Dear Principal Director, dear Ambassador, professors, and students, I’m very honored to be here. It’s a great pleasure to join this discussion today and to speak about my country, and my personal stories. I hope that you will find it as a contribution to your understanding of what is being gone on and why we’ve been striving with pure evil, as we call it because it’s not only the war for territories and lands, not only the war for territorial integrity and sovereignty, but also for the principles that we do care about, principles of freedom. And let me also thank you, Silvia, for opening up remarks, Alissa and Anna for performing a beautiful Ukrainian national anthem, for those great words of support, for the motto that David Sassoli suggested as I am not surprised, but let me not be intimidated and I believe this could be a motto of international relations today. We have to understand that Putin’s war against my country is something that started not only 24th of February but started in 2014 and it’s crucial to understand. I will try to deliver some of the messages that I usually try as the one who came from Crimea as a Crimean Tatar and as a former journalist, I will try to also give you an understanding of what happened in Crimea and why we made a tremendous mistake in 2014 and why we should not repeat this mistake today. I will, as far as it’s my first lecture, I’m not an experienced lecturer, but I hope that you will find my findings important.
So, I structured my 30 minutes lecture into several, let’s say, groups. The first is about the war and the consequences. Then partially, I would like to stop on Crimea explaining the root cause of this war and the narrative that has been assaulted by Putin that Crimea is a traditional land of Russia, which is not. I will try to destroy this myth. Then about the propaganda as far as I know, that this Luiss University is a nursery of patrols not only for diplomatic service but also journalists. I will try to speak about propaganda because it’s unprecedented. Also, I will try to focus on why it is important to understand the cognitive influences that are there, not only the cyber dimension but also the very nature of today’s propaganda. I will also speak about the future of my country, which is, I believe, irreversibly the European future and this is why I’m here. I participated in Torino, the ministerial committee, a couple of days ago to speak about the European candidacy and why it is important not to shut the window of opportunity for my country, and why we believe ourselves to be a European country. To finalize with these optimistic, I would say, messages about that nothing is impossible that my country is proving to be, that everything is possible.
So let me start with the war. Tomorrow we will mark and we will step into the 90 days of the war, like three months. I remember my first day when I came to MFA, at 9:00 in the morning when my minister was not in Kyiv. He was coming back from New York and I had to take the lead in the ministry. We had over 100 diplomats come to the premises of the ministry and we had a planning meeting for 3 hours. We kind of developed instructions on where to run, what to communicate, what to do actually, how to put this system in tone is how to reflect the full-fledged war. As a joke, I suggested to my colleague that let us go and check the bomb shelter. So, we went downstairs. It is a deep bomb shelter and the irony of that moment was that we found ourselves hiding from the Russian bombs, not the American bombs. These premises and the building of MFA of my country were built up by Soviets and we were supposed to hide from American bombs, but then, still, our diplomats were suggesting different. It was a half-joke saying we will bring some champagne, and some wine, just to spend time with because we didn’t understand. Our psycho was not able to understand the war started. And just an hour after checking the bomb shelter, I was standing in my cabinet, it’s the six-floor premises with a perfect view of the city of Kyiv, and I saw the first airstrike. There was an intelligence service premises and it was bombed and we all were in shock. So, we again went to the bomb shelter. It was not a joke this time. No talks about champagne, no talks about wine. It was kind of serious. Everyone was in the deepest concern. Everyone kept silent, our diplomats and I didn’t know what to do.
Then, the first instructions were to run, and then there was a decision to be evacuated. Part of our government stay in Kyiv, and the other part went to the Western part.
I was among those who left to the Western part and it was only one hand back, with nothing, with no clothes. It was a week and a half because of the Martial law everything was closed and you couldn’t even buy the socks. So I spent a week and a half wearing the same clothes and actually, it’s a very personal reflection. I will allow myself to share it with you. The first time I cried was in a week and a half when my friends brought me the suitcase with my belongings. As far as my apartment, I had already some of my friends who joined the territorial defense units living in Kyiv. Ten men were living in my apartment and someone I never met before. When I asked to bring the suitcase, I put the WhatsApp video and the man helped me to put my belongings in the suitcase.
When they brought it to me and I touched my things, I cried. I kind of allowed myself to feel the emotion and I understood what happened to my country.
Again, the war is a very horrible thing in terms of the personal stories, in terms of our lives, in terms of the consequences. More than 12 million Ukrainians, either became refugees or internally displaced persons. I’m very grateful to all of those countries who do express their support, not only by words, actually, but very practical things by helping our refugees, by opening up different opportunities.
I know Luiss University has also a separate scholarship, as my ambassador said and I’m very thankful because this is exactly what gives us this feeling that we are not alone. This is the fuel that we need to keep our resistance.
The war is horrible not only because of the very nature of evil but also because you live your own life. For example, I was sitting in Torino eating my pizza after thousands of meetings and I was strapped with a very puzzled feeling. Normal life is here. Everyone is drinking wine and talking to each other. This is something that we had in Kyiv, the same: attending restaurants, and cinemas but when you lose it. You immediately understand that this is the greatest luxury that we can have: living our normal life, sharing our families, loving our families. The war is something that takes it from you.
The first thing that you do in the morning when you wake up, is to go to your WhatsApp and check if your beloved ones were online if they are okay, especially those who joined the armed forces.
So of course, it’s tough to experience it. But, what is the most amazing thing is that our people, unexpectedly I believe for everyone including myself, sometimes, perform this tremendous bravery.
Today we have different discussions about, let’s say, negotiations. I remember that the first day of negotiations started in a very blunt way. When the Russian delegation came, they put the maps on the table, and said, we’re going to kill you here, here, we’re going to destroy you. This was the whole negotiations. And then in a couple of days, when they failed to perform their initial goal, which was the control over my country in three days, they started negotiating different aspects. But we understand that it’s only a declaration because Russia doesn’t want to have negotiations, otherwise they wouldn’t attack us. And today, when we are suggested to consider different scenarios of peaceful resolution, we are clearly saying that this peaceful resolution should not be on the vital course of my country. Territorial integrity on sovereignty is a sacred thing that should never be bargained or traded or discussed. This is our position. As soon as these criteria and this frame are there, we are ready for any efforts, and we believe that diplomatic efforts should be also performed.
I also want you to understand when it comes. This is an often asked question: why did Russia attack you? I think that Putin as a leader, as far as the system is a vertical system and only one person decides in a very, let’s say, classical and traditional Russian way, he’s 20 years as a tsar. He’s isolated.
The circles of people around him are scared to death, to inform him about anything that he might find unsuitable or improper. It’s a risk for their lives and I not saying that. So, of course, Putin lives in his bubble. As soon as a person has unlimited power, he doesn’t perceive the world as we do, as we are normal people.
He is not living this normal life. He is kind of living in Jupiter in his perception of life and I believe that his decision to attack my country was, in a way, a result in a consequence of these 20 years of unlimited power, and the democratic institutions are only decoration.
I think it’s really important to understand because the message in there, was a piece of the video, when he delivered his speech and I was watching it very carefully.
At this moment when I listen to this long speech, I understood that the war will start soon because he tried to explain his course to justify his crimes, saying this historical pretext that Ukraine is a failed state, that Ukraine is a nation that doesn’t have right to exist and that he wants to protect, and then, he shown him as a victim. This is probably the most cynical moment. They did it for centuries, by the way, and here comes my story, which is a Crimea, the entire story.
I represent an indigenous nation and I will speak about Crimea now. On the 20th of May, which was a couple of days ago, 1944, Joseph Stalin received a secret report about the two-day cleansing operation. On when 18th of May, the special forces of the Soviets, entered every single Crimean Tatar house. They put seniors, children and elders, and women into the cattle wagons and deported all of them to mostly Central Asian countries. The pretext for this, as we revealed afterward, was the collaboration with Nazi Germany. The most cynical was that men, Crimean Tatar men, were fighting within the Red Army. It was when they got back, when the war was over, they couldn’t find anyone. Every Crimean Tatar died because of this deportation confirmation perished.
I believe it’s the very classical way as Stalin justified the deportation by killing Crimean Tatars because we are a borne in their throat as far as one Crimean Tatars are physically existing they destroy this myth that it’s about traditional Russian land.
Same Putin is trying to explain this war by coming up with these false narratives about my country. Again, very classic. With Crimea and Taras, I think that it’s also to understand the history because Russia came for the first time to Crimea in 1783 with Catherine the second, the Russian Empire. And the first step that she did, she started oppressing and repressing indigenous populations, those who are not ready to go in front of Catherine the second.
Within 100 years of the Russian Empire, one-third of the Crimea population left mostly to current Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey this is exactly why we are having a big diaspora there. Then 1944 deportation put us at this risk of life. And in 2014 when the occupation happened, we automatically felt that Russia is again here and then we started having these marches and rallies with Ukrainian flags trying to protect us and save what we believed: Crimea is Ukraine.
And then I remember my feeling as far as I was a journalist, as I said, I would have been traveling Crimea back and forth, having a bunch of interviews with Ukrainian soldiers and everyone was in shock. And I had this desperate feeling, what is going on? Why no one is doing anything, why the army is not allowed? Why there is no action. And I understand that everyone I mean, in my country, we didn’t have a political leadership. We didn’t have a president as we have Zelensky today who pulled the nation together. This moment makes it different, 2014 and 2022. We didn’t have leadership. It was in that shock because can you imagine that my nation has been living for decades in this brotherhood paradigm. Russia was a country that assured our safety and guaranteed our security since 1994, when we signed up to the Budapest Memorandum and we, on our own, will refuse to develop the nuclear potential and the narrative that we’ve been living for decades with the Brotherhood narrative. And this was a stab in our back because no one expected Russia to invade my country, to invade Crimea, and kind of we were numb. And then we had the international community who I think thought that by giving Crimea to Putin, this would be enough, that his appetite would be fulfilled with Crimea. But it’s not. And let me give you a flashback of the Second World War, the Munich Accords.
When Hitler introduced Austria and occupied Sudetenland, and we had some world leaders thought that it would be enough for Hitler, but it was not that a year after the Munich Peace Accords, we started to have the occupation of Poland in the Second World War. It’s absolutely the same. Those who study international relations, I suggest you look deeper into this, because it’s for me, it’s quite evident. I say in parallel that Sudetenland and Austria for Hitler are Donbas and Crimea for Putin. So the logic and strategy behind is not something that we should find a proper language to talk to Putin or find a proper person who might listen to. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about people. What he wants is actually because of these appeasement negotiations, peaceful talks, shaking hands, meeting him, he feels and he sees and he considers it to be the weakness.
And I believe that we have to step out of these attempts to talk to him, but for thinking, what should we do to weaken Russia. Which should we do that Russia is ready for these negotiations because otherwise, they are not? This is about their military potential to be exhausted there.
So the Crimean story is important because we have an indigenous population and this is exactly why Russia first the Russian Empire, then the Soviets, and today Putin is willing to eliminate Crimea and terrorists because they are physically a nation that was born in Crimea. We are a mixture of all populations and tribes that ever inhabited Crimea, including the Italian blood, and the genealogical trees that we have in the southern part of my country and my homeland. So this is, again, something that Russia understood that as soon as Crimea is there, this myth is not functional. And this is why they have been doing the same in 2014 and the overwhelming majority of political prisoners in Crimea shut down the prison for nothing, for the pro-Ukrainian stand being allegedly called spies, being allegedly called extremists but we never had any case of extremism before 2014. Never. And immediately we started to live in the world of extremism when hundreds of Ukrainians have been put behind bars because they have been called, extremists.
So this is a new world in a new epoch, a terrorist one in the Crimean peninsula. And we have to understand that the nature of this aggression is that Putin was always willing to destroy Crimea terrorists and explain his narrative about his claim on the Crimea land.
So the main lesson that we have to learn is that appeasement doesn’t work, is that negotiation today is considered by Putin a weakness and that we have to think constructively about what should we do together to conquer this evil, the propaganda. I haven’t ever met this kind of scale of propaganda and false pictures and narratives as I started to see in 2014. I remember seeing different Russian TV channels, you know when they depicted Crimea, but it was not because I know perfectly well how Crimea looks like, nature, you know, the pictures and like we never knew that this would be possible to do so just to lie. And then I had my experiment. I’ve been watching Russia 24, it’s one of the most prominent Russian TV channels for two weeks. And even me, with my background, with my education, was my strong feeling and understanding of what was going on. I started to doubt. And then when I joined, when I left the peninsula to pass basket my with a cat, my daughter I joined the Ministry of Information Policy. It was a newly created ministry within the government. It was more of an agency of 22 people as a staff because we revealed this unprecedented level of propaganda and how it affects people. So we started to investigate and try to understand what is this propaganda. Because when it’s about the Western perception of hybrid warfare or information war, it mostly focuses on the cyber element. But cognitive influence is often underestimated. But what we believe is the most serious challenge is exactly this cognitive influence. When it’s like radiation, you cannot see it, but it affects your mental health. And at the end of the day, it affects your political choice. And this is what exactly Russia is trying to do. And the second is Goebbels propaganda is the classic Goebbels propaganda about, for example, convincing you that I am not Emine Zhaparova and they are the one right. But the Russian propaganda is about making you doubt that I am Emine Zhaparova or they are the ones. So it kind of takes the ground, take the trust. It makes you don’t have to trust anyone. And unfortunately, as far as I have many friends in Russia, even some relatives, and probably if you have them in Russia, I think that you can also make this experiment, talk to them about whatever argument you bring to the table and put on the table, whatever picture you show, whatever video you show, it doesn’t work.
You cannot break through their perception. It’s like this. I call it the religious cult, the adepts of Putin who trust him, who believe only in what he says, who believe only what they see in their TV box, but think that we have fakes and so on. My minister, when he first met Minister Lavrov in Antalya, when we had negotiations, Minister Lavrov said a lot of said what a fake you brought in this Mariupol maternity hospital. We all remember how the Russian army hit their missiles, not at the military infrastructure, but the maternity house hospitals. And then he meant it, saying that we were doing the fakes. So I think that the main issue that we all have to understand and investigate probably and research is why is this bubble that you cannot break through? There is no rational thinking. Not. Again, whatever video you can show, it will never break through their perception. This is exactly why 74% of Russian people, support the war against Putin in my country. And this is the biggest challenge. What shall we do with these people? I mean, 140 million of the Russian population, 74% out of this, 140 million, justified the war. And this is, I believe, the biggest challenge that we will face in the post-war period.
What Ukraine wants. We have this, let’s say formula about understanding that in case of countries are not willing to fight and we, of course, understand that countries choose to escape notice scenarios. But then as we think and as far as we are paying this highest price with our lives, as far as we contain the war that is not spread to the European continent, we have to do something to weaken the Russian economy. And this is, as we call the formula of sanction, of de-putinization, of weakening Russia. And this is about sanctions, is about military potential, because, as my minister said, we need weapons, weapons, and weapons just to be efficient in this war on the battlefield. And the political track is about our European perspective. As for the sanctions, of course, we welcome the fifth package of sanctions. I know that the six has been discussed and it’s been blocked by several countries, but I think that this should not be an ongoing track because Russia is trying to do its best to cancel, even though the narrative. By the way, their propaganda says: we don’t care about sanctions. I remember Putin also at one of the press conferences saying: “oh, sanctions don’t affect us”, It affects Russia, but probably not to the extent that it needs to be affected, because as soon as they have the war and the potential of having the war, it’s not enough. So we have to keep on performing sanctions. And this should include the energy embargo because when the war started and up to date, Russia earned €63 billion for fossil fuels, €63 billion for two months, and €44 billion came from the European countries. So it’s huge. Europe pays every day €600 million for energy supply. And this is huge. And with this, we will never have a weakened Russia and we will never have their will to stop the war. So it’s something that we request the countries to understand by performing the embargo on energy, even though we understand that there is a dependency level. But we have to start thinking about how to diversify the sources of energy, not from Russia. Then financial restrictions we continue calling the European countries to exclude the Russian and Belarusian banks from the SWIFT because it’s only seven banks today within the SWIFT. So they escape the sanctions because there are a bunch of others who operate on the Russian market. Then trade. Russia doesn’t deserve to continue benefiting from the goodwill and commercial relations of Western shipping companies and consumers.
Approximately 70% of Russia’s export are transported by sea and the rest by pipeline it’s like when it comes to oil and gas and the rail would go and the other. So we believe that Russia is dependent on foreign commercial fleets for its exports. A ship flying the flags of EU member states should not enter the Russian seaports.
Derogation of an entry ban on Russia flagged vessels to EU ports should be removed. All sales of products and services linked to technologies assisting Russia’s hypochondriac sector must be also banned. Media and communication. Again, as we understand that there is a large scale of propaganda, we also have to think about how to, on one hand, save this democratic principle of media freedom, but from another hand secure us from this propaganda and its effects on our societies and Europe.
I think also faced with migration crisis, with election interferences, you will have elections, I think in eight or ten months, right. So, I think that it’s always when any European country faces this stage of elections, it’s always about media activities. It’s about hybrid warfare. I think that Russia is very strong in Italy in terms of their presence and it’s about money. We also have to know the nature of these influences and then the political factor.
The third point in this formula is about European Union. I think that we are not the thieves, looking for the EU membership from the backdoor. What we want is to follow the procedures and we started to do in 2014, 2015, when we signed up to the associated agreement.
We were efficient in performing our reforms. Every single dimension of our life was under reform, medicine, education, anti-corruption, governance, decentralization. It’s not something that started with the war.
I know for sure that whenever there is a political will, there is a way. As far as we filed the questionary on the 9th of May, there will be an assessment of the European Union at the beginning of June. Also there will be a Council meeting at the end of June where the European leaders will decide the future of my country. We think that the candidates should be formed. If the window would be shot, it will give a strong feeling of failure, of betrayal to those Ukrainians who strive for this. The very revolution of dignity started in 2014 because we had Yanukovich who wanted to reconsider this European track. People did not agree to this policy and they died because of this. And then the revolution started and then Putin came using these momentum to occupy the piece of Ukrainian land. We had 7% of territories under occupation before the war. Now, we still have tens and hundreds of villages that are under occupation, like Herzen, for example, which is the bordering region with Crimea.
If you refuse to collaborate, they kill you. And this is very normal. So, understanding that European integration is first the process that we started before the war. Then the next step is candidacy. Between candidacy and our membership there is a journey. The only thing that we request is not to shut this window for my country and just to allow us to join. For us, this means to be part of the European family.
The final part is regarding: nothing is impossible. It is about those discussions about negotiations. Russia is a nuclear country with the second largest army in the world. On the contrary, Ucraina has different capacities in terms of everything. Nevertheless Russia attacks us, and I believe that they have already failed in performing their initial plans.
If you listen to the Russian media, they say everything is according to the plan because they have regrouped their efforts, military efforts, in the South and in the East. They wanted to have the whole country, they wanted to bring Yanukovich back and they failed. But if you listen to them, they claim that everything is according to the plan. So, I think that my country is a weakened speaker of that. Everything is possible because we couldn’t imagine that, Finland and Sweden will start discussing NATO membership. We never could imagine that European integration for my country would be boosted that much and that we can have candidacy quite soon. We never thought that Russia can be expelled from the Council of Europe. It’s an organization that invested a lot of resources to dominate there. We never thought that Russia could be expelled from the Human Rights Council in Geneva. So I think that this is a time of extraordinary happenings and as my president says: “extraordinary events need extraordinary decisions“. I have a very strong feeling as a person, when I talk to ministers and when I talk to foreign diplomats. I see how the European conjuncture has been changing.
Probably the Second World War was this momentum. We are at the stage of the biggest threats. And I think that the war should be contained because otherwise, it will become bigger. The nature of this aggression is always the same. If it’s not stopped, it becomes bigger. I have this formula. When I’ve been asked: “what do you think Ukraine should do?” So my formula is about survival, revival, and arrival. We are trying to do our best to survive. I think we’re doing a good job. We resist and I have no doubt as well as 93% of Ukrainian population believe in the victory.
Revival. This will be the post-war period when together, I hope and I believe with European Union and European countries, will reconstruct and will rebuild the country. Arrival is the future: a digital, democratic, and free country.
I’m very thankful to your country, to Italy, to friends of ours for this tremendous support that we see and feel. And I’m going back to Kyiv tomorrow. I will take this energy with me and I will share it with my colleagues, diplomats, and friends. Thank you so much, cari amici.
