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00:00Bonjour.
00:01Bonjour.
00:02Alors, vous avez une belle chemise ukrainienne.
00:06Ça trahit vos origines, puisque vous êtes né en Ukraine.
00:10Oui.
00:10Vous êtes journaliste.
00:12Vous êtes en même temps responsable d'une ONG, comme on dit en français.
00:16Et vous faites un peu le tour du monde des rédactions pour parler de votre pays, de l'Ukraine,
00:24et de ses difficultés qu'elle subit aujourd'hui.
00:27Première question, mais pour vous présenter vous, qu'est-ce qui a fait que vous ayez
00:33eu envie de faire ce tour du monde pour aller à la rencontre des rédactions du monde entier
00:39pour parler de votre pays ?
00:40Well, indeed, I was, for the entirety of the war, until last September, I was based in
00:47Kiev, unlike many of my colleagues, men from the ages of 20 to 61, who are not able to
00:56leave Ukraine, I'm lucky, I have a dual citizenship, I'm a U.S. and a Ukrainian citizen, so I was
01:01able to travel, I was traveling to Davos and Munich Security Conference, so I was lucky,
01:08but after three years of sitting in Ukraine and broadcasting and talking about the war,
01:12as the bombs were literally flying and our building where our TV station is based, 26th floor
01:19was literally shaking, that's just the reality of life in Ukraine. I felt like I needed to do
01:23something else. I frankly felt burnt out, tired of the same thing and so I decided to go to distant
01:31countries, the so-called Global South, I don't like this term, but it's probably better than
01:37Tiamond, right, the third world that used to be called, but basically distant places that normally
01:45don't come into contact with Ukraine and vice versa. To talk about this war, to share my story of the war,
01:53of the daily life in Ukraine, why I think that this is a generational conflict, why its effects will
01:59reverberate and have a domino effect for generations to come, and it's still not settled, you know,
02:05it's still in the balance. If Ukraine falls, we will be talking about a different world
02:10that will affect all of us, this situation, but it's also a listening tour, it's not just me telling
02:15people what to think and, you know, but it's for me to listen to how people in these distant places,
02:21and I started in South Pacific, I went to Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea,
02:28Australia, New Zealand, how they perceive this conflict, who do they support, how it has affected
02:34their lives. After the South Pacific, I went to Johannesburg, South Africa, and for six months,
02:41I was traveling through 20 African countries, no planes, just buses, trains, wherever they are,
02:50cars, slow travel, crossing borders by land, going to small towns, going to the capital, speaking on
02:57state TV, speaking to gatherings of elders, taxi drivers, just a huge amount of communication.
03:03I've been able to appear on 35 different African TV channels, more than 60 radio programs,
03:10and dozens and dozens of newspapers, and in a way, this was a first. Someone like, for example, Burundi,
03:17a country that no Ukrainian has ever visited, from what I understand, in this capacity,
03:22and a country where Ukraine does not have an embassy. Why I went, why I'm doing this,
03:28as a sort of ambassador at large, is because Ukraine does not have the capacity to fill this
03:33role. We don't have embassies in most of these countries, we don't have an embassy in Malawi,
03:38no embassy in Zambia, and these are big countries, no embassy in Namibia, you know, no embassy in
03:44Tanzania, for example. Russian Federation has embassies in 48 out of 54 African countries. This
03:53is just to give you an example. So Ukraine is playing catch-up. It's now compensating for decades
03:59of being absent from the politics of the African continent. Now that Ukraine needs the support of
04:05the So Global South, we have activated our work. Ukraine opened 10 new embassies in Africa after
04:13the war started. And so this is to complement, to complement those efforts. I am not traveling
04:20as part of the Ukrainian government. I don't receive a penny, a cent from the Ukrainian government.
04:24This is largely life savings. I'm using largely my own funds, and this is my private initiative.
04:30– Beaucoup des pays que vous avez cités, la Russie y est très présente et effectue un travail diplomatique
04:40très important et même en finançant ces pays africains. Quel accueil vous y rencontrez et comment est-ce
04:50que vous êtes perçu là-bas ? Est-ce que vous n'êtes pas ressenti que ces pays maintenant beaucoup ont basculé
04:57et sont devenus pro-Russes ? – Well, indeed, Africa especially. Africa is a fertile ground
05:04for Russia's propaganda efforts. It's been written about in some of the countries with free press
05:10like South Africa and Kenya. Kenya has devoted… many Kenyan newspapers have recently… Madagascar aussi.
05:17– Madagascar, yeah, addressed the issue of Russian involvement in political processes. Madagascar,
05:222018, the elections and the Wagner group involved itself on both sides of the election. When I went,
05:29I was in Madagascar two weeks ago and journalists told me like, Peter, we had 50 registered parties
05:34in these elections and they told me behind every party there was a Russian operative. They support
05:40everyone. It doesn't matter. They will come out the winner because an investment is made and then they
05:45will get it back in resources. Central African Republic, Niger, Mali, Côte d'Ivoire, Sudan,
05:50Chad, wherever Russia has involved recently, especially Francophone Africa. That's a big problem.
05:56And when I was coming to Africa, of course, there were concerns of safety and all of these things.
06:02Thank God they haven't materialized. I felt safe everywhere I've gone and I received much better
06:07reception than I thought. Once again, it's evidenced by my ability to present my case on state TV.
06:14I was on state TV in TV Mozambique, which is very difficult to do. Mozambique is a pro-Russian country,
06:19not like Zimbabwe or Burundi, but it is. But somehow I was able to present my case. And so
06:26my reception has been much, much better than I expected. But, you know, your answer,
06:33your question is actually correct. You know, some countries like Burundi, the President of Burundi,
06:39General Ndayeshimiye, has openly expressed support for Russia. Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe has openly
06:48supported Russia. So in those countries you will see sometimes the images of Putin on buses, public buses.
06:54Putin, Ndayeshimiye and Traore, the strongman in Burkina Faso, also supported by the Russian Federation and
07:01the Wagner mercenaries. You have Putin and Gaddafi. So there is this cult of strongman that is being
07:10kind of imposed by the Russians in Africa, or at least assisted, right? This is sort of the idea that
07:17in the, you know, climate of endemic and hopeless corruption, the only hope is for strongman. Traore,
07:26Gaddafi, Putin. So there's a sort of hierarchy, a sort of, you know, altar. And I've seen a lot of
07:32Africans who admire that. But I still believe that a lot of these efforts are not genuine,
07:37they're not organic. A lot of what you see, this imagery on buses, etc. Or there's a graffiti wall
07:43in Johannesburg that I saw with ANC leaders, Mandela and Putin together. I believe that the Russians may
07:51be behind this. They're sponsoring these little things to make it look like just an outpouring
07:57of public popular, you know, love and, you know, enthusiasm about Vladimir Putin. I do not believe
08:07that all of these efforts are organic. I don't believe that all of them come from the people.
08:11The Russians are working very cleverly. They have a lot of money to spend to make it look like
08:16Africa supports Russia. I disagree with that. And even if you have governmental dealings
08:23with Russia, when I was in Namibia a week before my visit, Namibia signed a nuclear power agreement
08:30with Russia. And of course, when I talk to the journalists, I say, it's your sovereign right to
08:36make, you know, whichever treaties and to be friends with whoever. But, and then I tell them about the great
08:42narrative that I'm here to grapple with, to discuss the narrative that Russia is fighting these
08:48neo-colonialist forces and helping Africa regain their independence again from the Brits, from the
08:56French, just like the Soviet Union helped Africa in 1962 in fighting apartheid. And so they're saying,
09:01help us. We are for democratization of international relations. The Ukrainians have a counter argument.
09:07They're saying they're disguising their imperialist with this rhetoric. They're disguising their own
09:12imperialist and neo-colonial war against Ukraine, which they want to bring back as a former colony.
09:18And I think that argument is, can be very effective in Africa. I've also used an analogy when they say,
09:25well, you're very related people, Ukrainians and Russians, you're brothers, right? Well,
09:29that's exactly the rhetoric Putin used. In fact, Putin said, there's no difference between
09:33Ukrainians and Russians. It's the same people. And I say, okay, it's like example, South Africa,
09:37the Zulus decided that we have this country called Lesotho and the people of Basotho. Basotho,
09:43Setswana, we have Zulu. They're all related Bantu peoples. Why? We should just be one Zulu nation.
09:51I think Lesotho people would disagree with that. They have their own identity, even though they may be
09:55related. So that's another argument I've used about the historicity of Putin's arguments that just
10:01because Ukrainians and Russians come from the same history, their Eastern Orthodox religion,
10:06it does not mean that Ukrainians do not have their own identity.
10:09Question
10:11Annexe, je dirais, mais beaucoup de ces pays ne sont pas très sûrs. La vie d'un homme n'y a pas beaucoup
10:18d'importance. Quand vous y allez, vous n'avez pas peur vous-même un jour d'être assassiné?
10:23Maybe I'm reckless or just maybe I should have more fear than I do. Maybe I should exercise more
10:30caution because there have been stories, horrible stories. Before the war started, Central African
10:37Republic of Wagner mercenaries killed their own Russian journalists. You may have heard this story.
10:45A group of three or four journalists were murdered by their own compatriots who were mercenaries
10:52protecting the government of Central African Republic. So and before I came, my friends of friends,
10:59two journalists from Czech Republic with a very small YouTube channel were asking people about
11:05politics around, you know, like Vox Populi, around the city of Harare in Zimbabwe. They were apprehended,
11:13they were put in jail for two weeks and then they were deported. They were very lucky, they were just
11:17deported. So there is that, you know, concern because if you come as a officially registered journalist
11:25on a journalist visa, you cannot come. I mean, you will not get that visa ever. So you have to be very
11:30careful. You don't go around asking people questions and especially not about internal politics. So even in
11:37Zimbabwe, I did not reach the level of state TV. But I was able to, you know, I got on the pages of a
11:46of a government newspaper.
11:49For example, one of the oldest published in Bulawayo. I mean, there are some, Africa is a surprising continent.
11:54So there are hits and misses. There are security concerns.
11:59And yet, once again, I did not feel for a single moment unsafe in
12:05Africa. Of course, I mean, I feel much less safe in Ukraine. Even before the war, you could run into
12:10just simple banditry, right, in Ukraine. France, I'm sorry, but some of the European
12:16cities, Genève, Paris, in some places, are very unsafe. Africa feels much safer than any of the
12:22European cities these days. Sorry to say that.
12:26This is a very important, and it's a question that hurts. It's a painful question,
12:55because the math, the arithmetic is decisively against Ukraine. Putin has shown that he has
13:04enough people and he's got enough money to pay for cannon fodder, people he just puts and uses as just
13:09meat in the grinder of this war. And some of these people have never seen the kind of money that
13:16Russia is willing to pay to sign the initial contract to go into the army, up to $27,000.
13:21For some of these Russians in Siberia, it's an untold amount of money, and they're interested. And so,
13:29the question is, when Russia will run out of these men? Russia needs more men because it's on the
13:34attack. The attacking side loses more men, it needs more men, so there's a little bit of that
13:39compensation. But still, Ukraine is running out of able-minded men to fight in this war. I just had a
13:46friend who was snatched off the street by the recruiters. He is in his late 40s.
13:54When you're 48 years old, I don't think you can be a good soldier, especially if you've never fired a
13:59gun. I mean, even after 30, you cannot be a part of a storm, a storm brigade. It has to be under 30.
14:07Ukraine has the oldest, demographically oldest army fighting right now. So, and recently,
14:15Zelensky has had to yield to the demands of his electorates, the mothers and fathers,
14:20to let the men from 18 to 21 leave the country. They were banned from leaving. Now they are. And
14:27some of these men now, of course, they started leaving. Poland has seen an uptick in the number
14:32of men there. I can guarantee you that probably over 50% of them will not return even after the
14:38war is over. They're putting down roots. They're finding jobs. They're going to be settling down,
14:43having children. That is, apart from that, there's a big issue of the demographics.
14:49Five to six million of Ukrainians remain outside of Ukraine. And that means women of childbearing age,
14:57women who are giving birth to children outside of Ukraine, who do not have anything in common with
15:01Ukraine anymore. So that's going to be a huge issue even after the war is over and Ukraine still is
15:08able to maintain its identity, its sovereignty. But when it comes to the fighting men, once again,
15:16the equation is, once again, is very lopsided in favor of Russia. Russia not only is able to send
15:22more men into this war, but it's been able to recruit North Korean soldiers. They've been found some
15:28Chinese now nationals in the army and actually Africans. You know, there's been stories about
15:33Africans not just fighting in Russian army, but actually working in some of these drone producing
15:40plants. Yelabuga in Tatarstan. I visited Zambia. I visited Zimbabwe and journalists there told me that
15:48they actually were sent by their media houses to Russia to investigate these stories about African women
15:56working in these plants, producing weapons, producing drones. And that's where I see the disbalance.
16:05Russia can rely on its authoritarian partners to get more manpower. We in Ukraine, we do not have
16:12that luxury. Europeans and Americans do not have any appetite to send their men to fight in Ukraine.
16:19The only formula we hear from the French and the British is that peacekeepers, yes, tens of thousands,
16:25but only after the war is over. But the question is, will Ukraine be able to stay in this fight
16:32when the math is so much against it? Because still, yes, it's a drone war, we say, but we need men to
16:39operate these drones. It's still a matter of numbers. We still rely on men to do the fighting.
16:44What is the situation in Ukraine today?
16:51The situation is, of course, it's gotten harder. The attacks are more vicious. Putin is able to
16:56launch up to 800 drones per attack, per night. So that means, you know, civilians in Kyiv, city of four
17:05million people, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Odessa, spend up to 10 hours per night spending, you know, in a bomb
17:13shelter or in a subway. That means sleep deprivation. That means psychological, psychiatric problems
17:19multiplied by millions. There's a whole country as hostage to this crazy man's fixation on Ukraine.
17:26He's terrorizing our civilians. This is not a war against military, against military. Putin is throwing
17:32everything. And he's trying to create the situation, make life impossible for Ukrainians, where they
17:38capitulate to him, where they demand Zelenskyy, you know, make whatever peace at whatever cost with
17:44Putin. That's Putin's, you know, calculation. Of course, more Ukrainians now than ever before believe
17:51that Ukraine will not be able to get back Crimea and the Donbass. There's a realization that it's not
17:57going to be possible in the near future. More people are for peace, but I don't think that Ukrainians
18:03are still willing to reach peace by capitulation, because they know that if they give in to Putin's
18:10demands, Ukraine will disappear as a sovereign state. Putin is not fighting for just some piece
18:15of territory. He's fighting for the whole Ukraine. But having said that, it's also not very helpful to
18:21Ukrainians when it comes to their fighting spirit, to the morale, when you have such mixed messaging coming
18:27from Washington, that transatlantic unity is eroding, when the whole group of European leaders have to
18:35accompany Zelenskyy to the Oval Office, because they are afraid that the American president is giving
18:41too much to Putin and not getting anything in return. This is very discouraging to our soldiers
18:47and to our civilians to see this kind of disarray and chaos in Western Capitals.
18:53Sur le terrain, au cours des derniers mois, on était assez inquiet, pessimiste, parce que les Russes
19:01progressaient très peu, mais régulièrement, ils grignotaient. Et là, depuis quelques jours, on a des bonnes nouvelles,
19:09parce qu'on apprend qu'il y a des contre-offensives ukrainiennes et que vous avez repris quelques villages.
19:13Est-ce que ça vous rend plus optimiste pour l'avenir ?
19:17I mean, there's good news and bad news here. Of course, you know, you have to start with the idea
19:23that, you know, I take part in panels on different TV channels, and there are Russian or panelists
19:31who are sympathetic to Russia, in Arab channels, China Global Television Network, and they always say,
19:38well, Russia is definitely winning on the battlefield. It's conquering villages. First of all,
19:43let me say, at the pace that they're doing it, it will take them several years to reach Kyiv,
19:49and they will lose another million men dead and wounded. So it's a question of how many,
19:55you know, victims can Putin sustain, right? He plays a good game. He's a KGB man. He's like, ah,
20:01we can throw another 300,000. That's what he's broadcasting. But we really don't know where
20:05that critical line is for the Kremlin. That's sort of this time X. We don't know what is the limit.
20:12Putin is also hoping for a collapse. In a sudden, in war, it's not just linear progression. It could be
20:18one soldier turns around and it leads to a panic and the front collapses. That happens. And Putin is,
20:25as a man obsessed, like Hitler in his bunker in 1945, he believed in the victory of Third Reich until
20:30the last moment, when everyone, when Goebbels was shooting himself in the head and his family,
20:34Hitler was the believer. So Putin will remain that believer until the last moment.
20:39And also, let me just say that, remember when Putin went into Ukraine and when he announced that war
20:45on February 24, 2022, he expected, by all accounts, he expected the Ukrainians to fall within three to
20:52seven business days and walking to Kyiv within a week, be greeted with flowers as the liberator. And
20:59three and a half years later, we're still here. Just think about it, three days versus three and a half
21:04years. So, if Ukrainians are, you know, enabled to continue to resist, if we get the kind of weaponry
21:11we need, if Europeans are able to create this joint production of drones with Ukraine, and that's already
21:19being discussed. The Germans are helping, the French are helping, etc. Then I think Ukraine can stay in
21:26this game. But with this, once again, this vacillation and hesitancy that we see in Europe, with the
21:32ascension of right-wing populist parties, Alternative for Deutschland and, you know, and others, I don't
21:39have to name the name, but the French politics have also known its share of right-wing populism lately.
21:45Right-wing populism always happens to be on the side of Putin, except with the exception, with one
21:52notable exception, Giorgio Meloni in Italy, who's a big friend of Ukraine. So, it's not so cut and
21:56dried, but that's exactly what Putin is counting on, that on the one hand, he's got this authoritarian
22:02monolith, you know, Russia, Iran, China, North Korea. On the other hand, he's got this fractious politics of
22:09Europe, and he feels that he will divide and conquer. He's got his allies, Orban, FITSO, he's got
22:16Alternative for Deutschland and all these right-wing or left-wing, extreme left-wing parties. He feels
22:22that sooner or later, they will buckle, they will give up on Ukraine, and he'll be able to walk into Kyiv.
22:27Comment est-ce que vous voyez l'avenir de l'Ukraine à moyen terme, je dirais ?
22:32Very tough, but, you know, once again, three and a half years, Ukraine is still there.
22:38Economically, there's actually, paradoxically, it's a miracle. There's been an uptick, and I know,
22:44because we started from a very low point of 2022. Everything went down, so there's been a little bit of a,
22:49you know, improvement in the economy. Of course, all of that thanks to the European Union, and,
22:58you know, zero percent loans, and this economic support without it, Ukraine would not have been able to
23:06survive. That's very clear. If that holds, I think Ukraine can continue to stay in the game. One important
23:13initiative, and I will finish with that, is something that is being debated, as you know, in European capitals,
23:19what to do with the sovereign wealth fund, frozen assets of the Russian Federation, 300 billion plus
23:25dollars that was frozen at the beginning of the war. There's some resistance there, but recently,
23:31U.S. senators, including Lindsey Graham, have actually decided to support the idea of not just
23:37using the interests on this to help Ukraine, but actually confiscate the assets. It's a controversial
23:43issue. There's pros and cons, and there's some argument that it will hurt European banking system.
23:49Tremendously. On the other hand, some, you know, Lauren Striebe and other Harvard professors wrote a
23:54100-page report saying that it's justified. If we're talking about how it breaks with international
23:59norms, well, Putin broke with the norm by invading a sovereign country, right? So it's justified.
24:04It's a sweet, generous situation. You should do it. I think there's a momentum for that.
24:09The French, the Brits and the Germans are sitting on the fence. They're not sure about it, but I think
24:16sooner or later, a decision will have to be made. It's only just if it's the only just decision that using
24:22Russian money, Russia's own money to help Ukraine resist the aggression. I hope it happens sooner rather than later.
24:30For what reason? Explain to the French, Europeans, but to the French in particular. For what reason it's also
24:36important for Europe, for France, to support Ukraine?
24:40It's very important for very pragmatic reasons. Imagine Ukraine falls now. How many more millions
24:46refugees will spill over Europe's borders? They will not be running to Syria, and most of them will
24:52not be running to Russia. Some, but not all. You're talking about 10 more million Ukrainians,
24:59maybe a million in France. Imagine the sort of pressure it will create for politicians there.
25:04This influx of refugees leads to radicalization of politics, as we've seen. Europeans understand that
25:09very well, that maybe we should just give Ukraine enough money, support Ukraine to where Ukrainians
25:14actually are able to stay there and not come to us, because it's a serious blow to European economies,
25:22at least for a while. Eventually, well-educated refugees such as Ukrainians benefit the local
25:29economies, including in Poland. Ukrainians have benefited Poland tremendously, but then you have
25:34this phenomenon of Nawrotsky, right-wing politician who actually came to power with some, using some
25:40anti-Ukrainian rhetoric, because every time you have a million people coming, they create disruption,
25:46they create, they present a challenge. The Ukrainian women present a challenge to Polish women, right?
25:52They become this eligible women. All of a sudden you have hundreds of thousands of women coming from
25:56from another country, competing for the men. I mean, it's actually as simple as that.
26:02And another thing is they know, President Macron knows it, he's actually taking the lead on this,
26:08at least rhetorically. I think France has led, especially recently, when it comes to the rhetoric
26:15about the need to support Ukraine and to increase its own defense, right, industry, especially with
26:23everything that's happening in Washington and all the rhetoric coming out of that. They know that if Ukraine falls,
26:28next up there will be Moldova, the Baltic states. We saw how Putin now is probing NATO's defense,
26:34chapter five, right, of NATO's charter, by launching 20 drones into Poland shortly after violating
26:41Romanian airspace. It's already happening, folks. Let's wake up. The war is happening. It's just, it's a hybrid war.
26:48We will not see Russian tanks spilling over to Polish border and then going to Germany. It's not going to happen.
26:53This war is being prosecuted by other means and it's already happening. And if Ukraine falls,
26:58it will intensify and everything, it will present clear and present danger to European liberal democratic project.
27:07Merci.
27:08Thank you.
27:16Thank you.
27:18Thank you.
27:20Thank you.
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