Cross Word

From South Boston to Moscow: Ambassador John J. Sullivan's Diplomatic Journey and Insights on Russo-Ukrainian Tensions

• Michele McAloon

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Discover the extraordinary journey of Ambassador John J. Sullivan, who navigated his path from South Boston's streets to the high-stakes world of international diplomacy as the U.S. ambassador to Russia. With a rich family legacy steeped in military service, Sullivan's early passion for foreign policy and national security carved his path through pivotal roles, including serving at the Justice Department during Operation Desert Storm. His career trajectory, marked by pivotal decisions and unique challenges, offers a fascinating glimpse into the world of law and diplomacy.

Continue with us as Ambassador Sullivan recounts his unexpected extension as U.S. ambassador to Moscow under President Biden, a role initially appointed by President Trump. Gain insights into the dynamic responsibilities of leading a U.S. embassy during the COVID-19 pandemic and the complexities of advocating for Americans wrongfully detained in Russia. Sullivan's compelling narrative sheds light on the intricacies of maintaining diplomatic relations and the emotional and moral obligations that accompany such positions.

As we conclude, the conversation shifts to the geopolitical tensions between Russia and Ukraine, where the resilience of Ukraine becomes a focal point against Russian aggression. Sullivan reflects on Vladimir Putin's nationalist ambitions and the broader implications for global security. The dialogue is rounded off with a heartfelt acknowledgment of the sacrifices made by those in public service and their families, underscoring a collective commitment to national duty. This episode promises an enlightening exploration of diplomacy, geopolitics, and the personal stories behind public service.

Speaker 1:

Hi, I'm Michelle McAloon. I'm the host of Crossword. If you want to find out a little bit more about me or the podcast, I have a new website and it's at bookcluescom. Also, I'm on X at MichelleMcAloon1, through social MichelleMcAloon1 and Facebook MichelleMcAloon1. So you can connect with me. If you're an author or publisher and would like me to feature your book, please reach out. And if you like the show, please like and subscribe. Hope you enjoy this episode.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Crossword, where cultural clues lead to the truth of the word. And my name is Michelle McAloon and we have an exceptional guest today. His name is Ambassador John J Sullivan. He's the former ambassador to the Russian Federation and he has written a wonderful book called Midnight in Moscow, and it is published by Little Brown Company. He is a first-time author and it is actually a really exceptional book. Ambassador John J Sullivan is an American attorney and government official whose career spans four decades in the public and private sectors. He has served five presidents in prominent diplomatic and legal positions, including US ambassador to the Russian Federation under Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Before his post in Moscow, he served as the US Deputy Secretary of State. He is currently a distinguished fellow at Georgetown and Columbia Universities, a foreign affairs contributor to CBS News, a partner with Mayor Brown Legal Firm and a member of the congressionally chartered Bipartisan Commission on Reform and Modernization of the Department of State. He is a Red Sox fan, a hockey player, and we will forgive him for all of that. So welcome, ambassador Sullivan.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, Michelle. I'm delighted to be here. It's great to be with you and go Red Sox. Oh no, we're looking forward to next year, but there's always hope.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there's next year, that's right. So you know what you have a very American story. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how a guy from South Boston, a pugnacious Irishman, as General Mattis, has described you in your introduction, how you rose to become a lawyer, a diplomat, and all the success you have achieved in your life.

Speaker 2:

Wow. Well, thank you, michelle. I became a lawyer when I was in college. This was late 70s, early 80s. I'm college class of 81. I would probably guess that 40%, maybe just under half, of my class, my graduating class I was an undergraduate at Brown was going to law school.

Speaker 2:

I followed the herd. What he really interested me was foreign policy, diplomacy, national security issues. But I didn't have the guts to break from the herd to take the foreign service exam to do something that was out of the ordinary. So I followed the herd to law school. But when I became a lawyer, my interests in foreign policy, foreign affairs, national security issues in part because of my family members my father, my mother, their brothers my father's brother was a career foreign service officer, three-time ambassador, my father and his brother and my uncles on my mother's side, all World War II combat veterans, my father and his brother Navy veterans and my mother's brother a US Army veteran, landed on Normandy, not on D-Day but D plus six still a dangerous time in Normandy. So I had that in my background and that was my interest. And now I've got a law degree.

Speaker 2:

And there came a time a few years after I graduated from law school I was a law clerk for a judge and then for justice suitor on the Supreme Court. I had the opportunity a choice to either become a prosecutor a federal prosecutor, and that would have been in New York City, in the Southern District of New York or to go to the Justice Department. This is at the start of the Bush 41 administration, so a long time ago. It's the Office of Legal Counsel which gets involved in a lot of national security issues. It's basically it's a small office but it's really the general counsel of the Justice Department, counsel to the Attorney General, who was in turn the chief legal advisor to the president. And when I decided to go to OLC rather than to become a trial lawyer and it was because of that continuing interest and when I was there, the United States military was very active. We had Operation Just Cause in Panama in October of 1989. And then, of course, starting in August of 1990, operation Desert Shield, which then becomes Operation Desert Storm in January of 1991. So the office was involved in a lot of legal issues, from very high-level issues like does the President of the United States need a declaration of war from Congress to send 500,000 troops, the way George HW Bush did, to the Gulf to Saudi Arabia and ultimately expelling Saddam from Kuwait. Constitutional issues, legal issues about concerns that Saddam would use chemical or biological weapons against US troops in the Gulf and whether it was permissible to use, administer drugs or vaccines that hadn't been approved generally by the FDA but to require that soldiers and Marines and sailors and airmen get inoculated to protect them in the event. Is that lawful? Can they refuse that order? You know those types of legal issues which really interested me.

Speaker 2:

Fast forward to the next Bush administration, the Bush 43 administration, and continuing with that interest, I had an opportunity to go to the Department of Defense and be the Deputy General Counsel of the entire department, and that's what interested me. That's what I did. Through that, I got to know, when he got to at least be aware of me, and I, of course, was aware of his legendary record, General Jim Mattis. At the time that I joined, I went to work for Secretary Rumsfeld and OSD as the Deputy General Counsel of the department. Then Major General Mattis was commanding the 1st Marine Division at the kickoff of Operation Iraqi Freedom. That's a key moment because years later, when Trump wins, picks General Mattis now retired, retired CENTCOM commander to be SEC DEF Mattis reaches out to me to ask me if I would go to work for him at the Defense Department again, this time as the General Counsel of the Department and that's how I get into the Trump administration is through General Mattis.

Speaker 2:

Later Secretary Mattis.

Speaker 2:

Through Mattis, I meet Tillerson. There's a switch. I go into more details in the book and I get nominated as deputy secretary of state rather than general counsel of the Pentagon, deputy secretary of state rather than general counsel of the Pentagon, and that's a capsule summary of how I, as a lawyer, find myself as deputy secretary of state. What I thought was most likely to happen was the capstone of my career was going to be serving Secretary Mattis as his lawyer, as an advisor to him at the Defense Department, in which case I probably would have been out of a job likely out of a job when he resigned in early 2019. Instead, I went to work for Secretary Tillerson.

Speaker 2:

When Tillerson got fired by President Trump, I thought I was going to be fired too. I write that in the book. I was surprised when the White House, the president, kept me and I became the acting Secretary of State for the six weeks between Secretary Tillerson resigning and then-Director Pompeo getting confirmed as Secretary of State. That that's where that shift happened. It's my old, one of my old coaches back in the day used to say luck is when preparation meets opportunity. I've been preparing my whole life to do something like become Deputy Secretary of State, but the opportunity was never presented and I never had the gumption to actually create that opportunity for myself like joining the Foreign Service. But it was presented to me and I grabbed it and I ran with it.

Speaker 1:

Well, mr Ambassador, you also did something very unusual, because you went from you're a political appointee for Donald Trump and then you're a political appointee for Joe Biden. That's not usual. That is highly actually unusual. How did that transition occur and why were you able to stay on? Because usually, when a new president comes in, whether it's going to be Harris or whether it's going to be Trump over the next couple months, everybody has to put in their resignation and then they decide from there. So how did this happen for you?

Speaker 2:

So I served for a year as President Trump's ambassador in Moscow, really starting to get up to speed in mid-December early to mid-December through a friend, a senior US diplomat career ambassador actually terrific guy former ambassador of Turkey, former director of the Foreign Service Institute, dan Smith Secretary Pompeo had put him in charge of the transition at the State Department, so he was engaging with the Biden team. I knew people on the Biden transition but I'm a lifelong Republican. I'd gotten to know pretty well Tony Blinken. I succeeded him as Deputy Secretary of State. I had gotten to know him very well. Bill Burns, whom Tony had succeeded as deputy secretary of state.

Speaker 2:

I was known to them but I was confident, as one could be, that I would never be retained as ambassador and I remember my wife and I having these conversations, that I was planning for my return, what we were going to do, et cetera. I got a call out of the blue from Dan Smith in early December, sort of like the call I got out of the blue from Mattis in end of November, beginning of December of 2016. In December of 2020, dan called me and said the transition team says they're thinking about retaining you as the US ambassador in Moscow and they want to know if you would stay. And I said I'm inclined to say yes, I've got to check with my wife, but let me get right back to you. So I called Grace, my wife, and she said I mean, say yes, but I don't know what they're talking about now. But I guarantee you there's no way that Joe Biden is keeping Donald Trump's ambassador to Russia.

Speaker 1:

Right, right, it's just not possible. It is surprising, it's very surprising.

Speaker 2:

It's just not going to happen. So I said okay. So I called Dan back the next day and said yeah, count me in. And he said okay, I'm pretty sure this is going to happen, but you can't tell anybody. There's a story I relate in the book. I'll give you the abbreviated Cliff Notes version. Dan said you can't tell anybody because the Biden administration, the Biden transition, is not willing to make this public, but they're going to want you to stay Fine.

Speaker 2:

Separately, I'm getting communications, as you quite rightly say, michelle. I'm getting communications from both the State Department and the White House instructions on how to prepare my resignation letter, which has been requested, how to leave my post as ambassador, arranging my travel home post as ambassador, arranging my travel home, packing my belongings, et cetera. As you and your family know well, moving on behalf of the US government requires forms and planning and so forth. So that is all in train. I am leaving as ambassador by no later than noon on January 20th. Separately, I have an oral assurance by phone that in fact my resignation is not going to be accepted and that the Biden team wants me to stay. I never was able to disclose publicly.

Speaker 2:

December turns into January and January 20th is starting to approach and I keep talking to Dan we're friends and I'd call him and say Dan, you've been an ambassador, you understand. I've not given notice to the Russian foreign ministry that I'm leaving. I've not told the diplomatic community here. I can't just skip out of town on no notice and get on a plane and resign. That's just not the way things are done. He said I understand, I understand, bear with me.

Speaker 2:

It wasn't until January 15th Friday, january 15th I had literally packed up my office. My office belongings were sent to my residence. The next day, saturday, a team was coming to pack up all my and my wife's belongings and I had a plane ticket to leave. On Monday night when Dan finally called me and said it's public, they want you to stay. What went on in the background? Why? I haven't the faintest idea. It generated questions in Washington and both Secretary Blinken who even at the time I considered a friend and still do and Jake Sullivan both made statements that said that yes, we want Sullivan to stay, we like the job he's been doing and the president wants him to stay. I'd never met Jake Sullivan before then, but Tony Blinken I knew well. So that's the backstory. Extremely unusual, there may have been a couple of other US ambassadors, political appointees who were asked to stay, but they had different backgrounds from mine.

Speaker 1:

Well, let me ask you a question, and I think a lot of people probably have this question in mind and they don't understand. What does a US ambassador do, and especially someone like you? You are a political appointee, meaning you didn't come up through the Foreign Service ranks. You came up through the government, but you didn't come up through the Foreign Service ranks and all of a sudden, okay, you're given the Russian Federation. What are the responsibilities of a US ambassador?

Speaker 2:

Great question and in fact the Foreign Service Institute has a three-week course for both career officers and political appointees who are going abroad to serve as ambassador. It takes three weeks to scratch the surface on what's expected of a US ambassador. So, using Russia as an example, it's unusual because of its scale and the relationship between the United States and Russia security issues and so forth but at the very top level, it is communicating with the office of the president of the Russian Federation, with the very top leadership of the Russian government, on behalf of the President of the United States, as the President's representative in Moscow. It meant a lot more 100 or 200 years ago, in this era of instantaneous communications and the internet not quite as important, but it's not insignificant, because it matters being able to meet face-to-face with senior Russian leaders and convey a message on behalf of the United States.

Speaker 1:

In your book you really do a great job of describing not only your official duties towards the Russian Federation, but also your official duties towards Americans living in Russia, towards the people that composed the mission in the embassy. You really put a lot of heart and a lot of description into that, which is great.

Speaker 2:

It's like being the mayor or a governor. I mean, you're sort of the mayor. I was the mayor of Embassy Moscow. Everyone on the compound affiliated with the embassy was my constituent. They looked to me, I was the leader. If something was going wrong, if there was a complaint, it ultimately falls to me as the ambassador. If there's a pothole on the main entrance road into the embassy and somebody gets a flat tire, just like a mayor, I got to make sure that our general services officers, our contractors, fix the pile right. So it's managing.

Speaker 2:

It's not just the embassy, it's the mission. And in Russia, unfortunately, we had lost several consulates. So the mission is the embassy and our consulates in any particular country. In Mexico, I think we have 11. In Russia, when I arrived, we had two in Vladivostok, in the Far East, in Yekaterinburg, in the Urals. That constituted the mission, the embassy itself, where I worked. There are the employees and contractors, including third country nationals, a lot of Russians who worked for us. I was responsible for them. I'm responsible for that mission, for that embassy.

Speaker 2:

They had a broader constituency in my opinion, and I think it's an obligation of a US ambassador Every American in Russia. It was in my opinion. They were also my constituents. So if somebody got arrested, if somebody lost a passport and couldn't get home, if somebody was in some other trouble, they always come to the embassy or the consulate and we have a whole section dedicated to the title of it is American Citizen Services. So I included in that group. Us businesses we had 1,200 over when I became ambassador. I got confirmed by the Senate in December of 2019, 1,200 US companies doing business in the Russian Federation. They were my constituents.

Speaker 2:

Starting during the pandemic. Every two weeks I'd have a telet for a virtual town hall just to give an update, et cetera. I started that during the pandemic and it continued in the lead up to the war, the February 24th 2022 and thereafter. But again, I consider that part of what I owed to the Americans in country, who will look to the embassy and, in particular, the ambassador if they're in trouble or they need help. For example, at the start of the pandemic, there were several hundred Americans who had difficulty getting out of Russia, finding a flight. We charted a flight a full flight it was a British Airways charter toward the end of March, beginning of April, for Americans who were otherwise having trouble getting flights out of Moscow because of how air transportation had been disrupted, and they're looking to the US embassy to help them. And that's what an embassy does, among other things, in addition to engaging with the Russian government, reporting on what we see in Russia, in Moscow, on what's going on, political reporting, a lot of what we do is American citizen services.

Speaker 1:

And you had four very special three or four, basically political prisoners that were Americans of, and they were political prisoners of the Russian Federation that came under your purvey and I think since you left that we had had several more. I think Paul Whelan has since been released, right Along with Trevor Reed. They were in huge exchanges. Right Along with Trevor Reed, they were in huge exchanges. Victor Boot was one of them. They exchanged for who made the front page of the Wall Street.

Speaker 2:

Journal this past week. Yeah, not a good guy.

Speaker 1:

Not a good guy, not a good fellow at all, but you had actually very special obligations towards these. For all intents and purposes, they were political prisoners correct, right?

Speaker 2:

Well, actually we call them wrongfully detained Americans. There's a designation now that's been created by Congress. But you're right, I mean back in the day we used to call people like that political prisoners. They're held against their will, confined, incarcerated in Russia because they're Americans, not because they've done anything wrong. There's a larger category of Americans, like all peoples we have, americans commit crimes in the United States and abroad. There are some Americans arrested in Russia who actually committed crimes and who are not wrongfully detained. But there are other Americans, a smaller segment of the Americans detained in Russia who did not do anything wrong, did not do the crimes with which they were charged and convicted Paul Whelan, trevor Reed, brittany Griner, mike Calvi there's a long list, unfortunately, and it's growing longer, even after the big trade on August 1st of this year, and it's growing longer even after the big trade on August 1st of this year, so that I felt a particular need because to look out for their interests and advocate for them with the Russian government.

Speaker 2:

Because it's an incredible experience, a grueling experience, to be an American who's innocent, who gets swept up in the Russian criminal justice system, sentenced to a confinement for years. In Trevor Reed's case, it was nine years. In Paul Whelan's it was 16. And to spend those years in a Russian labor camp, which is a violent, dangerous place to be, dangerous to one's health there's rampant AIDS, tuberculosis.

Speaker 2:

So I felt an obligation to them to reassure them and their families that we knew they were innocent and we were doing all we could to get them out. And while they were stuck in that hellhole, I and we at the embassy would do all we could to make their plight known to the Russian government, try to shame them, which really isn't possible, but also back in Washington. So I thought that was important. It was important for not only for the detainees themselves and their mental health and morale, but to their families back home, which is another big part of this problem. Yes, the detainee is the focus, but their extended families suffer almost as much as their loved one who's in a labor camp somewhere in Siberia or the Urals Become. A more important aspect of the job of US ambassador to Russia is looking after those wrongfully detained Americans.

Speaker 1:

Okay, the person we've got to talk about now is the main man and of course, that's Vladimir Putin. Of course, you've met him on a couple occasions. You had a one-to-one audience with him. You do a great explanation of who he organically is I mean by his very DNA of experience, and that is called a Czechist. Explain to us what a Czechist is and how you saw that in Putin, because this actually is a core concept to understanding the. He is a KGB man.

Speaker 2:

He also says famously that there is no such thing as a former KGB man. When I write in the book, I make some comparisons with organized crime entities in the United States. He's a KGB man. The expression that he's proud to claim as a Czechist is derived from the Cheka, the original Committee on State Security, the predecessor of the KGB, established by Lenin at the start of the revolution in December of 1917, led by a Pole, believe it or not. Felix Jerszynski, the founder of the Cheka, descended from Polish nobility, no less, but a good Bolshevik revolutionary. The Cheka wasn't constrained by law, by morals. It was only constrained by the interests of the revolution and defending the revolution and the revolution in the person of, among others, lenin against class enemies and opponents of the revolution. That's it, the heritage of the Czech. It goes back all the way to Ivan the Terrible and the civil Vicky. They were not bound by law or by religion or morals. Their only charge was to protect and do the will of the Tsar, and that was Ivan the Terrible. And when the Czech is created in December of 1917, they adopt the trappings of Ivan the Terrible's Oprichniki, who wore long black leather tunics. Who wore long black leather tunics? The Cheka, kgb, nkvd, fsb are famous for wearing long black leather trench coats. It's symbolic but it's significant. Putin had when he was the director of the FSB and he probably has several of these in some of his palaces around Sochi and the greater Moscow area but when he was director of the FSB he had a statue of Zerzinsky on his desk. This is very. This isn't posturing. This is who this person is.

Speaker 2:

I've tried to think of American analogies. There's organized crime. I tried this one. I did an interview with John Hamry at CSIS. I don't know if it worked well, but you know. But think of we were talking about baseball, the Red Sox and the Yankees. It's like being a career baseball guy Pete Rose, the late Pete Rose, or sort of the journeyman ball player who just dedicates his life to the game, from when he's a little kid. Maybe he makes it to the majors and his whole life, not necessarily in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, but he just hangs around the game. That's who he is. He's all about baseball. That's Putin with the KGB. That's who he is. That's what he's about.

Speaker 2:

As a Czechist, as somebody who, when he was a young man in Leningrad, worked to join the KGB, he reached out to the KGB station in Leningrad and was told you don't come to us, we come to you, we come to you. He asked what he should do to prepare and they told him to go to law school. He went to law school. I'm embarrassed to say, as a lawyer, that Putin has a law degree. But why is this all important. Well, it's captured by Putin saying there's no such thing as a former KGB man. This is his mindset and it ties into his view now of what happened during the Cold War.

Speaker 2:

At the conclusion of the Cold War, his view of the United States and what he's about now as president of the Russian Federation and what his view is of Russia and its future, came down. He was Lieutenant Colonel Putin in the KGB in Dresden. So that's where I used this career baseball guy, a Terry Francona, a Don Zimmer, not a great player. He wasn't Colonel Putin. If he had been a great player, he would have been Colonel Putin at East Berlin. He was Lieutenant Colonel Putin in Dresden and his whole life revolved around his service in the KGB. And what happened? East Germans surrounded their station. This is the story he tells. He calls Moscow for instruction. Are they going to? Should they start shooting these people? And this is his story. He says no one answered the phone. He called the center, the Lubyanka, for instructions and no one was home.

Speaker 2:

So his view is that the Cold War was lost in Moscow by a government led by Mikhail Gorbachev. Great stab in the back in Moscow. And I draw comparisons between Putin's grievances and the Nazi, the Hitler grievances the great stab in the back. The Imperial German Army didn't lose the Great War and, from Putin's perspective, the KGB. They didn't lose the Cold War. It was the weak-kneed communists in Moscow with their perestroika and glasnost. They lost the Cold War. It was the weak-kneed communists in Moscow with their perestroika and glasnost. They lost the Cold War. And what's the consequence of that? Control from the center, from Moscow, was lost over the Soviet empire, the 15 Soviet republics, that international border that surrounded the Soviet Union disappeared and the internal boundaries of the Soviet Union that, for example, separated Ukraine from the Russian Federation, became international borders. That's the great catastrophe that he views in the 20th century. Was that the dissolution of the Soviet Union? It's not that the communist system expired.

Speaker 2:

Another one of his famous expressions is it's quite common actually among Russians that if you're not nostalgic for how we lived in Soviet days you don't have a heart, but if you want to return to the Soviet system, the communist system, you don't have a brain. No, he doesn't lament the demise of communism. He's not a communist, he's a Russian nationalist. What he laments is control from the center, from Moscow, over that great expanse of the Soviet Union, 350 million people spread across 15 Soviet republics and with those internal boundaries becoming international borders. They separate the Russian people.

Speaker 2:

His view of the Russian people, russians in Ukraine, prime heartland of his vision of the Ruski Mir, the Russian world, international border. That shouldn't be there. That's a complete fiction in his mind and that's what he is about eliminating removing that impediment to the restoration of what he thinks is Russia's rightful place, which is as his place as president of the Russian empire, which includes not just Crimea, not just the Donbass, but all that he wants in and around the former Soviet republics, whether it's Georgia, moldova and Central Asia, et cetera. Now they don't have to all be under complete legal control by Moscow, but at a minimum they need to be under the Russian thumb, the way Belarus is. Belarus and Russia formed what's called the Union State. There needs to be that type of relationship between Russia and Ukraine what Putin considers his prime heartland for the Ruski Mir.

Speaker 1:

That's what he's about heartland for the rusty roosty mirror. And that's what he's about. Taking this attitude of a Chekist, taking this attitude of being the Russian strong man and extrapolating that now into the current crisis in Ukraine that was caused by him invading a sovereign nation called Ukraine, there's actually no winning. I mean, he's not going to. If he has that attitude, he is not going to back down for a compromise, because in the end, maybe it's too simple and maybe I'm breeding this too simply, but it's about respect and he can't lose the respect of being in control, of being that center. I don't see a way out of that, of that current situation of where he says, okay, I'm going to stop here and I'm not going to do any more land grabbing. I'm not. You know, forget Moldova, forget Georgia, forget the Baltics. It's just not happening.

Speaker 2:

I, in my very humble opinion, I know, and you're so right, michelle, and there is no off-ramp for him, right, right. The analogy I draw is he can't decide the way. For example, Lyndon Johnson in 1968, after the Tet Offensive decides, you know, he has dedicated his presidency, in addition to the Great Society, to defending South Vietnam, defeating communist aggression from North Vietnam. After the Tet Offensive, walter Cronkite is telling the American people that the war is not winnable. And what does he do? He decides. He's a man desperate to keep his office. He doesn't want to lose. He announced that he's going to not run for re-election. He's got to devote all his attention to his effort in Southeast Asia and serving as president. He retires to the LBJ ranch, he lets his hair grow long and gives interviews lamenting how badly he was treated and all the problems that he presided over in the 60s. Putin doesn't have that option. He can't just decide. The special military operation is bogged down. We've had half a million casualties. As a factual matter, he doesn't have that option. Even if he did, because of who he is, he'd never take it. There is no off ramp.

Speaker 2:

One of the reasons why I wrote my book was to try to help get Americans to understand the mindset not just of Putin, but of all of the nationalists around him. We approach Russia the way we approach France or Mexico or Chile, and Russia's different and the Russian approach to us we think they're like, they're not and they're just different will never surrender his war aims in Ukraine which, as he said many times, are to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine. Those are immutable. He can't, he won't. It would be the equivalent of an American president saying yeah, the American Southwest, we had wars with Mexico almost 200 years ago, 180 years ago. We'll give up Arizona, new Mexico, parts of Texas, southern California, give it back to Mexico.

Speaker 2:

It's that unthinkable for Putin to surrender his vision of what he's about in Ukraine and on the other side of the border, on the other side of the front line, the Ukrainians are just as adamant that they are not going to be subjected to brutality. So for those who are looking for a negotiation, there is no room for negotiation now. Zelensky said this not long ago. Putin can only be forced to the negotiating table, given that his personal survival in many ways depends on and this has been true going back not just in Soviet times, but in Tsarist times. Lose a war, lose a war to Japan in 1905, puts Nicholas II in a very, very bad place and ultimately leaves, 12 years later, to the revolution and being shot to death in Yekaterinburg.

Speaker 1:

You have four conclusions at the end of your book, four kind of I want to say absolute truths about Russia, and I wish you could extrapolate that from your book and drop those leaflets over Congress, over the Capitol, over any lawmaker you know, amara Lago or wherever Harris is staying, you know. I mean drop it on them so that they understand this, because in everything that I've read about Russia and I read about Russia constantly this is probably the most clearly articulated that I have read to this point. So I'm very sorry Well, I'm not being kind this is someone who's read about Russia, who speaks Russian, who has lived in the former Soviet Union for a long time, and you're probably one of the first people I've said that, yeah, this is it. This guy knows what he's talking about. No disrespect, mr Ambassador, but you know. So talk to us a little bit about that, because that's really important. It ties into what you think of what your explanation of Putin and Ukraine is right now.

Speaker 2:

So the way I think about this, you're right. I tried to make the end of the book more of a prescription for Americans and for our views, inform our views on Russia. And when I listen to our political debate today, what concerns me is and I say this as a lifelong Republican when I hear my fellow Republicans saying, you know, I'm more concerned about the southwestern border of the United States than I am with Ukraine borders. Well, I'm very concerned about the southwestern border of the United States. It's not an either or proposition. I spent a lot of time talking to Republican members of Congress. What I say to them. For those who would agree with Senator Vance, the President Trump's vice presidential nominee, who has said things like I don't really care about Ukraine, I'm more worried about the United States, our borders, than I am about Ukraine borders. Okay, so you don't like Ukraine, fine, we'll accept that as your premise. I disagree with it, but let's accept that. Tell me about your Russia strategy then. And then there's silence. What's your strategy for dealing with what General Cavoli said? I don't know a month, two months ago. If there's a ceasefire, if there's a frozen conflict, however Ukraine gets resolved, the United States is going to have to deal with a big, angry, heavily armed Russia on the doorstep of Eastern Europe and our NATO allies? What's your strategy for dealing with Russia If you surrender, or let me think about this. Think about how this would be perceived in Moscow.

Speaker 2:

Support for Ukraine. First of all, it was a surprise that the Ukrainians were able to resist as effectively as they did to the United States government at least, or at least to the ambassador in Moscow. I wasn't expecting what happened in late February, march and April that the Russian thrust south out of Belarus was going to be blunted, stopped and they were going to be pushed back the way they were. They'd collapse in and around Kharkiv. That they would push the Russians out of Kherson. I digress what I thought we were going to be looking at was supporting a Ukrainian guerrilla campaign against a Russian occupation of two-thirds of Ukraine. So the Ukrainians, heroically led by Zelensky, heroically resist support for Ukraine monetarily defense articles, security support.

Speaker 2:

It's, you know, skyrocketing in the polls 80%, 85%, particularly after the success of the Ukrainians pushing back on the Russians in the fall of 2022, when they literally collapse in eastern Ukraine around Kharkiv. They get pushed out of the biggest city, the Oblast capital that they captured, kherson, and then in 2023, there were heightened expectations for a Ukrainian offensive in 2023. Heightened expectations for a Ukrainian offensive in 2023. And that did not succeed the way their resistance did in 2022. And when the going gets tough, then we see members of Congress and others saying, well geez, I mean, we don't want endless wars, we don't want to spend money for this. So when the Ukrainians are successful, yada boy, go get them. But when the going gets tough, we're going to cut and run. That's exactly what Putin expects, expected. We haven't done it yet. What it will do to embolden Putin, let alone his dear friend in Beijing, with his aspirations for Taiwan war aggressive war in Ukraine.

Speaker 2:

Boy, if you've got a Russia strategy and your Russia, strategy includes giving up on Ukraine and letting Putin succeed in capturing and subjugating Ukraine. What's your Russia strategy? And if you say, putin's not that bad a guy, he's a Christian nationalist. He's a little rough around the edges. I have two reactions to that. First, it's grossly misinformed about the threat that Russia poses to the United States and it's not just me saying this.

Speaker 2:

The United States. Our defense budget, public and classified fold in the intelligence community budget related expenses. We spend a trillion dollars defending the United States. Who's our biggest threats? China and Russia. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars to defend ourselves against Russia. We have the opportunity to oppose brutal Russian aggression in Ukraine. That threatens the United States and we're going to walk away from that. I don't see any sane Russia policy that includes abandoning Ukraine, but even more so. To the politician I say be careful. But even more so to the politician I say be careful because you don't want to wind up like and it's careful. When I say this, I'm not referring to current Trump supporters. I'm talking about those people in the 1930s who were saying America first, then were saying in 35, 36, 37, 38, you're too hard on the Germans. The chancellor's rough around the edges, but he's got legitimate grievances growing up, right, yeah.

Speaker 1:

War guilt A nevel yep.

Speaker 2:

Right. I mean, yeah, yeah, he's rough around but look, he's got to do what he's got to do to rebuild Germany after what happened to it. So give him a break. Watch those old newsreel footage sort of man in the street interview. Oh look, what happened to Charles Lindbergh. Global hero, american hero, lionized in the United States. Become sort of a front person for that view of the world. And Nazi Germany front person for that view of the world. In Nazi Germany, looking back after the war on what those America firsters were saying. It's like the people today who are saying oh, putin's got grievances, nato expansion. He's just a Christian Orthodox, to be sure, but Christian nationalist. Imagine if you know, canada was threatening the United States the way Ukraine is threatening Russia. It's just a natural human response. That's like saying the Germans had grievances against Poland in August of 1932.

Speaker 2:

I know it's just unreal. Had to address them.

Speaker 1:

It's unreal. And one of the things that you also brought out in your book that I think has to be understood is do not believe him. Do not believe Putin at anything. Do not If he says the sky is blue, you need to go out and check it yourself because it is. Do not believe him. I know a lot of the Russia hands have been really frustrated by current US policy, but in some of the machinations, one of the things that you know, this administration and I'm not doing red blue politics, because you know what there's enough blame to go around for everybody administration and I'm not doing red-blue politics because you know what?

Speaker 1:

there's enough blame to go around for everybody. But is this administration's reluctance to sell the Ukrainian cause to the American people to have that, you know, fireside chat? Hey, folks, this is what we need to do. We need to sign up for this. We need to. It's because it's in America interest, but I think a lot of it is. They've been beholden by some kind of fear of a nuclear policy that's going to go out of hand. And from what I can see and from what I mean, I just read the press, like everybody else does. I do read French press. But he's not going nuclear. It's not to his benefit to go nuclear and actually and it ties back into being the Cheka If he is the Chekist, if he goes nuclear, he loses the respect of the world, of everybody and even of his enemies, his dear friend in Beijing.

Speaker 1:

Right, he will lose. So he's not going nuclear and I feel like a legislature administration executive. They've been kind of prisoner of this fear of going nuclear and that has kept them from actually allowing them to use weapons that we've given them to the full capacity on the battlefield or supplying more weapons or anything like that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I've been disappointed with the lack of leadership. Why this war is and support for Ukraine is in the national security national interest, not just security interests of the United States. And as I write in the book, I mean you look, if we haven't learned the lessons of history and if you look back at the 20th century and I write about, I'm a big admirer of Justice Jackson, who was the chief American prosecutor at Nuremberg, who's prosecuting the Nazi leaders over the Holocaust crimes against humanity, but also significantly waging an aggressive war, a separate crime for which they were convicted and hanged. And in both his opening statement and his closing statement to the tribunal, jackson says twice in this century, we, the United States this is in 1946, twice in this century already, we thought we could ignore, we, the United States, could ignore a war on the European continent, one that started in 1914, the other that started on September 1st 1939, we delayed years before we became involved in 1941, involuntarily, after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the Germans declared war on us. And what I write in the book is that Jackson says you know, this was a fantasy. I mean we can't, we are not able to stick our heads in the sand and ignore this war that's happening in Europe, because we're eventually. The longer we delay, the more difficult it's going to be for us once we're involved.

Speaker 2:

And my conclusion is you know, if that was right in 1946, in the interconnected world we live in today, it's insanity to think that we can just ignore what Putin is doing in Ukraine and that it doesn't implicate the security interests of the United States. And, as I say, I tried to encapsulate it by saying if you're focused on Ukraine, in one sense you're focused on the wrong problem. The problem isn't Ukraine, the problem is Russia. Tell me, your Russia strategy Part of your Russia strategy has to be opposing Putin in Ukraine. And if you remove that, how much more difficult, more expensive? If you're worried about money, how many more billions, how many more lives is it going to take to oppose Russian aggression if we cede Ukraine now?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, russians are not going to stop. I tell you, I cannot encourage the listening audience enough to read this book. It's an important book. It's a witness to history. It is a great lesson. Witness to history. It is a great lesson. I think it's a great civic lesson on how foreign policy is formed in the United States, how it is worked out into the fields, out into the different embassies and the roles that different people play, how we do negotiation. There's so many lines that can be picked up on this book, but that last chapter is really important and people need to read it, memorize, study and when you go to the polls, remember that you know so who has the better Russia policy, which you're absolutely right and one thing that you do with this book. That is absolutely great, and I never, ever, recommend the Kindle voice version or the Audible version, but you read the book and it is great. You do such a great job reading the book and so it really you put a lot of personality into it.

Speaker 2:

That was great. I used to joke that I had a face for radio, but I didn't think I had the voice for it. But the publisher said it's your memoir, you really need to read it in your voice. So they convinced me to do it and, from what I understand from the publisher, the audio sales have been pretty strong.

Speaker 1:

Oh, it's a great audio book. I've listened to it, I've read it and I've listened to it.

Speaker 2:

You're kind.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, traveling around, so it really is good. Mr Ambassador, I really want to thank you for taking time out of your schedule to talk about this issue and you know what. Thank you for your service to the United States of America. That and I know you lost your wife Grace and her the United States of America. That and I know you lost your wife Grace in her service to the United States of America. It's a family affair and I know that.

Speaker 2:

Well, as you know, from your family, I mean people who serve the whole family serves. Even if it's just one member who's in uniform or in office, everybody pitches in. So thank you.

Speaker 1:

Well, thank you. All right, Thank you very much. Thanks, rochelle. Thank you.