McCain Institute’s Evelyn Farkas on Ukraine: ‘Don’t ever count them out’

Since Election Day, President Biden has made three decisions aimed at helping Ukraine in its battle against Russia. The Biden administration has cleared the way for defense contractors to help repair weapons in Ukraine, it has given Ukraine permission to use U.S.-made long range missiles on targets deep inside Russia and, most recently, announced it will provide U.S.-made anti-personnel landmines to slow Russia’s advance.

In response, Russia formally announced a new nuclear doctrine declaring for the first time that it would use nuclear weapons in response to any attack that posed a "critical threat" to its sovereignty and territorial integrity. It also declared for the first time that it had the right to use nuclear weapons against a state that didn’t have its own nuclear arsenal but was backed by a power that does.

Evelyn Farkas was an assistant defense secretary for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia during the Obama administration and is now the executive director of the McCain Institute in Washington, D.C. When the Click Here podcast spoke to her last week, Farkas had just returned from a trip to Kyiv to meet with government officials there. She says people shouldn’t count Ukraine out just yet.

Our interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

CLICK HERE: If President Trump comes in on January 20th and ends aid to Ukraine, how does that manifest itself on the battlefield and within Ukraine itself? 

EVELYN FARKAS: It won't manifest itself on the battlefield immediately because of course the U.S. government is providing as much as possible. And the Biden administration has been pretty clear. I don't know if they said this publicly, but certainly privately, they're trying to move everything as fast as possible into Ukraine.

It takes some time after the money is dispersed and Congress and the president agree to provide some package of equipment to the Ukrainians to actually get it into the theater, into the battlefield. They are trying to accelerate that as much as possible.

CH: President-elect Trump said on Fox News that he was going to say to Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelensky, you have to make a deal. And then he'd say to Russian President Vladimir Putin, if you don't make a deal, we're going to give Zelensky everything he wants. Is that what you think is going to happen? 

EF: There's something to that. I mean, that's essentially what I think most of us outside the government who have been engaged in trying to help Ukraine have been arguing for from our government. We've been saying, take more risks, don't be afraid of escalation, provide Ukraine with what it needs to win and that will make Russia come to the negotiating table. 

President Trump is basically saying the same thing, except he's putting himself right in the middle of it. And if that works, great — so long as the peace doesn't mean that Zelensky isn’t sacrificing more than what is acceptable to him and his people. So it has to be kind of just peace as well. 

CH: I think what we're starting to hear now is that Ukraine is focusing on security instead of necessarily pushing Russia out of Ukrainian lands. In other words, making sure that if there is a ceasefire, it's something that actually works and keeps its industrial base safe so that there can be investment and it is safe to rebuild.

EF: I think what's become clear now is that Ukraine could use a ceasefire, even if it's not a permanent ceasefire, they could use the opportunity to rebuild. Of course, that goes both ways. Putin could use it as well. So I think that they're looking at that. 

The problem is, of course, if that is a ceasefire without a real security guarantee, like a bilateral U.S. security guarantee. It needs to be similar to the one that we give Japan and the Republic of Korea, or a real NATO membership. It's only a ceasefire, especially with Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin. If there were a change of government in Russia, a government that wasn't, um, you know, imperial or neo-imperial, then it might be a different situation. But nobody's going to trust Vladimir Putin not to try again. 

CH: Do you think that leaving the Kursk region is going to be a prerequisite for Russia to come to the table? 

EF: Yeah. It might be, but I think right from the beginning [the Ukrainians] telegraphed that they're willing to do that. President Zelensky called it a bargaining chip. He said, ‘We're not trying to acquire new territory.’ He got some prisoners back already, but I think he definitely sees it as a bargaining chip. So from that perspective, if they can hold onto it, it is clever. The question is, can they hold onto it? 

CH: Given that now Russia has added 10,000 North Korean soldiers to their own forces to get it back and everything else they're throwing at it.

EF: Yes, exactly.

CH: Do you think the North Korean fighters will bring South Korea in, in the sense that South Korea will provide more arms to Ukraine? 

EF: Trump won the election, and now I'm not so sure, because South Korea has to worry about its own equities. If you recall in his first term, President Trump was also very critical, as he is with all of our allies, about what were they doing for us lately, what were they paying, and whether they are sharing the burden sufficiently for the security that we provide to South Korea.

So I think the South Koreans might take a pause to try to figure out what their relationship is going to be like [with the Trump administration] by making sure that U.S. troops are there to provide deterrence to North Korea. If they think that they can, they certainly do want to do something to respond to what North Korea has done. They've already provided weapons indirectly to the Ukraine war by providing weapons to Poland and the United States to essentially backfill weaponry that we took off the shelves and sent over to Ukraine. 

CH: Senator Marco Rubio is likely to be Trump's Secretary of State, and he's praised the Ukrainians but has added that the problem is the U.S. is funding a stalemate. Is he wrong? 

EF: At a certain moment in time, you can say it looks like a stalemate, but I think it's too simplistic to say we're funding a stalemate. I mean, we're funding Ukraine, in its quest to maintain its sovereignty, not be colonized, you know, recolonized again, by the Russian Federation. And they are not necessarily losing.

So a stalemate is not a bad thing. In the sense that they're not losing a stalemate indefinitely, of course, is a problem, but the fight for Ukraine is so important because if Vladimir Putin gets his way in Ukraine... it will embolden Vladimir Putin to continue to try to regain former Soviet states like Moldova, Georgia.

He's effectively taken over using political means. He will then probably try to probe NATO states. And I'll just draw your attention to an op-ed that I have that is running on The Hill where I basically enumerate all of these sabotage operations that Russia conducted in Europe over the summer. And these could be precursors to actual attacks in Europe that would cause the Europeans to potentially have to invoke Article Five. So there's a lot at stake in Europe alone with regard to Ukraine. And that's before I get to Taiwan and China, because if Putin prevails and he can get his way with Ukraine, then President Xi will be emboldened.

He'll see the West is weak and the West isn't going to stand up for these democracies. And so Xi will see an opportunity to take Taiwan. And then we'll be at another point, because of course, if NATO's invaded, that's a political crisis for the United States, if our NATO allies are invaded.

If Taiwan is seized, or at least attacked by the Chinese, that will also cause a political reckoning, a political crisis in the United States, because while we don't have a treaty relationship with Taiwan, we do have a bipartisan agreement that we should support Taiwan and come to Taiwan's aid. President Trump himself has been fuzzy on this — ranging from fuzzy to not interested. 

But I think the body politic and his advisors, meaning Congress and his advisors, feel differently. So, we would be in a much more difficult position if Xi felt like he could get away with seizing Taiwan, which again, goes back to Ukraine, because he would feel emboldened if Ukraine were to be basically ceded to Vladimir Putin. 

CH: What do you think a likely settlement, if there is one, would look like, if Trump is going to force the hand? 

EF: If he forces the hand, I don't see any way out of this — any way out that doesn't include some kind of security guarantee for Ukraine. I don't know how they would think it was safe or fair. And so I think the prerequisite is either a hardcore bilateral security agreement or NATO membership.

And frankly, the NATO members are already ready, from what I understand. Maybe Hungary is an exception, but they would now accept Ukraine as a NATO member. So I think NATO membership would be critical. Other than that, I think that President Zelensky — I can't speak for him or the Ukrainian people — but I think if they had to trade some land, you know, they may find a way to do it.

So that doesn't seem permanent. But if that's a deal they have to make, they might make it because they could save the rest of their country and they could save their democracy. 

CH: So it would be, you can stay there for now. We'll discuss. 

EF: Yeah, or you pretend that you're okay, fine Russia can have it — but there's an asterisk. So sometime in the future it could be revisited. When the Baltic states were occupied and taken over by the Soviet Union, the United States put a big diplomatic asterisks there so that when the Soviet Union fell apart, it was a different scenario from an international law perspective for the Baltic States, because the international community continued to kind of recognize their sovereignty tacitly throughout the Cold War. There are all kinds of things you can do if you have the will. 

CH: They must have had contingencies for if Trump came into power. What are you hearing from them in terms of the switch of administration and its implications?

EF: They are still trying to get some things out of the Biden administration, you know, before they leave, and I think the Biden administration is trying to figure out what they can do to help Ukraine and hurt Russia before they leave.

I think President Zelensky understands Trump is a president who's really transactional. He's going to be thinking about what's in it for me. Zelensky has referenced the fact that Ukraine has mineral deposits – like titanium and lithium – that could be important for U.S. industry and U.S. national security. 

He probably also will appeal to President Trump's desire not to be a loser. The United States has been backing Ukraine since 2014, and I think if President Zelensky were clever, you know, he would try to talk about victory, not just for Ukraine, but victory for President Trump. How does President Trump achieve a victory that the world will regard as a victory, not that only President Putin would regard as a victory. 

We always think it's up to us to do X or Y, but don't forget the Ukrainians are watching this as well. And they're not worried about upsetting Trump by defending their own territory.

I think that there are a lot of options now for people that they didn't have before. I think things might've been much more frozen or in the stalemate phase, politically, economically and militarily. If there was a turnover from President Biden to President Harris, you know, there would be a desire to give her some time to get into office and not upset her. Or the Biden people who presumably would be working for her as well. 

So now there's a little more leeway for Ukraine and, frankly, also the Europeans to do what they think they need to do to help Ukraine.

CH: You’re not as negative as I thought you were going to be. 

EF: Don't get me wrong. I'm concerned, but I don't think it's all doom and gloom. I do think that the Ukrainians need a deal. But I always believe that eventually right prevails and the Ukrainians are in the right. 

CH: So don't count them out yet?

EF: Don't count them out. Don't ever count them out. We counted them out last summer. Remember? We counted them out in February 2022. We've counted them out so many times. Don't count them out.