Former Ukrainian Ambassador to the US and the UN Volodymyr Yelchenko (All photos RBC-Ukraine) Author: Ksenia Krikun
In an interview with RBC-Ukraine, former Ukrainian Ambassador to the US and Russia and long-time Ukrainian representative to the UN Vladimir Yelchenko spoke about Trump's warm attitude towards Putin, the American president's resentment towards Ukraine, and also about World War III, which could be caused by Trump's desire to divide the planet into zones of influence.
Main topics of conversation:
- On Trump's warm attitude towards Russia
- On Trump's grievances towards Ukraine
- On the US President's desire to “reshape” the world
Volodymyr Yelchenko is one of the mastodons of Ukrainian diplomacy. He is personally acquainted with both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Yelchenko was Ukraine's ambassador to the Russian Federation from 2010 to 2015 and ambassador to the United States from 2019 to 2021. He was also Ukraine's permanent representative to the UN in 1997-2001 and 2015-2019.
In an interview with RBC-Ukraine, Vladimir Yelchenko explained what could save Ukrainian-American relations, what Putin interested Trump in, and how the “honeymoon” between Russia and the United States would end. He also explained when the world order established after World War II ended, why the UN would soon collapse on its own, and whether Trump wants to become the first dictator in US history.
Watch the full interview on the RBC-Ukraine YouTube channel, below in the text are the main points from the conversation.
On Trump's warm attitude towards Russia
Literally a month after Donald Trump's second inauguration, the United States of America has made its biggest turnaround in foreign policy in generations. Now, White House officials do not recognize Russia as an aggressor, openly criticize Europe, threaten Canada, and vote in the UN along with Russia, North Korea, Belarus, Sudan, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Mali, Nicaragua, and Niger. Vladimir Yelchenko says one can only hope that this is not a final change in the United States' course.
“I think and sincerely hope that this is such a big strategic-diplomatic game. Although I do not think that Trump himself personally came up with all this, but his experience as a successful businessman, a billionaire, superimposed here on the power that he received, the experience that he has from his previous term, gives him every opportunity and reason to start such a game. On the other hand, we should not exaggerate his personal qualities, because he does not change his opinion every day, every hour or every 15 minutes. And it depends on who he just met and talked to. But, as an experienced person, he is able to analyze all this. And it seems to me that after some time, perhaps it will take several weeks, we will see a completely different Donald Trump . It is not that I personally know Trump very well, but I presented him with credentials as ambassador to Washington, and before that I met with him several times and had conversations on various topics, and I did not get the impression of Trump that we see him today. And he has certain sympathies, some positive, positive feelings towards Ukraine.”
On the other hand, Yelchenko continues, Trump goes to extremes only when he talks about Ukraine. He speaks only positively about Russia and Putin.
“This, frankly speaking, surprises me the most, although in principle he is consistent in this. Because I have never heard from him, neither today, nor a week ago, nor 10 years ago, anything particularly bad about Putin. There is a certain mystery in this. But if we recall his warm relations even with Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, then perhaps he has something in common, I don’t want to say, with dictators. But there is a certain sympathy for such non-standard people, for us they are a minus sign, but for him, perhaps, not.”
Trump himself describes his relationship with Putin as “very good.” Although they have only met officially a couple of times.
“Everyone knows about his meeting with Putin in Helsinki during his previous term. And this historic phrase, when he left the meeting, said that he trusted Putin more than his own special services . It caused a wave of anger and misunderstanding in America. We don't know anything else, but we know more about Putin. And Putin, as a protégé of the special services, is in many ways a good protégé, he has experience in how to recruit people, how to get into their souls. I think that he found some such paths to Trump's soul. Perhaps this concerns the period when Trump was not re-elected and lost to Biden.”
Vladimir Yelchenko suggests that Putin could have successfully played on Trump's image due to the fact that he was not re-elected for a second presidential term in 2020. Donald Trump never acknowledged his defeat, and the Russians could have supported this confidence in him. On the other hand, there is another version of Trump's loyal attitude towards the Russian Federation. Even during the 2016 election race, the media, primarily American, wrote that the Russians were financing Trump's campaign, and then they really recorded a very large invasion of Russian bot farms and their interference in the elections.
“That would be a conspiracy theory with all capital letters. I honestly don't believe it. Yes, there was all sorts of talk that when Trump first went to Russia, it was 1987, that he was put under surveillance , that he was being watched, that Russian special services maintained relations with him later. In order to say this for sure, you need to have evidence. I don't have such evidence, and no one else has such testimony. So you can talk about anything, but it seems to me that it's a little frivolous to think that the President of the United States could be an agent of Russia .”
However, Yelchenko is confident that the period of friendship between the United States and Russia will not last long.
“After Putin “dumps” Trump, and this will definitely happen, because I know how Russian diplomacy works, and the Russian establishment in general, they will not last this honeymoon and will definitely set Trump up somewhere. Or they will completely refuse everything they told him in Saudi Arabia, or they will simply start violating the agreements that will be between Russia and the United States. And then we will see a completely different Trump, angry, cynical, and I think that, as they say, it will not seem like a little .”
On Trump's grievances towards Ukraine
Speaking about Trump's relations with the Ukrainian elite, says Yelchenko, it is worth recognizing that our politicians have made certain mistakes in communicating with him. The first of them is that during the election campaign Ukraine openly bet on the Democrats , while it did not maintain the necessary level of communication with the Republicans. On the other hand, Trump has a personal grudge against Ukraine that has been going on for many years.
“Whatever I said earlier about sympathy for Ukraine, as a state, as a country, at the same time, he probably has a worm somewhere in his soul, if we recall the well-known telephone conversations that partially became the reason for the impeachment process.”
We are talking about the infamous telephone conversation in the summer of 2019 between Trump and Zelensky, during which the American president allegedly pressured his Ukrainian counterpart, demanding that our law enforcement agencies accuse Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who previously worked for a Ukrainian energy company, of corruption. In this way, Trump allegedly hoped to eliminate Joe Biden, his main competitor in the 2020 presidential election, from the race. And to make Zelensky accept Trump's demands faster, an hour and a half after the telephone conversation, the White House froze financial aid to Ukraine in the amount of 400 million dollars.
The Americans gave the transcript of this conversation to the media. Thus, Ukraine, without wanting to, found itself in the epicenter of a domestic political scandal in the United States . Volodymyr Yelchenko became the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States right in the midst of the impeachment hearings of Trump in Congress. He recalls that back then everyone understood that Ukraine did not want to be drawn into this process, but in Trump’s mind the words “Ukraine” and “impeachment” are still next to each other .
“At that time, just in contrast to this latest squabble between our presidents – I believe that this should not have been done by either side – and then our government did not react to it or reacted quite intelligently, without any kind of emotional outburst. And this story, like all news, good or bad, it lived for a certain time and then disappeared from the airwaves, from the news, and that was the end of it. Then COVID started and in general everyone was only concerned with COVID, everyone forgot about that unfortunate Ukraine. But, apparently, Trump still has this association. Here is Ukraine and something bad for him personally.”
However, Yelchenko notes, Donald Trump is who he is, and we are not able to change him. And we will have to work with him, so the Ukrainian leadership must look for approaches to him.
“As much as we may not like what Trump said, he is the president of the most powerful country in the world, on which Ukraine is 90% dependent. And whether you like it or not, you have to come to terms with the fact that not everyone loves you, not everyone respects you as much as you would like, you have to grit your teeth and do your own thing, conduct negotiations – non-public ones, and achieve the goals that we have set before us.”
On the other hand, says Yelchenko, despite Trump’s reproaches that Ukraine is reacting unprofessionally to the negotiations between Russia and the United States, even if our leadership commented less on the actions of the American president in the public space, it is unlikely that this would have helped to avoid a quarrel with Trump.
“I would divide all of Trump's statements into two parts. The first is what concerns the war, Russia's aggression, the peace agreement, everything that surrounds the war. And the second is Ukraine's internal issues, and this is already interference in internal affairs. Because it is not for Trump to evaluate Zelensky's rating, it is not for Trump to tell us whether to hold elections or not, we will decide this ourselves . Everyone understands perfectly well that in our country there are also different opinions regarding these elections, whether they should be organized or not, who has what rating, but this is our business. And if you noticed, then apart from Trump, none of our other allies talk about this at all. This indicates that they understand perfectly well, or better than Trump, that this issue is a red line that cannot be crossed in interstate communication.”
Right now, the most important thing for Trump, Yelchenko continues, is to end the Russian-Ukrainian war. That is why he does not accept anything that, in his opinion, could hinder this process.
“It seems to me that this is his obsession and for us this is a plus, by and large. The only thing that could be a minus is the conditions under which Trump wants or intends to end this war.”
Ending the Russian-Ukrainian war is one of Trump's main campaign promises. So now he is sparing no effort to make it a reality.
“Unlike Ukraine, where the overwhelming majority of elected presidents forget in 2-3 days what they promised during their election campaign, in America there is public opinion, there is Congress, there are voters, and they remember everything perfectly well. And there is the American press, a journalist will never be afraid to write what he thinks. And therefore Trump cannot help but understand that some time will pass: a couple of weeks, a few months, and they will start reminding him of all his promises. And this concerns not only the war in Ukraine, but also those internal issues of which he promised so much there, and now we do not see the results, well, this is a question for the Americans, we are least interested in this. This means that he cannot help but understand the simple fact that over time he will definitely be reminded: you promised, where is it. Therefore, perhaps, in his emotions, he forgets a little that here it is not the fact of the end of the war itself that matters, but also the conditions under which it will be ended. And it seems to me that he still does not understand some things. His words about Ukraine starting it, that Putin is not guilty of anything at all, he was forced to, well, this is just some kind of blatant Russian narrative, I don’t know where he picked it up.”
But overall, Yelchenko says, Ukrainians need to take a calmer approach to the negotiation process and understand that we won’t get everything we want.
“I think that everyone has already understood that no one will take Ukraine into NATO tomorrow . I am a supporter of NATO, I want Ukraine to be a member of NATO tomorrow, but there are things that we cannot step over. And therefore we must also take a calmer attitude towards this. Yes, it is very offensive, because so much effort was spent on implementing this slogan. But nevertheless, there is still the European Union. So we must hit the point where it is easier. Start negotiations on joining the EU as soon as possible and do more of this. And NATO – first let's end this war, and then we will talk about NATO.”
However, despite all the disagreements that have arisen in recent weeks between the governments of Ukraine and the United States, our leadership must now focus as much as possible on normalizing relations with the United States, Vladimir Yelchenko is confident.
” Relations between Ukraine and the United States can be saved by a cool head and the understanding that without the Americans, without the support of the United States, Ukraine will not survive . And that is why we need to get out of this dilemma. If we want to remain an independent state, then we must do everything to find a common language with the United States of America. Europe will also take a very long time to get going. And with all due respect – yes, Europe has given us a lot, but it could have given much more. And talk about the need to introduce a 30,000-strong military contingent into Ukrainian territory. I spoke about this 8 years ago. So what? There is nothing behind this except words.”
Yelchenko is confident that Russia will never allow the deployment of foreign troops on Ukrainian territory.
“There will never be such an agreement. And Trump says that he heard from Putin that Putin, in principle, does not object to this. Well, that's a complete lie. Because an hour later Lavrov comes out and says that this will never happen in his life. The whole war was started under the slogan that Ukraine should not be a member of NATO. So instead there will be NATO troops on Ukrainian territory? And Russia will be satisfied with this – does anyone still believe it?”
On Trump's desire to “reshape” the US and the world
After Donald Trump came to power for the second time, not only US policy towards Ukraine has changed. Huge changes have begun inside the country. Trump appoints conspiracy theorists, anti-vaccinationists, bloggers, and morning show hosts to key positions. Elon Musk's interns demand that civil servants have access to information constituting a state secret, and Musk himself fires officials at his own discretion. Trump has disbanded half of the CIA, and mass purges have begun in the Pentagon.
“The system of checks and balances that has existed in the US government for centuries has never allowed radical changes to the state policy of this country. And now something completely opposite is happening. But I have hope, I think it is not unfounded, that the US Congress has not yet had its last word. In recent days, we have been hearing more and more criticism from Republicans in Congress, in the Senate, in the House of Representatives. And not just Republicans, but people who are part of the elite of this party, who have been sitting there for decades. I am not even talking about the governors, because we have already heard about the beginning of conflicts between Trump and some governors. So far, these are those who represent the Democrats, but the states in this country are truly independent, it is truly a federal state. And therefore, if someone thinks that everyone will sit and perceive this as the party line that must be followed, then this will not happen. And I say again, there is also the American press, which will not ignore this either. So it seems to me that after some time, whether Trump wants it or not, he will have to take this into account and change certain of his priorities and not take such drastic steps. Because I can no longer imagine what else could happen. Unless we suggest that instead of Ukraine, Russia be accepted into NATO.”
US foreign policy has also changed dramatically. While Trump himself praises Putin and Kim Jong-un, his administration has pounced on Europe.
” For Trump's team, the European Union is a competitor to the United States . But it seems to me that it is a complementary competitor, a competitor that helps the United States against China, against Russia. It is not a competitor with a minus sign. Therefore, to destroy the European Union, to withdraw American troops from Europe – what will this give to America? To return to the isolationism that existed 100 years ago or even before World War II, this did not give the United States anything good. And if we recall, for example, the same Marshall Plan and the results of World War II in general, the United States made a huge profit on it. Yes, they suffered huge losses in this war, but they also made money. American business after World War II rose by leaps and bounds. Before the war, there was the Great Depression, and the war, oddly enough, helped the Americans get back on their feet and become the powerful America that is today. Therefore, I do not see any reason not to love the European Union or to try to destroy it.”
Now, some people, looking at Trump's domestic and foreign policies, even believe that he could well become the first dictator in US history and not fight the so-called “axis of evil,” but lead it.
“I don't believe in it, because, you see, again, the American establishment and what is called the deep state, simply won't allow it. Even if he wants it. But I still sincerely hope that he wants something completely different – to receive the Nobel [peace – ed.] Prize and retire.”
Moreover, Yelchenko continues, such a radical change in the policy of the United States and Trump’s attempts to divide the planet into zones of influence between the great powers is a direct path to World War III.
“If he wants to split the whole world and divide it in a new way, it means that tomorrow China will seize Taiwan, half of Africa will start a war among themselves, because Africa, if you look at the map, it was simply divided with a ruler and that's it. There are so many claims and conflicts there. We are talking about Taiwan, but there is also Southeast Asia with many mutual claims. In the China Sea, China-Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore. There is another issue here – the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Because if such a mess begins in the world, then believe me, in a year, in addition to the five officially recognized and four unrecognized [states with nuclear weapons – ed.], we will have about 40 so-called threshold states. And, by the way, half of them are located in Southeast Asia. Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia – they can all create nuclear weapons in a few months. And there is also Egypt, there is Saudi Arabia Arabia, which may have less technological capabilities, but a lot of money. And they can simply buy these weapons. So I will say that the nuclear non-proliferation regime is already falling apart at the seams, and if these trigger conflicts begin in the world, then this will be a process that no one will be able to stop. And then what I call World War III will come. And I don’t think Trump wants this. If he doesn’t understand this yet, then I’m sure that after some time he will be prompted. Although we have nothing to fear anymore, we have already lived through such a thing that neither World War III nor World War IV is scary for us anymore .”
However, no matter what Trump does, Yelchenko is sure, there is no return to the world order that existed after World War II.
“I think it has already been destroyed. And this is proven by the insignificance and lack of principles of the United Nations. That is, it seems to me that this organization is moving with leaps and bounds toward the fate of the League of Nations. My forecast may surprise someone, but I believe that the fate of the UN will be decided by itself after the Americans either leave this organization or stop paying their dues to the UN, and they pay about a third of the UN budget and peacekeeping operations. That is, this means that the organization will simply die by itself without American money.”
Vladimir Yelchenko worked for the UN for many years, including as a permanent representative of Ukraine. Despite this, he is sure that this organization has already had its day. Although it still has many supporters.
“We shouldn't touch the UN, because we won't create anything better. But I have a question: why then sit and wait for it to fall apart on its own and do nothing? Nobody likes it, everyone understands perfectly well that the right of veto is wrong, that Russia sits in the UN and the UN Security Council illegally, as the successor of the Soviet Union, they came up with such a name – such a term does not exist in international law at all “successor”.
However, says Yelchenko, after the end of the Russian-Ukrainian war, another organization should emerge.
“One can imagine a situation where a new organization will be created by countries that win the war that is happening now. And I am sure that Ukraine will be among them and we will have our say. And just as we became the founders of the UN in 1945, so we will again become one of the fathers-allies of what is now called the UN. What it will be called in the future, I do not know, but I sincerely believe that something will be created.”