John E. Herbst
This week, the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center took sixteen of its congressional fellows, Senate and House staff members from both parties, on a whirlwind trip to Warsaw and Kyiv. We rode the train from Warsaw to Kyiv overnight and spent two full days meeting with Ukrainian government officials responsible for security, foreign policy, the economy, and energy. We also met with opposition leaders, including former President Petro Poroshenko and former prime ministers Volodymyr Groysman and Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and civil society leaders. The realities of the conflict were immediately apparent. We arrived in Kyiv the day after one of Moscow’s largest air attacks on Ukraine since the war began, and we spent much of our first night in Kyiv in our hotel’s bomb shelter.
Without a doubt, our chief impression was the energy and renewed confidence Ukraine’s bold strike into Russia has provided the country’s leadership and people. They see the seizure of more than 460 square miles of Russian territory and the capture of hundreds of Russian soldiers as a clear victory, one that has changed the international conversation from a focus on peace talks or a ceasefire in place largely on Kremlin terms; they recognize that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s notion of a ceasefire in place is now much less attractive to the Kremlin.
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