Alyona Getmanchuk, director of the New Europe Center, spoke at the Atlantic Council’s discussion “Will Russian war crimes in Ukraine continue?” Other speakers included Oleksandr Danyliuk, former Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Lieutenant General Keith Dayton, and Vladimir Milov, a Russian opposition politician. The discussion was moderated by Ambassador John Herbst, Senior Director of the Eurasia Center, Atlantic Council. 

During the speech, Alyona Getmanchuk said that real talks are underway on the battlefield today, so the West must urgently provide Ukraine with weapons that will allow it to win.

Other theses of the NEC director:

• Ukraine proved once again that for saving more people’s lives it is ready to compromise. And this is Ukraine’s response to those voices who are accusing it is not willing to compromise for the sake of peace.
• Ukraine’s readiness to give up on NATO’s membership aspirations and Ukraine’s turning into a neutral state in exchange of new international agreement based on legally binding security guarantees for Ukraine is not even a compromise, but really a painful concession. Let’s agree, that is not easy to refuse from NATO membership idea when 70% of Ukrainians support Ukraine’s membership in the Alliance. And this is despite huge disappointment in NATO’s reaction to the current war.
• Negotiations should not distract Ukraine and its partners in the West from the most crucial task at the moment – weapons supply to Ukraine. Those weapons and in those amounts that are needed for Ukraine, not those that our partners consider useful or have in excess.
• Real negotiations are being held on the battlefield now. And we should be ready that diplomatic negotiations can lead to nowhere. War crimes are only narrowing down the room for manoeuvers within the negotiation process.
• The referendum itself is a strong signal that Ukraine is a democracy and no major decision taken by the Ukrainian president – even when he is enjoying an unprecedented 90% of public support – would be credible, sustainable, and accepted by society. Especially as a result of the war which we call a people’s war in Ukraine.