize them within Russia. So this whole concept of neutrality where—neutrality in terms of communications that they have sort of tied their whole identity to for many decades is proving to be extremely frayed. Meta is now being, you know, as I said, criminalized, and it’s giving the Russians a greater argument for why it is that, you know, they can clamp down within Russia. And so, as a result, the Russian people are getting less information. For the first time that I can remember, the New York Times has pulled its people from Moscow. All of the major bureaus have either closed down or pulled people. You’ve got a, you know, crackdown that started to occur before this crisis where Google and Apple representatives were being harassed and, you know, very, very severely. There is kind of a hostage-taking approach to making sure that there were people there that the Putin administration could control. So I don’t see Meta as having been very successful. However, then you’ve also got Elon Musk and Starlink. Look at the role that Starlink has played in Ukraine. I mean, he’s the one who in many respects are keeping the Ukrainians connected, and that’s not unrelated to how this crisis is going. Starlink, with its two thousand individual-sized satellites which are very difficult to shoot down—this has been a huge boon and a support for Ukraine. So I think that major tech companies are an important stakeholder in the international geopolitical realm that we don’t put enough emphasis upon. LINDSAY: Kori, did you have a two-finger? SCHAKE: Yeah, I wanted to tag along on Dr. Cronin’s very good—Dr. Cronin’s very good point and say that it’s not just— CRONIN: Kori, call me Audrey. We’ve known each other for decades. (Laughter.) SCHAKE: Thank you, my friend. It’s not just the big tech companies. What we are looking at is a war in which civil society—business, private charities—all these different dimensions are playing extraordinary roles, right? Chef José Andrés is not only buffeting Poland and other countries that are taking in enormous numbers of refugees, he is also running aid convoys to Odessa. We could be in a point before this war is over where you have private charities breaking sieges of Ukrainian cities and the Russians trying to hold the sieges. You see the hackers group, Anonymous, going after the Russians something fierce, and that’s where the values, the moral crusade part of this matters because civil society in free societies are taking it upon themselves—often beyond the control of the government and without the government’s blessing—to do things that they think will help the people they think are good guys in the war. LINDSAY: I see you’ve done a two-finger, Charlie. I’ll let you do that, but I’m going to ask one last question of you before we bring the rest of the room in. And it is what do you make of President Xi’s decision to back Russia rather than to stand up for the principle of sovereignty? Are Russia and China now joined at the hip? How should U.S. statecraft respond to that? But I know you wanted to get a two-finger first. KUPCHAN: Yes. One quick two-finger to Dr. Professor Cronin. CRONIN: Oh, please. (Laughter.) KUPCHAN: And that is that—and this will just be in defense of the concert system, and I just came from a roundtable—I see Chet Crocker and others who were there—on concerts, one of their assets being the flexibility to put at the table Google, and Meta, and International Rescue Committee, and other groups precisely because they are not formal U.N. Security Council bodies. But you seem skeptical— CRONIN: You are—you are redefining the terms. KUPCHAN: —so let’s not let you talk. (Laughter.) To your question, Jim, I think that the Chinese were a little bit uncertain at first, and they said some things that suggested that they were going to back Russia and some things that said they weren’t so comfortable with the disruption that’s being caused. My sense is that they have now coalesced around standing fairly firmly behind Putin. And I think that’s because this is a war that, on balance, is probably good for China. And that’s because it pushes Russia more fully into China’s embrace and turns Russia irretrievably into the junior partner. It distracts the United States and Europe from the Asia-Pacific. We’re going to be focused on the new central front for the foreseeable future, and I think the Chinese like that, just like they like the fact that we were spinning our wheels for twenty years in Afghanistan and Iraq. The big question mark in my mind is will they go the next step. Will they provide economic assistance and military assistance? Will they bail out a Russian economy that could be collapsing? And I don’t know the answer to that. My guess is they’re going to be careful not to see secondary sanctions get imposed. But one issue that I do worry about—and then I’ll throw this out for discussion—is, are the Chinese going to look at what’s happening here, and are we going to look at what’s happening here, and say globalization and interdependence has become too dangerous, and as a consequence, we’re moving into what could become an era of deglobalization? That’s scary in a world in which two-thirds of the countries in the world already trade more with China than with us. So deglobalization may be unstoppable, but it’s not necessarily good for the U.S. LINDSAY: OK, fair enough. On that note, I’m going to bring the rest of the room into our conversation. I want to remind everybody that this meeting is on the record. If you would like to ask a question, raise a hand, and please stand. Wait for the microphone to arrive, then state your name and affiliation before asking your question. And I do ask that you ask a question. Right here in the front—right here. CRONIN: (Laughs.) The race is on. Q: Thank you. Victoria Hui at University of Notre Dame. These days people talk about today it’s Ukraine, tomorrow it’s Taiwan. So do you think— LINDSAY: Can you hold it a little closer? Q: Oh. LINDSAY: Thank you. Q: People say today it’s Ukraine; tomorrow it’s Taiwan. So do you think that today it’s Ukraine means— tomorrow it’s Taiwan means that there is a bigger chance that there will be a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, or Ukraine—the experiences that we are seeing is actually going to make Taiwan safer? Thank you. LINDSAY: So have the chances of an invasion of Taiwan gone up or gone down? SCHAKE: So I honestly don’t know. Let me tell you the two arguments. The first argument would be what the Chinese could learn from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is it’s shocking that the Western world actually can pull together when it’s serious. Second, the diabolical creativity of Western financial institutions to develop new tools in market—to affect markets, again, should be scary to them. Third, the only way to tell whether a military is any good at what it’s doing is to fight it, and I—like a whole bunch of other people thought the Russian military was an awful lot better than it is. And China hasn’t fought in a long time, and so whether they would have the grit for this fight or the ability to do the orchestration of logistics and air power, getting across a hundred miles of choppy water in an amphibious operation on Taiwan—that’s a pretty sophisticated military task. So lots of reasons they should take caution from that. Not at all clear to me that Xi Jinping will take caution from that—that he may very well be arrogant enough to think, well, of course the Russians are terrible at this, but my military is great at this. And of course the Ukrainians feel Western. The Taiwanese are starting to feel Western; we’d better shut this down before it goes much further. Like I could see arguments where he would think the West would never have the stomach to impose on China the kind of economic restrictions they are imposing. So it’s touch and go I think. KUPCHAN: Two quick thoughts: the first is that I think on balance it makes a Chinese attack less likely, and that’s simply because the Chinese are watching what’s happening to Russia, and they’re probably going to calculate we don’t want to go down that rabbit hole; that does not look good to us. My second observation is that I think it probably makes sense for the United States to end strategic ambiguity—not to change the One China policy, but to say we’re going to defend Taiwan because I think part of what happened in Ukraine is we were ambiguous, and the Russians called our bluff. So if we intend to defend Taiwan, let’s say so. If we don’t intend to, let’s say so. But living with this ambiguity, it seems to me, invites trouble. We just learned that in Ukraine. LINDSAY: Charlie, how do you square that with your observation earlier that you worry that the America First movement is just sort of in abeyance right now and will come back with great force? Because that would seem to be the kind of commitment that they would oppose. KUPCHAN: You know, it is a huge and interesting question, and if Trump is reelected, I don’t know what the future of NATO and U.S. alliances in Asia will be. I do think, though, that the impetus for the America First movement came out of the forever wars, and that if you look at the Trump administration, they were actually pretty tough on China and supportive of Taiwan. LINDSAY: The administration was; the president wasn’t necessarily— KUPCHAN: President not so, but the Republicans are—you know, they’re pretty gung-ho on China, and so I think that this geopolitical realignment that we have been undertaking: out of wars of choice in the Middle East let’s focus on meat-and-potatoes issues in Eurasia is good because I think that’s the sweet spot in American politics. LINDSAY: Audrey, do you want to jump in here? CRONIN: Just two things on the Taiwan question and also the relationship between Russia and China—I think firstly that China is going to find that it has developed a kind of a vassal state now and, you know, the Russians are going to be depending upon China for weapons, for buying their oil, for technology, for evading sanctions, and I’m not sure that China, over time, is going to find that this is a good deal for them, so I think that may—in theory—change the desire that they might have had to take aggressive action against Taiwan. I think you can see it both ways, though. I agree with Kori. I’m not sure that it’s possible to say definitively that way. But the second thing I would say is that Taiwan has a lot to learn from what Ukraine has done. So, you know, urban warfare; using easily accessible and cheap technologies; engaging in, you know, skirmishes; fighting forward; not depending upon huge legacy systems—instead using the kinds of tactics that we associate with insurgents. I think that Taiwan would be extremely good at that, and they’re going to learn from Ukraine. LINDSAY: I think it’s a really important point that both sides can learn from the events in Ukraine. If you want to ask a question in the back of the room, you’re really going to have to stand up and wave because I’m not sure I can see that far back. But we have a question right here. Q: Hi. Jim Morrow, University of Michigan. LINDSAY: Go blue! Q: It’s clear that the Europeans are going to come close to meeting their commitments to increase their military spending. My question is do you also think that they’ll go further to create something like a really unified European military, and also to take the political changes to have a coherent European foreign policy? And then the other part of the question is should the United States encourage this because it seems to me there’s two sides to this. One is greater burden sharing—the Europeans can carry more, but at the same time, it will decrease U.S. influence on security and defense issues. SCHAKE: Those are great questions. So I think the result of Russia’s aggression is going to be Europeans clinging more tightly to the United States because when we are scared, we like to hold hands with each other. And even watching how awful the Russian military is at the profession of arms doesn’t appear to be making our European friends and allies any less desirous of having the United States in the mix of it. So I don’t anticipate that the increased spending is going to be external to NATO or to build European capabilities autonomous of the United States. I do think, however, we should be encouraging closer political and even military cooperation among the Europeans for exactly the reason you said, which is after watching the performance of this Russian military, the Poles could defeat the Russians pretty easily. And once you start mixing all the NATO countries in, our opposition to greater European autonomy has actually encouraged the Europeans to think of themselves as weak, and they are not. And we should want allies that feel their strength and are confident in their strength as a way of better balancing the risks all of us run together. KUPCHAN: I would just add, Jim, that I think what’s going on in Germany is an inflection point because if there were to be a development on the European side that changed, in a consequential way, Europe’s defense capability, it had to happen in Germany. And Germany was the laggard. I mean, its military has atrophied, deteriorated in a way that’s hard to overstate. And if there is to be a kind of European pillar, it has to start with Germany, and it looks like they are starting. But I agree with Kori that this is not the beginning of Macron’s strategic autonomy, and that’s because France is alone in having a view of Europe as standing apart from the United States and flexing its muscles on the global stage. Just about every other EU member state wants a stronger Europe that’s tethered to the United States; not that goes off on its own. That’s good for them, and I think it’s good for us. CRONIN: Yeah, the only thing I would add is let’s look at what the non-NATO members have done to get a sense of how important this shift is. I mean, if you look at the tremendous increase in spending—defense spending in Sweden, increase in defense spending in Finland; the fact that Switzerland, which is not a member of NATO or the EU is now abiding by the sanctions—you know, this is an inflection point if only from that perspective. The Europeans are drawing together in anger and frustration, and it is unprecedented. LINDSAY: We’ll go over here to the right side of the room. Q: Hi, deRaismes Combes from American University. Thank you so much for an interesting conversation. I’m still thinking about this notion of historical analogies that you started with, and I’m wondering if you think Ukraine is teaching us anything about 21st century geopolitics in the digital age that we just haven’t really grasped before in terms of where this is heading, both specifically with Ukraine, but also with Taiwan and with the broader geopolitical system and the liberal world order. So thank you. LINDSAY: Do you want to take first crack at that, Audrey? CRONIN: Yes, I mean, that’s a huge question, and the answer is yes—(laughs)—it’s teaching us a lot about geopolitics in the digital age. Some of this I’ve already talked about. I think that major digital actors need to be parts of this Concert of Europe that we’re talking about, the concert of the great powers, because I think they play an enormous role in affecting the future and how things are evolving. You know, I think that we see a lot with respect specifically to Ukraine, which is that the fact that Ukraine had a pretty advanced technology element to their economy; they are very advanced in aeronautics; they had their own drone industry, and their use of drones has come very naturally to Ukrainian citizens—you know, those who are volunteering. You know, this shows you that—again, getting back to the question on Taiwan—countries that are advanced in terms of their digital capabilities, and their populations are able to use digital technologies effectively, are going to be, I think, more successful as we move into the 21st century. LINDSAY: Kori, you want to jump in here? SCHAKE: Yeah, two quick, additional points. One is that one of the surprises of this war was that we all expected it was going to start with a cyber Armageddon, right, that power stations were—power systems were going to go down all over Ukraine, that the government wouldn’t be able to communicate. All of these fancy cyber things were supposed to happen, and they didn’t. And it looks like they didn’t happen for three reasons: first, is the Russians gave us so much lead time of what they were potentially doing that NSA and CYBERCOM were able to forward deploy to Ukraine and other places teams to assist in the defense of the architectures. Second, the Russians—for reasons I don’t understand—were evidently more restrained than anybody anticipated. Maybe it’s the nature of cyber tools that once you unleash them your adversaries can use them back against you. Maybe we are seeing an assured destruction leveling. And the third thing is it’s just easier to blow stuff up—(laughter)—and so the Russians blew stuff up. And so one big thing we expected was going to happen actually turns out not to be as significant in modern warfare. But Audrey’s point about the technological sophistication—I mean, the Ukrainian government dispensing an app so that people can identify Russian troops as they come. That gave them country-wide situational awareness. A couple hundred thousand people are actively using the app, so you get societal resilience and you also get better information. It is really extraordinary. LINDSAY: Did you want to— KUPCHAN: Just one quick sentence on the—how important the information space has been. You know, the Biden administration I think deserves credit for stealing the march from the Russians, right? The Russians have spent the last five, ten years cleaning our clocks in the information space. I think that the Biden people reversed it. They got out ahead. They released intel that they probably shouldn’t have released, but they did it anyway, and I really think it has made a difference. LINDSAY: Going to go all the way to the back of the room. Q: Thank you. I’m Chandler Rosenberger from Brandeis University. And I wanted to follow up on this point about resilience because I think we’ve talked a lot about tactics. We’ve talked a lot about specific things that the Ukrainians have done. But I think the most impressive thing about them is how resilient they have been militarily and as a society. And I wonder if that tells us something about the advantages of a kind of, you know, liberal, democratic, civic order in which people feel deeply invested and its ability to survive an assault from an authoritarian states where the soldiers seem not to know what they are fighting for, that there’s—maybe we can have more faith in that kind of democratic social resilience than we might have had otherwise. LINDSAY: Who wants to take first crack at the question? CRONIN: I will. LINDSAY: OK, Audrey, you’re closest, got your finger up first. CRONIN: All right, well, so yes, I think that we are going to learn a lot about societal resilience, but I think we have to wait. I think we have to wait and find out how this plays out because Kori’s point about it being a lot easier to just blow things up, that is also still true. So if all you want to do is crush a country and, you know, occupy that country by killing a lot of civilians and, you know, targeting corridors of humanitarian fleeing civilians, if all you want to do is kill a lot of people, I think the Russians are capable of doing that. And I don’t think we can yet come to full conclusions about how strong that resilience is going to be to stand up to that. We’re still pretty early in this fight. I hope from my heart that what you are saying is what we learn from this conflict. But we’re only, what, about a month and a half into it—five weeks into it, so I hope that resilience is what we get out of it. SCHAKE: So it clearly makes a difference in the willingness of soldiers to run risks in a fight, right? We see the comparative difference in Russia and Ukraine, and I do think that that’s partly about societal resilience. In better militaries than the Russians there’s also the professionalism that gives resilience, right? They’re not fighting for me; they are fighting for the guy standing next to them kind of resilience. Temperamentally I want so much to believe it’s true, and yet, I think there are a couple of factors that make Ukraine uniquely resilient against a Russian invasion. First, the terrors of Soviet occupation. There are still Ukrainians alive who experienced the Holodomor that Russia—the Soviet Union imposed on Ukraine. They feel like they are fighting for survival. They don’t feel like they are fighting for a particular kind of government—in addition to a particular kind of government. The second thing is that I think it matters that the World War II generation is still alive in our countries because I think they have a slightly different perspective. But let me add one hopeful note. When Jim Mattis and I did the surveys of American public attitudes about military issues for our book, Warriors and Citizens several years ago, the weirdest anomaly in the data was that the attitudes of people under twenty-five most closely approximated the attitudes of people who had lived through the Great Depression and World War II: that the world feels fundamentally uncertain and unsafe to them, and that does give a kind of resilience that I think the intervening generations might not have to the same extent. LINDSAY: Charlie? KUPCHAN: Yeah, what I’m sort of ruminating on, vis-à-vis this question, is how did Putin get it so wrong, right? Because we will look back at this crisis and say Putin made Ukraine great again. The Ukraine that he envisaged did exist, but it was—it was pre-2014 and probably all the way going back to the Orange Revolution. You know, you used to go to Mariupol, or Donetsk, or Lugansk, and it was full of Russians, and they felt like Russians, and they affiliated with Russia. That’s gone, right? They have come together around a strong Ukrainian national identity, including the president, who grew up speaking Russian, right? How did he get elected? He got elected by, you know, pro-Russian and Russian speakers in eastern and southern Ukraine. That’s gone, right? He’s now a rock star because he’s giving his middle finger to Putin. And so the country has really come together as a consequence of Russian aggression. It’s a kind of blowback that the Russians are going to have to live with forever. LINDSAY: This gentleman here with the dark jacket. Q: Fen Hampson from north of the border. The panel—I’ve forgotten who it was—raised the interesting question about Russia with Putin and Russia without Putin. And I’d like to ask you, if and when this crisis ends, what sort of relationship do we have with Russia if Putin is still around? Do we walk back sanctions? Do we take oligarchs off Magnitsky? Do we stop proceedings in the International Criminal Court? Do we welcome them back to the various organizations they’ve been thrown out of, and that includes the G-20? And if he leaves—for whatever reason—you know, is Russian going to be easier to deal with or more difficult to deal with? And I would say, you know, be careful what you wish for because he has provided stability—and I’m not defending him—but one can envisage a scenario where the security vacuum extends now to Russia as others see weakness in Moscow. LINDSAY: Charlie, do you want to take a first crack at that? KUPCHAN: A lot depends, Fen, on how this ends, and my best guess is that it will not end cleanly, and it will not end well. Audrey already mentioned some of the provisions that are tentatively on the table. I have a hard time imagining them seeing the light of day. Who is going to guarantee Ukraine’s security? Is Zelenskyy going to get the support of the Rada to change the constitution? Is he going to have the domestic support to recognize Crimea, Mariupol, and Donetsk, and Lugansk as Russian? So I’m guessing that what will end up here is another frozen conflict in which Russia takes a big bite out of eastern Ukraine, probably doesn’t go into Kyiv because it’s not going very well, and then we sort of have to say, well, the fighting is over. They did more, they took more; now what? And I guess I’m enough of a realist to say that, you know, we’re going to have to go back to something that looks more like the Cold War which mixes containment and engagement. And that’s because there is simply too much at stake to put Russia in the penalty box and throw the key away. And so I would say that even in a post-war Putin Russia as opposed to a post-Putin Russia, we’re going to have to find ways of getting some difficult hedging cooperation on arms control, on the question of energy issues—I mean, there’s a lot of stuff here that we can’t just throw away. LINDSAY: I want to get in one last question because we’re nearing the end of our time, so we’ll go to that young lady over there, if we can, and then I’ll have to ask the panelists to be short in the response. Q: Hi, I hope this won’t be too long. My name is Eve Clark-Benevides. I’m from SUNY Oswego. And I—there was an editorial in the New York Times yesterday that infuriated me, but it has been really coming up during this whole talk. Bret Stephens argues maybe we’re being a little bit too premature, kind of celebrating that Putin has miscalculated. Maybe actually Putin really only wanted eastern Ukraine all along. He never really thought—and that a lot of the goals that Putin has wanted over time—getting rid of the free press, getting the moderates to move out, and really having full power over the Russian society—is really coming to pass. So this is kind of a piggyback off the last question that, really, are we going to see sort of these steps to disengage economically and politically with Russia—you know, Britain realizing that maybe having Russian money completely floating their economy—we’re trying to divest. Do you think that maybe in this new Cold War—whatever occurs—that we’re going to continue to really try to get away from oligarch money in the political systems in the West? LINDSAY: OK, Audrey, you had your hand up first so— CRONIN: Yes, so when it comes to our analyses of Putin, I think it’s a mistake for us to personalize this as much as we are. You know, put aside this unfortunate comment about potentially regime change in the way that it was interpreted. I think that the Russians have always, throughout their history, gone back and forth between kind of a Slavophile approach and a Westernizer approach, and Putin is a Slavophile. So what we’re seeing right now is a reawakening of Russian nationalism, a move back exactly along the lines that you just suggested to having greater control over their domestic population, getting rid of some of the threats that Putin personally feels are quite dangerous; you know, domestic movements within Russia. I hate to see all of this happen, but yes, it does feel quite familiar. I mean, I spend my—some of my teenage years living in Moscow in the American embassy. I remember the Cold War; I’m old enough to remember all of that. And I think we are going to have to move back to that kind of relationship where sometimes we can deal on certain things and at other times we can’t deal on those things, we deal on other things. But the worst thing that we could do would be to make Russia a complete pariah because, if you understand European history, you also know that anytime you have a complete pariah that is aside from the whole system, you are more likely to end up in a major war. LINDSAY: Charlie or Kori? SCHAKE: So Putin—I don’t buy the argument that Putin is a grand strategic genius and invaded Ukraine in order to crackdown domestically for two reasons: first because he is already cracking down. It was just a slow strangulation—CREF, Nemtsov, and Navalny—and so he didn’t need the Ukraine invasion to be more repressive domestically. But the second thing is I think the failure of Russian force and arms in Ukraine is actually making his domestic position much more tenuous in ways that I think are unpredictable from the outside to understand. My answer to—just quickly, my answer to the what do we—how do we deal with Putin still in power, I think it would be a good thing for us to find ways for a strategically smaller, weaker, and humiliated Russia to have a U.S. counterparty on some things that are important to them and to us. It will make Ukraine’s longer-term future and Russia’s longer-term future easier to handle if we, who have had so little invested in this fight, step forward and help integrate Russia in ways that we can. KUPCHAN: To the question of was Putin a grand master and he intended this from the beginning, I don’t see it, and that’s because he could have done the eastern bit at any time, and he wouldn’t have needed to put almost two hundred thousand troops all around Ukraine, including in Belarus. He could have just gone into the separatist territories, turned south, gone to Mariupol and connected to Crimea, and called it a day. I think what’s happening here is he’s changing the goalposts because his original goal of regime change and the occupation of the country, it does not look feasible anymore, although I agree with my colleagues that he might just keep bombing for another few months. Who knows what will happen? But the key question in my mind is whatever that ultimate disposition is, can he portray it as a victory? Can he sell it—not just to the Russian people, but to the Russia elite system, which is showing more discontent than I think we’ve ever seen in modern Russia. I don’t think Putin is about to go, but I do think that this is a war that is going to loosen his grip on power, and anything could come of that. It could mean he goes and we get a worse outcome. After all, a lot of the people around him share his views. It could also be that we get a more benign outcome. We don’t know, and as a consequence, I think we just have to hedge our bets. LINDSAY: Well, that brings us to the end of our time here. I want to thank everyone in the room for joining us for this conversation on the geopolitical implications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I want to do a shout-out to Irina Faskianos and her team— AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yay, Irina! (Applause.) LINDSAY: —for arranging today’s thing. And I want to say thank you to our three guests: Kori Schake, Charlie Kupchan, and Audrey Cronin for their expertise. (Applause.) (END

Thomas Graham, distinguished fellow at CFR, and Oxana Shevel, associate professor of political science at Tufts University, discuss what is happening in Ukraine, the religious component to this conflict, and how the United States and its allies are responding. Learn more about CFR's Religion and Foreign Policy Program. FASKIANOS: Welcome to the Council on Foreign Relations Religion and Foreign Policy webinar series. I’m Irina Faskianos, vice president for the National Program and Outreach here at CFR. As a reminder, this webinar is on the record, and the audio, video, and transcript will be made available on our website, cfr.org, and on our iTunes podcast channel, Religion and Foreign Policy. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We’re delighted to have Thomas Graham and Oxana Shevel with us to talk about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. So I will just give a few introductory notes. Thomas Graham is a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a co-founder of the Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies Program at Yale University and sits on the faculty steering committee. He is also a research fellow at The Macmillan Center at Yale. Dr. Graham was special assistant to the president and senior director for Russia on the National Security Council staff from 2004 to 2007, during which time he managed a White House-Kremlin strategic dialogue, and he was a foreign service officer for fourteen years. Assignments included two tours of duty at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in the late Soviet period. Oxana Shevel is an associate professor of political science at Tufts University. Her research and teaching focuses on post-communist regions surrounding Russia and issues such as nation and state building, the politics of citizenship and migration, memory and religious politics, and challenges to democratization in the post-Soviet region. Her current research projects examine the sources of citizen policies in the post-communist states, church-state relations in Ukraine, and the origins of separatist conflict in Donbas. She is published in a variety of journals and is the author of Migration, Refugee Policy, and State Building in Post-Communist Europe. So thank you both for being with us today. As we all know, the invasion of Ukraine began on February 24. So we are now over a month into this war. So I thought we could begin, Dr. Graham, with you to talk a little bit—give us an update on where things stand with the war in Ukraine and, as far as you can divine, your analysis of Putin’s intentions right now, and how the United States and allies are responding, and what more they can be doing. GRAHAM: Thank you very much, Irina. And it’s a real pleasure to be with all of you here today. Just three sort of brief points. First, as we all know, the Russian military operation in Ukraine has stalled. The initial goal was to take Kyiv, but the Kremlin thought they could do that in three or four days. That clearly isn’t going to happen. The Russians now are in the process of regrouping. They have said that they will concentrate their forces in the east, that is in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, and try to make progress there. They have withdrawn some of their troops up from the vicinity of Kyiv, although they’re digging in for defense purposes. And then in addition, despite the claims that they’re going to concentrate in the east, air strikes continue across the country. So there really hasn’t been a significant lessening of the Russian military assault on Ukraine at this point. Second, there are negotiations underway between Ukraine and Moscow. They had a session in Istanbul yesterday. You will read in the press that progress has been made, that the Ukrainians have made certain proposals as a way of reaching a ceasefire and a resolution of this conflict. The point I would stress is that the two sides are still very, very far apart on this. There’s not going to be a ceasefire or, indeed, a resolution of this conflict anytime in the near future. And for all that we can see at this point, the Russians haven’t backed down from their maximal demands. They still want to see Ukraine as a neutral. They still want to see Ukraine demilitarized. They want the Ukrainian government to recognize the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and also the independence of these two statelets in eastern Ukraine. Independence that Russia recognized in the very eve of the invasion. This, in fact, is demanding that Kyiv capitulate. And I would also underscore that nothing in the Russian proposals say that even if Ukraine agrees to these demands that Russia is prepared to withdraw its troops from Ukrainian territory. So the conflict is going to continue. What Putin wants ultimately is very difficult to divine at this point. He has Russian troops on Ukrainian soil at this point. I think at a minimum he does want to retain the Donbas within the confines of the two provinces in that region, which is a bit more than the separatists occupied at the beginning of the conflict. He’s also intent on building what we call a land bridge between the separatist region and Crimea. That will facilitate the movement of all sorts of things, including military forces, but also commercial traffic between Russia and Crimea. And he also wants very much that Ukraine takes on a neutral status, that it move—that it not move away from Russia into a European orbit at this time—irretrievably, from Russia’s standpoint. Third, on the Western reaction,  what we have seen from the very beginning of this conflict is the letting over very severe sanctions by the United States and the European allies. Those countries have made an effort to try to escalate the sanctions over time to keep the pressure on Russia. The impact is very difficult to divine from the outside. It’s clear that it has had some bite on the Russian economy. After all, the Kremlin is complaining about them. They would like to see them ease. But there’s nothing that indicates that the sanctions are of such severity that the Russian government, Putin in particular, is reconsidering his conduct of this conflict in Ukraine. He’s still pressing ahead. And that, I think, is going to be true for many weeks into the future. My own read on this is that we’ll see a significant change in Russian conduct only when the casualties mount to levels where the Kremlin can no longer conceal those from the Russian public. The Russians are taking heavy casualties. The Kremlin narrative is only admitted some fifteen hundred. The numbers are much larger than that at this point. But when the Russian population begins to realize the cost of this to their sons, their husbands, and brothers, I think that that will lead to a change in public opinion and a time when Putin will have to reconsider what his ultimate goals are vis-à-vis Ukraine. So let me stop there, Irina. FASKIANOS: Thank you very much, Tom. And, Dr. Shevel, let’s go to you to talk about how or if religion is playing into this conflict. And especially vis-à-vis the split of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from its Russian counterpart, I think, four years ago. SHEVEL: Thank you, Irina. Thank you for inviting me to join this conversation. So let me say a few words about the religious landscape in Ukraine and how it has been affected by war. I’ll put it in a little bit broader perspective, because I think one interesting and sort of tragic or paradoxical thing that we see in Ukraine as a result of Putin’s aggression is that Ukrainian society is getting unified even in areas where it has been divided historically for quite some time. And ironically, it’s really Putin that can take credit for that. So it’s very peculiar irony because, I mean, his quest to keep Ukraine closer to Russia to  kind of weaken the pro-Western sentiment within Ukraine actually has achieved the opposite. We saw that already starting 2014 on issues—anything to do with NATO membership to EU membership. And the religious divide, actually, it’s one of the few remaining divides now in the Ukrainian society, as you said, between the two Orthodox Churches. Just for the listeners, I mean, probably everybody knows, but in Ukraine there has been two competing Orthodox Churches that are the same as far as kind of the set of beliefs, rituals, and so forth. But one church is in unity with the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow, Ukrainian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate. And the other one is the one that was received—(inaudible)—from the patriarch in Constantinople in late 2018. And since early 2019 there has been a transfer of some of the parishes, by different counts anywhere between sort of five hundred-plus to seven hundred parishes that switched, or at least tried to switch. I mean, the process itself has been very complicated. If there is time, I can go into that maybe in the Q&A. But basically, this divide has remained. And what happens now that it was started, unfortunately, the patriarch in Moscow has essentially endorsed the war. And that puts Ukrainian Church, the Moscow Patriarchate Church which is unity with Russian Orthodox Church, in a very difficult situation. Because, obviously, in Ukraine there is this great sense of national unity, opposition to aggression. And the parishioners of that church, by and large are, obviously, not in support of the war, and they volunteer to fight in the armed forces, and so forth. So the church has basically put them in this very difficult situation. So the hierarchs—the leader of this Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate even appealed to Putin to stop the war. Of course, that didn’t work. And now the question becomes, what happens to this church? Does it keep its ecumenical kind of organizational unity with Moscow—with the Church in Moscow, Russian Orthodox Church? It’s essentially basically been kind of keeping its traditional religious affiliation, but now really in opposition or in very kind of confrontational relationship with a big part of its own flock in Ukraine, including some of the lower-level hierarchs. So we see this situation where the church leadership essentially took kind of a moral wait and see position. So they have spoken against the war. They have appealed to Putin to stop it. But they have not left. They haven’t made a decision to leave the Russian Orthodox Church, break affiliation and join this Ukrainian Orthodox Church—Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which is independent. That’s the one that received the—(inaudible). So this is the development that I think we need to watch and see what happens. I just want to kind of suggest a few ways it might go, and what we already see happening. So, for one, what we see happening, there is not a massive but certainly some movement within the lower-level hierarchs and the parishioners, individual parishes, of this Moscow-affiliated church to break ties with the Russian Orthodox Church. By different accounts, as many as a hundred parishes—there is no exact statistic but that’s sort of the higher estimate—but there are certainly dozens of parishes that since the war started broke affiliation with the Moscow Patriarchate Church and asked to join the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. What is interesting, what’s happening now, which was less prevalent in 2019, that now in many of these parishes it’s not just the people who want to switch, but the priests as well. Because what was happening before in 2019, some parishioners wanted to switch, but the parish leadership by and large did not want to switch. We can sort of talk about reasons for it. Some of it was political. Some of it was religious. Some of it—there are accounts that people were basically paid. There were sort of unofficial civil society groups, for lack of a better word, on both sides, and sometimes these confrontations were violent. And the legislation was kind of ambiguous. This is another aspect we don’t have time to go into in detail now but, again, if there are questions. The very process of sort of what constitutes a switch of affiliation under Ukrainian law is very, very complicated. It basically meant that all of these attempts to switch in 2019 ended up in courts because there it was sort of not clear who has the jurisdiction to make this decision, who doesn’t. And essentially it has been—there are hundreds of cases pending in Ukrainian court over this. So what we see the difference now, so it’s not just the parishioners but also oftentimes the priests and even the hierarchs at the regional level. There are, again, different estimates, but among the eparchies—I think that’s the English word that they—sort of organizationally, the church is divided into these eparchies, like regional centers, and about a dozen of these regional centers now in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate have asked the leadership to break ties with the Russian Orthodox Church. And the leadership of the church remains, again, kind of undecided. So I think once the war ends, that might be—it’s a little bit too early to say—but it might be another area where Putin’s aggression against Ukraine might actually end the division that existed for many years, if indeed these two churches might unite. I don’t think it’s a predetermined outcome, because there is a lot of sort of, you can say, bad blood in the relationship between these churches. The position of the Moscow Patriarchate Church has been that the Orthodox Church of Ukraine is essentially schismatic, that they cannot perform rites with them and so forth. So they, in a way, put themselves in a situation that sort of outright joining together would be very difficult. But they don’t really have many other good options, because one possibility, of course, would be to ask for autocephaly, independence, from the church in Moscow. And that’s obviously clear to everybody that the Russian patriarch will not give its Ukrainian Church autonomy. So to have two autonomous churches that would not be in unity with Moscow in Ukraine would be very strange, because there is already one that received autonomy from the Constantinople patriarch. So the Moscow Patriarchate Church is really—the leadership is in a very kind of difficult situation, I think. They are trying to kind of weigh their options. There are some reports, again, in the social media, in local press, that they essentially tell the priests that, we want to wait and see how this war ends because, of course, if Russia, if they were to win somehow, that would be different political playing field and  different references in the church. Last thing that I would mention that so far there hasn’t been much violence as far as parishioners trying to take over the parishes. There are some isolated instances of the priests being kicked out of the churches, but now in Ukrainian parliament there is draft legislation to ban the Moscow Patriarchate Church all together, exactly because it’s sort of perceived as collaborating with church affiliated with the so-called aggressor state. That draft bill has not passed. I personally don’t think it’s a great idea to have this law. It would violate some principles of religious freedom. But sort of emotionally, I mean, if, say, such a law is passed, I think it might receive kind of emotional support among many in the society. So that’s also something to watch. But so I’ll end, again, with a smaller point, another paradox, really. This creation of unity within Ukraine and ending many long-term divisions as a result of Putin’s policies and exactly his goal to actually keep the divisions and kind of increase the Russian sentiment in Ukraine that produces the opposite results. Thank you. FASKIANOS: Thank you very much to both of you. Let’s go now to your questions and comments. You can either raise your hand by clicking on the “raise hand” icon, or you can write your question in the Q&A box. We would love to hear from you live, though. But I will start with Martin Raffel of—and if you could, when you—if you’re going to write a question, if you could put your affiliation, that would be great. But I will try to raise affiliations as well. So, Martin is with the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. And his question is: Could Russia’s pullback from Kyiv be preclude to use of WMD? Is Putin chastened by Biden’s threat of severe consequences if WMD is used? So, Tom, do you want to take that one? GRAHAM: Making sure I understood the question correctly, does he say—is it that the pullback precludes the use of WMD, or? FASKIANOS: Could Russia’s pullback be to—I believe to stop the use of WMD? Martin, do you want to unmute and you can ask it? Because I also think we need a little more clarification. GRAHAM: There’s Martin. RAFFEL: Yeah. I was asking could it be a prelude— GRAHAM: A prelude, OK. (Laughs.) RAFFEL: To the use of WMD. Moving Russian troops out of harm’s way. GRAHAM: Right. That’s what I thought. FASKIANOS: OK. GRAHAM: It’s a different type of question. The short answer to that question is we really don’t know. The defensive—withdrawing the troops, I think, is an indication that the Russians want to transfer some of the forces to the east in order to intensify the struggle and their operations in that part of Ukraine right now. All that said, the Russians have, as you know, for the past several weeks talked about the possibility of biological weapons, chemical weapons being used by the Ukrainians. But they’ve made much of these biological labs that have been discovered in eastern—or, in Ukraine. They’ve been there for years. The Russians were well aware of them. They’re well aware of what the United States was doing at those labs, in part because the United States did similar things in Russian labs in the aftermath of the breakup of the Soviet Union. We have always been concerned that Russia might use biological or chemical weapons. After all, they have used chemical weapons before against individuals—most famously against the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, a little over a year and a half ago. It also used them on the ground in Syria as part of that conflict. So, again, whether withdrawing the troops is a prelude to using these weapons, we don’t know for sure. All that—but what I would say is this is always a possibility. We are watching this very closely. And I think you probably notice that President Biden spoke about that issue very forcefully on his European trip, that there will be some sort of response. But he left out the particulars of how the United States would respond to that type of use by the Russian Federation. FASKIANOS: Thank you. Let’s go next to Azza Karam, who has raised her hand. KARAM: Well, lovely. Thank you so much for unmuting me. And thank you very much for the speakers, Dr. Shevel and Dr. Graham. My question is really more for—to Dr. Shevel. And it has to do with thanking you for the way that you elaborated the tensions between and within the various Orthodox Churches. I’m just curious, I hear you very clearly that in a sense the aggression has brought so many of the Ukrainian people together, including the religious communities. I’m just curious to understand two things: If the Moscow Patriarchate Orthodox Church in Ukraine hasn’t yet made up its mind, and there seems to be different positions inside as you described so eloquently, then where is the unity in that? I mean, either they’re united or they’re disparate. But the other question also has to do with everyone’s focus on the Orthodox Church, which I fully understand. But had the situation been elsewhere in the world, in a Muslim majority country, the question on everybody’s mind would be what about the religious minorities? So can you perhaps just share something about the other religions in the Ukraine, and that particular dynamic? Thank you. SHEVEL: Yes. Thank you for the question. Let me address that—address all of these briefly. So on the unity part, I think what we see, what I’m—again, I think the end result, that’s if I were to make some sort of educated guess  where it would end—I think the end result would be these two churches, or at least most of the—of the Moscow Patriarchate Church uniting with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Because you’re right, at this point the leadership is essentially fence sitting. But among the lower-level hierarchs, we see quite substantial movement. So I think at the very least if the Moscow Patriarchate Church were to survive as an institution in Ukraine, it will be much smaller. They are going to lose a lot of parishes. They are going to lose whole eparchies. And sort of, somewhat paradoxically, it’s in the areas where people are more religious because, as you may know, in Ukraine, say, people in the east of the country generally are less religious than people in the west, and this is kind of western-centered. That’s where we see the whole eparchies, not just individual parishes, trying to basically break institutional affiliation with this church that’s affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church. Now, as far as the other minorities, I think here what I would first of all point out, that if Russia gets to keep any of the territory—additional territory that it’s seized so far—where its troops are stationed—I think we’ll see a lot of persecution of so-called nontraditional religious minorities, because we already saw that happening in Crimea. We saw that happening in Donbas, that has been occupied with these pro-Russian separatists since 2014. So various Protestant denominations, Crimean Tatars, right? The accusation of Islamic militants and so forth. But certainly, a lot of Protestant communities have been quite severely persecuted. Priests sometimes are forced to leave, some of them disappeared. So we will see, I think, religious minorities really suffering in the territories if Russia is able to sort of exert control over the long term over a greater part of Ukrainian territory. So I think, I would say, is important to keep in mind for the religious minority. And also if I can—Irina, if it’s OK if I jump in—because there was a question in the chat I saw about Russkiy Mir, sort of this ideology of the Russian world and the Holy Rus. And I think that’s very important. I’m glad to whoever wrote this question, because that’s essentially what Russian Orthodox Church leadership kind of presents as ideological or spiritual justification for this war, right? So it really dialogues with Putin’s claim that Ukrainians and Russians are really ultimately one people, right? His is sort of more primordial, if you want to call the argument, but here the patriarch offers, of course, an ideological/religious argument that there is really this civilization, right, of Holy Rus, of Russkiy Mir that extends to Ukraine, right? And then it is threatened by Western civilization, by gay pride parades, or whatever sort of these threats come from. So the Russian Army here is just on a civilizational mission to essentially uphold the spiritual purity and so forth, so this is Russkiy Mir. And I think this narrative is essentially failing, certainly failing in Ukraine. So, again, it remains to be seen to what extent—sort of how Russian Orthodox Church survives this war, what happens within the global orthodoxy. But I think as far as this narrative of essentially being many—not a lot of people. I mean, we can sort of look at different statistics, how it’s evolved over the years. But there were certainly people in Ukraine who broadly maybe were OK, especially among the religious parishioners of the Moscow Patriarchate Church. I think that narrative is basically going to lose any potency in Ukraine. So Russia might try to continue to propagate it. It certainly offers justification for the military aggression. But as far as it being—resonating among the people who supposedly belong to this Russkiy Mir, right, the Russian civilization, the Holy Rus, in Ukraine I think it’s failing majorly. FASKIANOS: Thank you. Let’s go next to Saffet Catovic, who has a raised hand. CATOVIC: Thank you. Thank you very much for a wonderful program. Very much appreciate it. Saffet Catovic, the imam and head of Office of Islamic Society of North America in D.C., interfaith and community alliances and government relations. I wanted to follow up on something that our dear sister Professor Azza Karam said with regard to both the minorities and the reach of the Orthodox Church, specifically with regard to the Balkans, and the Republika Srpska and Serbia itself, and Montenegro, and their open alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church in support of what is going on in Ukraine. And of course, both Ukraine and Bosnia-Herzegovina have Muslim populations there. A couple weeks ago we were fortunate to have a call with the head of the Muslim community—one of the heads of the Muslim community in Ukraine, Sheikh Zayed, who said there were 10,000 Ukrainian Muslims that have been killed in the fighting thus far of the 1.5 million-plus, primarily Tatar Muslims, in Ukraine. And the streets in Banja Luka in particular were livid with protests in support of Vladimir Putin and specifically the Orthodox Church. So my question is, how does this pan-Orthodoxy play itself out in the Balkans, especially given that some of the nations in the Balkans are on track to become part and parcel of NATO, and Russia’s possible influence through those nations into NATO policies. So I wanted to ask that. Thank you very much for your—once again allowing me to share. FASKIANOS: Great. Oxana, do you want to take that? SHEVEL: I’ll try. I mean, I should say right away I’m not an expert on the Balkans or sort of global religious issues, kind of, in that part of the world. But I think the idea that there is now among different religious—including global orthodoxy. So the decision has to be made, right? Like, what do you do? Do you continue business as usual with the Russian Orthodox Church? Do you take a position, right? There have been some statements made. Somebody mentioned in the chat that it’s quite unprecedented that religious leaders globally try to weigh in on political processes and appeal to the Russian patriarch. So I’m not sure kind of what happens—what would happen within the Balkans. But I think the question, could the Russian patriarch be somehow swayed by these religious leaders outside Russia who are appealing to him to maybe weigh on Putin, I personally remain very pessimistic. I don’t think that’s likely. I think we see this—sort of this whole so-called symphonia, or symphony between political and religious leadership in Russia. I can’t imagine kind of under what circumstances, short of maybe really major defeat of Russia on the battlefield, and it’s sort of clear that  Russia lost the war and there is no way to present it otherwise, maybe under those circumstances we could see something. I think that would also go back to what Graham was saying earlier. Each day there are many Russians coming home in body bags, right? Could that change something, because, again, presumably people receive religious services, like last rites and so forth. Maybe that might begin to kind of—the process, maybe. But, again, from what we’ve seen so far I think the propaganda remains very strong, including the parents of these killed Russian servicemen, either because they’re scared or because they really believe it, kind of continue to maintain that that was the right—their sons died for something, to save Ukraine from Nazism and so forth. So we do see some processes within the Russian Orthodox Church, again, individual priests who spoke against the leadership. But here, again, to my mind, the question is, would that make a difference at the institutional level? The centralization or this power vertical—vertical command-and-control method within the Russian Orthodox Church has been established, it’s very strong. So kind of the autonomy of individual priests is not really there. So I—again, I realize I’m not really answering the question about the Balkans. I just don’t know. But this broader question, could these processes, and pressures, and appeals from religious leaders in different parts of the world somehow persuade the Russian patriarch to change his position and therefore try to pressure Putin to change his position? I don’t think so. So that’s what I would say. FASKIANOS: Tom, I know that—do you want to say anything about the Baltic states, or should we go onto the next question? GRAHAM: I think we should go onto the next question. FASKIANOS: Great. So there are two chats from Nancy Ammerman, who’s at BU, and Donald Tinder with the Zinzendorf School of Doctoral Studies. And essentially both are talking about the role of other religious groups in Ukraine—Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, other. How present are they? Do they have any public or civic role? Donald Tinder’s is focused specifically Protestants. Does the reality of three distinct groups of Orthodox/Greek, Catholic make society increasingly acceptance of religious tolerance and freedom? SHEVEL: Yeah, I can try to comment just briefly on this. I mean, definitely I think other—all religious groups in Ukraine, and this also answers another of the questions, there is really great sense of unity. I mean, one can’t say to what extent it will last after the war, but I think at this point people have put aside their—be they linguistic differences or  religious differences. And we certainly see Protestants—for example, there were reports that the Protestant—the preachers helped the evacuation efforts of civilians from Irpin north of Kyiv, and, very actively supporting humanitarian aid and all these things. Ukraine historically has been a very tolerant society religiously. It’s very religiously diverse. Of course, the Orthodox Church is sort of the bigger—and the Catholic Church would be the biggest ones. But there are dozens if not hundreds of different  religious denominations, groups in Ukraine. There is also this council in Ukraine that unites all religious leaders. They have also issued statements. So I think what sort of I would say, again, given that this law that’s now tabled in the Ukrainian legislation—in the Ukrainian parliament to ban the Moscow Patriarchate Church, they might see, again, if this law were to pass, you would say that’s probably a sign of religious toleration becoming lessened by the war, but specifically aimed at the church that is seen—at least its leadership is seen as not having sufficiently broken ties with the Russian Orthodox Church. But I think as far as all of the other religious groups—from Muslim groups, to Protestant groups, to various other minority religions, I think there are—at least from what I can say—I don’t think there are any tensions. As I mentioned before, they would be in danger, many of them, under Russian occupation, for sure. But within Ukraine government-controlled territory, I think there is great unity and different groups working together for what they see as a common goal of defending the country. FASKIANOS: Thank you. Let’s go to Jim Wallis, who has a raised hand. And if you could unmute yourself, Jim. There we go. WALLIS: Can you hear me? OK. FASKIANOS: We can. WALLIS: This may be more asking you to do a reflection than a question. We were one of those many groups. I’m with the Georgetown Center on Faith and Justice. But we got a big ecumenical, a hundred church leaders here writing to the patriarch our concerns. But we’re talking, again, this week, this same group of church leaders. And the question is, you would describe—we see the holy mother Russia religion, sort of a conversation, is its own kind of nationalist religion. And in the U.S., white Christian nationalism, specifically, is the biggest obstacle, I think, to democracy in this country. So there’s a parallel here of nationalist—this is our conversation for Friday—nationalist religion around the world versus more independent kind of faith that is critical of the state. As King would say, reminding churches that we are not the master or servant of the state but, he would say, the conscience of the state. That’s an ecclesial question about faith and politics. So we’re having a conversation on Friday about that question. And what parallels do you see? And there’s people in this country, the people who are most supportive of Putin are from the white nationalist tribe here in the U.S. And what’s the parallel here? Underneath the conflict there’s a battle between autocracy and democracy we all see. And the religious part of that is what kind of global Christianity are we talking about here? The nationalist kind or the more kind in the more prophetic, Dr. King tradition that’s critical of the state wherever it is? What parallels do you see between the Russian, you might call, nationalist religion and our own white Christian nationalism in this country? FASKIANOS: Oxana, I think that might be one for you. SHEVEL: I was going to say, maybe Tom has some thoughts on that. I honestly have—I think it’s an excellent question. I’m kind of thinking on my feet here. I haven’t really given it much thought before. It’s—I mean, there is this white Christian nationalism certainly is a phenomena. Again, if I think of the region that I study, I think there I would not even describe it as nationalism but more of like imperialism, right? Because really the sort of people who support this narrative in Ukraine, in Russia, about this Holy Rus and how there’s this civilizational struggle, and Russia and Ukraine are one people, and so forth, it is not really nationalism in the way that you sort of keep political borders, but within these borders you want to have white supremacy, or something like that. It is essentially about erasing these borders, right, and to have Russian empire, in some way, some sort of greater Russian state, and so forth. So I think in the post-Soviet space white religious nationalism is not really nationalism but more like imperialism. Thatkind of was my first thought. And maybe that would be the difference with countries elsewhere because, again, if we’re talking about white religious nationalism in the U.S., or in Western European countries, right—again, maybe I’m wrong here. I’m just kind of thinking out loud. It doesn’t seem to me—it’s really imperialist, right? It’s really about autocracy, an authoritarian form of government, denying rights to the minorities, so-called traditional values, racist underpinnings. But it sort of operates within the borders as they exist, as opposed to aiming to change the borders. Maybe I’m wrong on that, but that sort of the thought that comes to mind to me. But maybe Tom has other ideas. GRAHAM: No, no, look, I think that’s absolutely right. For the Russian Orthodox Church, I mean, clearly it is the former Russian empire is the space that they think of. So it’s not limited simply to Russia. And the whole idea of the Russian world extends beyond the borders of Russia as well, and there’s some overlap between that and the Russian Orthodox viewpoint as well. One other point I would make is that it’s clear there’s an affinity between the white Christian groups here in the United States and perhaps the Russian Orthodox Church or the—or even Putin’s ideology, at this point. I mean, Putin has made a very specific point of defending what he calls traditional values, something that resonates with the white Christian churches here in the United States. It is anti-modern. It is opposed to what Putin and, I’m sure, the white Christian nationalists here in the United States see as the decadent elements of modern Western civilization. And that, I think, explains some of the support that you’re seeing here in the United States for Putin over the years that hasn’t been erased by this very violent act of aggression against Ukraine over the past several weeks. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to take the next question from Dr. Mary Nyangweso, who is at East Carolina University. The response to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia has been very revealing. The absence of the United Nations’ serious action is even more revealing. What do you think this says about security organizations around the world, especially when policies get in the way of protecting human lives? And what more can be done to protect the children, the elderly, and pregnant women from the line of fire? GRAHAM: I guess that’s a question for me, right, Irina? FASKIANOS: I think so, Tom. GRAHAM: Look, I mean, that’s a very good question. What we have seen during this conflict is that the UN Security Council is not really a very good forum for working out these issues, in part because of the way it’s structured. Russia is one of the five permanent members. It does have a veto. And that limits what the Security Council can do in terms of voting resolutions and either to condemn or to propose certain ways forward in this conflict. All that said, the auxiliary organizations at the United Nations are going to play a significant role on the ground in and around Ukraine. Refugees, for example, High Commissioner for Refugees has a role to play in helping to deal with this tremendous outflow of Ukrainians over the past several weeks. The latest numbers are four million. As this conflict continues, we will expect even more. There are probably six million or more internally displaced people in Ukraine because of this conflict. And that will require the work of the United Nations and its auxiliary organizations in dealing with this challenge going forward. There will be working in cooperation with a number of other relief organizations as well. So this is a massive effort. It’s only beginning. Much greater thought needs to be given to the longer-term settlement of these refugees. I think there is a hope that the conflict will end quickly, that these people will return. After all, the overwhelming bulk of them are women and children, and old people. The men are staying back in Ukraine, along with some of the women, to continue the fight against Russia. But this is not going to be a problem that is going to go away quickly. as the conflict continues and even after the conflict there’s going to be tremendous need to deal with refugees outside of Ukraine, and then the even more important task of rebuilding Ukraine after this devastation that we’ve seen, particularly of its major cities over the past several weeks. FASKIANOS: And—yes, please. SHEVEL: Can I just co-opt just to add to this? I agree with everything Tom said. One thing that I would mention, kind of talking about the UN role, I think they’re really in a crisis of sort of world government, for lack of a better word, because we have a country that is one of the permanent members of the Security Council that’s supposed to guarantee world peace that’s totally gone rogue. So I think this is something to think about, that Putin basically is able to hold onto power. And that’s quite possible, I think. It’s also possible he will not be, but he is, right? What is it—so what is UN’s role? Is this still a stable system with the UN Security Council as it exists now, with Russia and the role that it plays there? I think that’s something that would be a question for world leaders to think about as far as international relations. There was a question also I saw in the chat about the destruction of sacred sites, and I just wanted to comment on that. Unfortunately, this is going on. The statistics I just read this morning in one of the Ukrainian cultural—officials from the Ukrainian culture ministry is saying on average two holy sites get destroyed in the war every day by the shelling. So there is—and most of them are churches, but not only, right? So there is definitely, again, going to sort of this narrative that there is Holy Rus, that there is Russian Army bringing together this Russian world as they are bombing the churches, including Moscow Patriarchate Churches. So that’s also something, I think, going to the point of how that narrative of the Russkiy world, Russkiy Mir, is going to be perceived, how credible is it, especially with the people in Ukraine. FASKIANOS: Thank you. Let’s go next to a raised hand from David Adams. ADAMS: Thank you, Irina. And thank you to our panelists. It’s a very interesting, if depressing, presentation that you’ve given. I’ve got kind of a two-part question linked together. One has to do with the ability of the international community to track where the Ukrainians who have been spirited out of Ukraine into Russia are being taken, and what—how many of them there are and what they’re being forced to do. I’ve read or heard that  manual labor in Siberia, for example, may be the destiny of some of them. But I don’t know if that’s empirical data-based or not. And the other thing is, conversely, do you see the Russians—unless there is a peace agreement, I would imagine the Russians bringing migrants, Russian migrants, into Mariupol and areas such as that, that are being absolutely devastated and possibly depopulated, if the refugees are able to—or, displaced persons are eventually able to get out of a place like Mariupol. GRAHAM: David, those are two very good questions. Oxana may have more information on this than I do. I think in answer to your first question, the simple answer is we don’t know at this point. We’ve heard there’s reports. Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, himself has talked about two thousand children or so being taken out of Mariupol into Russia. Their whereabouts are unknown. Unfortunately, we have very little insight into what is happening inside Russia at this point. And part of that is a consequence of the drawdown in our—in the American embassy in Moscow. I think the less travel across the country, fewer people who are prepared to talk willingly to Westerners about what’s going on inside Russia because of the consequences of that, this fear that has been conveyed across the country by the Kremlin at this point. So the short answer is we don’t know. There are a lot of rumors. And it’s something that we will want to track, but it’s also something—a question of which we should be demanding answers from the Russians at this point. This would be a role for the UN Security Council, for example, to raise those types of issues and hear what the response is from the Russian government. On the second question, clearly if Russia does conquer this territory in eastern Ukraine, the city of Mariupol in particular, there’ll be questions of reconstruction and repopulating those areas. How the Russians will go about doing that I think is an open question. Yes, there may be a certain number of migrants that they would—from Russia itself that they would want to move into that area. Perhaps people from the Donbas, people from Crimea, for example. But I think you’re right, they would hesitate to return to that city people who they saw as anti-Russian, who had been in opposition and fought against the Russian forces at that point. And so the preference would be for Russians elsewhere who might be more loyal to Moscow. But in any event, I think that’s way down the road. This conflict is continuing. Mariupol has been destroyed. And before anybody’s going to move back to Mariupol there’s going to have to be a large reconstruction effort undertaken. SHEVEL: Let me just add to that. I think it’s a very important question. I’m glad you brought up these forced disappearances and forced removal of the population. I think it’s really tragic. And, first of all, the numbers we really don’t know at this point. I mean, I’ve seen estimates as high as thirty thousand people altogether. We really don’t know. But I think what we do know, this is part of the Russian playbook of the so-called de-Nazification that Putin claims to be pursuing in Ukraine, and who counts as a so-called Nazi needing to be de-Nazified is anybody who seemed to be in opposition to Russian goals, and Russian plans, and Russia ideals. So it's not just sort of you’re original, so to say, Nazis, right? Like the Azov Battalion is fighting in Mariupol, right? It has about a thousand membership or so forth. But they’re really going after—and that what they’re saying—that they have blocked humanitarian corridors to Ukraine-controlled territories, so when people leave through the Russian checkpoints they are being essentially vetted. Especially men, but also women. They check their phone communications. Sometimes they have actual lists, like in Kherson and elsewhere, where they’ve occupied. So it goes to civil society activists, certain religious leaders, local government, bloggers—anybody who’s perceived to be in opposition and disagreement with Russia. And we have now dozens of cases of forced disappearance, from local government officials, to journalists, to these unknown number of thousands of people who have been moved to Russia. And what’s going to happen with them? And I think, first of all, we don’t know. But I think there are very good reasons to be very concerned because certain sinister things can be happening, and are likely happening, given, again, what we saw in Donbas in 2014. These so-called basements where people were held, sort of like filtration camps. There are books written about it. This infamous Izolyatsia prison in Donbas where people have been tortured and held for many months incommunicado. Many died. So we could see some of that. Or, again, we could see removal of people to far regions of Russia, from which they may not be able to come back again. We have these unconfirmed reports that people who were taken from Mariupol, their Ukrainian documents were taken, they were given some sort of piece of paper that only allows them to move to some farming town, and then it’s sort of unclear what happens to them after that. And as far as reconstruction and repopulation of Mariupol, I think—I mean, I think Tom is right. It’s kind of down the road. We don’t really know. But I would mention just two things here. So, first of all, if Russia does hold onto these territories and doesn’t pull its troops back, I think that basically means that the sanctions will continue, the Ukrainian government will not agree to give up any additional territory, right? They may have reached some agreement over Crimea. Zelensky was proposing maybe a fifteen-year referendum, what have you. But certainly not giving additional territory. That would have to be imposed by Russia by force. Right, then it means, again, that there would be a continuation of sanctions and all the economic problems it creates in Russia. So to think that they would have the money to rebuild this territory, which is now—Mariupol is like 90 percent destroyed—I don’t think so. I think that would be essentially wasteland. Probably militarized, right, again, given its strategic location on the Black Sea, like we saw in Crimea. And again, if we look at Donbas, the region—the so-called separatist republics, their, economy has been very depressed, and there wasn’t nearly that scale of destruction there. So this sort of idea of moving more Russian people to Mariupol in particular, I think is unlikely given how destroyed the city is and how Russia will not have the funds to rebuild it. But certainly deporting or disappearing or otherwise dealing with people who, quote/unquote are “Nazis,” not just in Mariupol but also in Kherson and these other parts of southern and eastern Ukraine, I think that’s very possible. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to take the next question from Wesley Granberg-Michaelson of the Reformed Church in America, general secretary emeritus. And the question is, to follow the discussion of the theological vision of Russia’s role and destiny, are these dimensions generally overlooked by Western policymakers who are focused on geopolitical issues and diplomatic compromises, but don’t take account of the underlying religious dimensions of the conflict? Tom, I think you can start on that one, since you’ve been at the table. GRAHAM: (Laughs.) I’ve been at the table. I think the short answer to that is that there is a tendency inside, certainly inside the U.S. government, not to pay sufficient attention to these underlying sort of ideological, theological issues to see how they might play in the process. The focus is largely on geopolitical matters, military forces, and so forth. That isn’t to say that there aren’t people inside the government that focus on these things very clearly. And within the State Department, within our intelligence community they can provide information on those matters. But I would say that there is, inside the U.S. government, a certain amount of hesitation to get engaged in these issues because of the separation of church and state in the United States. And people are concerned about crossing those lines. So even if we’re aware of it, the extent to which we would get engaged or try to exploit it in some way to our advantage is quite limiting because of those constitutional restrictions inside the United States. Now, whether that’s the right way to approach it or not I think is an open question. But it is a factor when the issue of religion comes up as part of a larger geopolitical crisis or conflict. FASKIANOS: Oxana, do you want to weigh in? SHEVEL: No, I would agree. I think it’s fair to say—(inaudible)—that that’s probably not the main priority, right, for the Western policymakers, when they actually formulate policy. But at the same time, I think there is awareness, and sometimes the sort of religious underpinnings or divisions might be actually a very—could be very consequential for, say, military or political outcomes. And I think that they are, or they’re perceived to be. I think that’s probably when they receive more attention. You put this more on the historical level, right? Like you say in the case of this war, Putin says Russia and Ukraine are one nation, even though all evidence from Ukraine shows that they aren’t, right? And then the patriarch is basically saying the same thing but now he has more  religious justification or narrative. Is this changing anything? Kind of. I think if you’re saying something different, that probably would be something for policymakers to maybe pay more attention to, because here there is conflicting narrative or something along those lines. But when we have political narrative being reinforced by religious narrative, both on the same point, reality on the ground is something different. Maybe that’s why it’s not getting that much attention. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’ll take the next question from Father Thomas Zain. Do you think the center of Kyiv is somewhat safe from the type of destruction seen elsewhere because of the especially sacred sites there, like the Kyiv Caves Monastery? SHEVEL: Yeah, I don’t think anywhere in Ukraine is safe at this point because we have seen  places bombed west, and north, and south, and everywhere. The idea that, say, the Caves Monastery would be purposefully protected, I mean, you might think so. But then again, given that many Orthodox Churches, including there are some historical ones in Chernihiv, which is a very ancient town north of Kyiv—also, again, I’m not a military strategist, but from what I read the sort of precision-guided missiles in Russia are maybe kind of getting in short supply, and they’re using less precision, especially when they bomb the cities. So even if, say, there may be an intent—or, not an intent to, say, to target the Caves Monastery, right, if you’re using the kind of munition that is not particularly precise, it could be damaged without intent. So my short answer would be that I don’t think it is safe, just because there is this religious site there. FASKIANOS: Great. So I want to try to get in Don Frew, Covenant of the Goddess. I’m in communication with Pagan groups in Ukraine—Slavic, Greek, Scandinavian, and Celtic. As one might expect, they’ve been discriminated against in Ukrainian society, but people have been putting aside religious discrimination in the face of a greater enemy. And do you think this greater acceptance is likely to continue after the war? SHEVEL: Yeah, it’s a good question because, for me, I mean, I agree that people have put aside many differences, including religious differences. Would that continue after the war? I think it partially depends on how the war ends, right? I think if the war ends in a way that Ukraine gets its territory back that Russia has occupied since February of this year, there is reconstruction effort, there is support—great support from the West, eventually maybe even prospect of EU membership. So there is kind of enthusiasm, I think we can expect this unity to continue. Again, just on the point of refugees, most refugees come out, they want to come back. I have a lot of friends and family there, and everybody’s talking about how they will rebuild. This is what people talk about, right? And you can say it’s in part kind of a psychological self-defense mechanism, but there is this great optimism, right? Some, over 90 percent, of the population, according to opinion polls, believe that Ukraine can win, right, and sort of good things can come. So I think if there is this, we can say, sort of positive end to the war in Ukraine, then I think this continued cooperation and greater unity would probably continue. Not to say that some of the old differences, or discrimination, or animosity may not—would be completely erased. But it probably, it would be my guess, would be that it won’t be the dominant sentiment, right? Now if, say, Ukraine somehow loses, and so it becomes, who’s to blame, which groups maybe didn’t do your right share, if the government did this or should have done that. So I think that then we might have more divides in the society, right? Sort of this finger-pointing, blaming, right? And the question is, we have to live under new reality. Do we keep fighting, do we not? So there I think we may see maybe potentially in looking for groups to blame, right? Again, I’m not sure it’s going to attack Pagan groups specifically, but sort of broader, looking for internal enemies or people to blame, finger-pointing, and therefore more divisions. FASKIANOS: Great. And I’m going to give the last question to Nathan Hosler, who’s with the Church of the Brethren Office of Peacebuilding and Policy. What are the possibilities for, or risks associated with, bodies such as the World Council of Churches engaging with either of the Orthodox Churches regarding the present situation? So, Oxana, why don’t you start and maybe— SHEVEL: Let me see. So I’ll just—so the question is about the World Council of Churches doing what? Sorry, I missed the beginning of— FASKIANOS: That’s OK. Let me just—it was basically how can bodies such as the World Council of Churches engage with either of the Orthodox Churches regarding the present situation. So essentially, what can religious leaders do to help, to do their part in this conflict? SHEVEL: Yeah. I don’t know. I mean, it’s—I think condemning the war and calling on the Russian patriarch to not endorse it is certainly the right kind of acts that these groups already are doing. Would it have any effect? I remain somewhat skeptical. I think one thing that, again, maybe we haven’t seen that yet—and I don’t know, I haven’t really followed it that closely so maybe there have been some reports—about how, say, other Orthodox Churches feel about recognizing—(inaudible)—because—which has now only been recognized by four churches—Orthodox Churches, this Ukrainian independent Orthodox Church. I’m not sure if that’s something now that’s a discussion within global Orthodoxy, sort of what role the World Council of Churches plays in, right? So there is—yes, I see the question in the chat. The World Council of Churches, right, that the Russian Orthodox Church is a member, so there is kind of a conflict since the World Council is against the war. So I’m not sure if the Russian Orthodox Church can—its leadership in particular—can be somehow persuaded to take different position. I honestly don’t think so. Sorry, that’s not a very satisfying answer. FASKIANOS: No, that’s fine. And, Tom, I just wondered, from your perspective, what you think religious leaders can do or— GRAHAM: So it’s not beyond what Oxana has said already. I mean, they should be condemning the war. They should be condemning the aggression. They should be condemning the unwarranted and indiscriminate attacks against civilians. That is what is a fundamental precept of most world religions. Is it going to have an impact on the Russian Orthodox Church, the leadership? I think Oxana is absolutely right: No, at this point. But it—this is a case where people ought to stand up for their principles and their faith. And I think that makes it incumbent upon religious leaders to condemn the violence in the most forceful terms possible. FASKIANOS: Wonderful. Well, we did not get to all the questions. I apologize for that. We are at the end of the hour. So we will have to leave it here and come back. Alas, I think that, as you both have said, this is not going to end any time soon. So we will continue to focus on it in our discussion. So thank you to Tom Graham and Oxana Shevel for being with us today. We really appreciate it. You can follow Dr. Graham at CFR.org and Dr. Shevel on Twitter at @oxanashevel. And I also hope you’ll follow us, CFR’s Religion and Foreign Policy program at @CFR_religion. And of course, as always, please visit CFR.org and ForeignAffairs.com for the latest policy analysis on this crisis, as well as other regions and topics around the world. And as always, please send us your suggestions of topics, speakers, feedback to [email protected]. We love hearing from you and want to continue the dialogue. So thank you all again. Our next session will be on Tuesday, April 5, at 1:00 p.m. And we will be discussing religion and conflict resolution. So, again, thank you both. SHEVEL: Thank you. GRAHAM: Thank you.

Our panelists discuss the growing Ukrainian refugee crisis, the situation on the ground in Poland and other neighboring countries where over three million Ukrainians have fled, and what is to be expected in the weeks ahead.