Today, American University Kyiv had the honor to host AUK Co-Founder and Supervisory Board member Kurt Volker, U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations (2017-19), and U.S. Ambassador to NATO (2008-09), at a press conference for Ukrainian and foreign media during his visit to Ukraine.
It is a great tradition at American University Kyiv for Ambassador Volker to meet AUK team, students and the media to share his views and forecasts regarding future developments in Ukraine and globally. During the press conference, he focused on the latest political and global news, while stressing:
"I believe in Ukraine’s victory. I have no doubts here. But we need to understand that if russia is able to defeat Ukraine, then Putin will regroup and try to reclaim the next piece of the russian empire, which could be the Baltic states, or Finland, or parts of Poland. His campaign slogan is "Russia has no borders". This is a crazy imperialist and genocidal mentality, where no one is safe. We're actually fortunate that Ukraine is strong and is fighting. And we should help Ukrainians defeat Putin. We should have in our minds a time when Europe is peaceful again, when there's no war. The time when everybody can cover themselves through their own institutions, a democratic process and growing prosperity so that people can live better lives. That's what we should have in mind. And the only way we get there is by Putin being defeated. That's the argument that everyone in Western Europe and the United States needs to understand.”
We sincerely appreciate Ambassador Volker's unwavering dedication to Ukraine and our university, as well as the straightforward messages he sends to the Ukrainian audience.