Financial Times

This is a recording of an FT subscriber webinar with FT journalists Alec Russell, foreign editor, Ben Hall, Europe editor, Anastasia Stognei, Russia correspondent, and guests Ekaterina Schulmann, Russian political scientist, and Lesia Vasylenko, Ukraine member of parliament, on Russia's war on Ukraine, organised by FT Live on February 23

We are throwing a veil of mysticism around a very simple resource-based kleptocratic autocracy. An autocrat's goal is to remain in power. If he is still in power, then he is good at his job. He may be making decisions based on wrong information. We all do, but it doesn't make him or her irrational in a sense of crazy. So again, let's not mystify this whole thing.

I suppose that, again, based on open evidence, Russia's goal in Ukraine is the establishment of a pro-Russia regime in Kyiv. That was what has been stated from the very beginning. And under the terms of denazification or demilitarisation or whatever, the idea is still the same. Current Ukrainian regime is hostile to Russia. We need a pro-Russia people, pro-Russian people in Kyiv. That's the goal.

Territorial annexations are second best things because we couldn't do that, that's the Russian logic, then let's take territory and establish a pro-Russia regime that is our own on those territories. The more territories they take, the more pro-Russian territory we have. But the goal is a friendly somebody in Kyiv, a Medvedchuk-like figure and the fall of what is called an official Russian language Zelenskyy regime.

Ben Hall, the FT’s Europe editor, was joined by two colleagues and two expert guests on Thursday February 22 for a subscriber webinar about Russia’s war on Ukraine as it enters its third year. The panel featured Ukrainian MP Lesia Vasylenko, Russian political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann, FT foreign editor Alec Russell and Anastasia Stognei, who covers the Russian economy, sanctions and ordinary Russians’ living standards for the FT.

Our panel covered the following topics and more:

How will Ukraine fare if Russian President Vladimir Putin wins his bet on Donald Trump returning to the White House and Europe takes over as Kyiv’s main source of military and economic aid?

How can the west make sanctions more effective as Russia militarises its economy and suppresses any domestic challenge to the war it unleashed with the February 2022 invasion of its neighbour?

As Ukraine’s military momentum falters and Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s popularity wanes, should Ukraine hold presidential elections and how can it regain the initiative on the battlefield?

What do third countries stand to lose or gain from the outcome of the conflict?

FT subscriber webinar: Russia’s war on Ukraine

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