The following is a transcript of an interview with Marie Yovanovitch, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, that aired Sunday, March 27, 2022, on “Face the Nation.”
JOHN DICKERSON: We want to turn back now to the war in Ukraine and welcome the former US ambassador to that country, Marie Yovanovitch. She’s the author of a new memoir, “Lessons from the Edge.” Good morning, Ambassador.
FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE MARIE YOVANOVITCH: Good morning.
JOHN DICKERSON: President Biden, three days in Europe, Brussels and then went to Poland. What did you make of that visit?
YOVANOVITCH: I thought it was a hugely important trip where the president was able to demonstrate not only American leadership but Western unity in this hugely important challenge that Russia has inflicted on Ukraine, but more broadly on the West.
JOHN DICKERSON: He talked about unity. How fragile is that unity? Because it seems like everybody is saying all the right things. How fragile is it? So fragile? The president must go and make a visit to keep it together.
YOVANOVITCH: I think one month in there was a symbolic effect, but there were also a lot of accomplishments that were cited during the various summits. This was narrow, but it was also the European Union. It was the G7. There were – and then obviously the trip to Poland, where he met with President Duda, as well as Ukrainian refugees, as well as the 82nd Airborne, and of course, importantly, the Ukrainian defense and foreign ministers. So I think a lot was accomplished there and a lot of announcements were made, you know, more and more humanitarian assistance, the 100,000 slots for refugees, more military groups going out to Europe and the list goes on.
JOHN DICKERSON: The 100,000 refugees that Biden said that America would take. How important is that in talking to Europeans who are the ones? I mean, Poland is taking the brunt of the refugees. How important is that in terms of showing that America is pulling its weight, for lack of a better term –
YOVANOVITCH: The burden and being supportive? I think it’s important, but I honestly my own opinion is that it’s just a start because when you’ve got up to 10 million, just been perhaps the numbers are even higher this morning. 10 million displaced people in out of- out of Ukraine, about 3.5 in- in Europe, 100,000 doesn’t begin to, you know, really start to approach the kind of figures that we’re probably going to need to show. That said, though, many Ukrainian people aren’t looking to come to the U.S. or even to Western Europe. They want to stay close because they want to go back and rebuild. I mean, it’s really inspiring.
JOHN DICKERSON: You have contexts there. You live there. You tell me what you’re hearing from within Ukraine.
YOVANOVITCH: Well, they’re you know, they’re kind of encouraging me. You know, when I express concerns and worry, they’re saying, don’t worry, we’ve got this. We are going to we are going to keep on fighting. And they are. And they’re asking for our help. And so just recently, I got an email from one of my former bodyguards who wanted he said, you know, “Madam Ambassador, you know, I would never ask for myself, but I really I need equipment for my team. I need, you know, medical kits. I need body armor. I need boots.” And so I tried to hook him up with some people who could provide them.
JOHN DICKERSON: How do they read the statements by President Biden and other Americans who say, we’re with you. We’re with you. We’re with you except to the border?
YOVANOVITCH: Yeah, well, you can imagine that on the one hand, perhaps at a very high level, they understand that we have Article Five responsibilities under the NATO Treaty. But on the other hand, they wish that we would do more. I think we are doing a lot, but I think we need to keep on backfilling when it comes to security assistance because the Ukrainians are using everything that we and other countries are providing. But we need to keep on backfilling it because it’s been used.
JOHN DICKERSON: As a career diplomat, how do you read, and your expertise is not just Ukraine but Russia as well, how do you read this Donbass move from the Russians? The idea that- the public statement is they’re going to focus on Donbas. Does that have an effect in terms of diplomacy? In other words, could some countries say, okay, well, it’s not pretty, but we’ll give them Donbas just so we can be done with this war?
YOVANOVITCH: Yeah, I think- so, perhaps. But I think that what we’ve learned over the last month and a half or several months, if not the last 20 years, is that we can’t always trust what the Russians are saying. So, they made that statement and then a day or so later, they attacked Lviv in the west- far west of Ukraine, very far away from the Donbas. So I think we need to wait and see.
JOHN DICKERSON: There is an incredibly prescient moment in your book where you talk about U.S. not really reading Vladimir Putin right, and you predict this is before any of this happened, quote, we will someday, maybe soon find ourselves in a serious confrontation in a context not of our choosing and not to our advantage. So building on that platform, how is the interpretation- the West’s interpretation or America’s interpretation of Putin- how- are we getting him right at this moment and how should we think about the way he sees things?
YOVANOVITCH: Yeah. You know, that is the question at the moment, isn’t it? And I- I- think it’s hard to know. It was always hard to know. But especially now after COVID and the isolation that he finds himself in with just a very small group of advisers, people who’ve been with him, you know, since K.G.B., St Petersburg days. And there’s just not- not a lot we know about what kind of advice he’s getting or what he knows. But I do think that Putin is a man who only understands strength. And so when, you know, right now, the- the- the Biden administration is trying to navigate this very narrow lane of supporting Ukraine on the one hand, standing up for our values and our interests, but also doing the utmost not to expand the war. And when we look at that as a positive thing, that this is restrained and positive, I think sometimes perhaps Vladimir Putin looks at it as a sign of weakness. And so, again, this is a very difficult lane to navigate. And right now, I think the Biden administration is doing a pretty good job of it. But obviously it require- requires constant calibration and recalibration in terms of what’s going on on the ground.
JOHN DICKERSON: I want to get to something you wrote about in your book. You talked about chauvinism at the State Department, how there were no female role models. This week, Madeleine Albright, the first female secretary of state, died. You served under her. Tell me about that experience and how important it was to have a woman in that role.
YOVANOVITCH: Well, she- she you know, she broke that glass ceiling. And once you have one, you’re going to have another one. And she was a role model, I think, for many of us. I was very junior when- when she was secretary of state. But she was a pioneer as the first woman secretary of state. She was- as an immigrant to this country from, in fact, I think, a refugee from Eastern Europe, war-torn Eastern Europe. She was a strong voice for democracy and human rights and for Ukraine. And so I got to know her just a little bit. It was a privilege when she visited Ukraine while I was there as ambassador, and she very kindly took time out to speak with me and provide advice and encouragement.
JOHN DICKERSON: All right, Marie Yovanovitch. Ambassador, thank you so much for being with us.
YOVANOVITCH: Thank you.
JOHN DICKERSON: And we’ll be right back.
