Remarks at the Captive Nations-Victims of Communism Summit held at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation

Washington DC

July 11, 2024

Marta Farion, Vice President, Ukrainian World Congress

On behalf of UWC

It is an honor to represent the Ukrainian World Congress at this important gathering. Every Ukrainian has family members who were victims of Communism.  Every person in Ukraine is now hearing sirens of warning, everyone is aware of being a victim of Russian attacks.  We who are here understand that the brutal attacks on Ukraine right now are a threat to all the former Captive Nations.

As the NATO alliance convenes in Washington, the fate of Europe’s eastern and central frontline hangs in the balance. From the Baltics, to Belarus, to Ukraine, and the Caucasus, a new Iron Curtain has emerged as formerly captive nations are standing up to the Kremlin, and Ukraine fights for its very existence.

And while NATO was formed as a bulwark against communism in Europe at the onset of the Cold War, the alliance now faces a similar threat. Will the free world continue to stand against the Kremlin’s imperial aims, or will we enter an age of captive nations in Europe again?  This Captive Nations Summit has now acquired a new urgency.  This Captive Nations Summit is calling out the danger posed by the brutal Russian dictatorship.

The current Russian threat remains by far the biggest security challenge that NATO countries have had to deal with since the end of the Cold War. Putin called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the biggest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century.  Today he brutally attacks Ukraine and destabilizes other countries to achieve his goal of restoring Russia to the borders of the former USSR and expanding the Russian sphere of influence to Central and Eastern Europe.

Unfortunately, this situation is not obvious to all Western leaders despite Russia’s clear demands on NATO, which it put forward in its ultimatum in December 2021 that preceded the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine

And yet, even after over two years of continuous devastated attacks on Ukraine, and the latest targeted intentional bombing of Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital in Kyiv just days before the start of the NATO Summit, Western countries still pretend that the war between Russia and Ukraine is a territorial dispute between the two countries that does not pose a threat to them.  Is it fear that prevents them from taking positions of leadership and security?

Putin is not interested of just the land, he is interested in eradicating the Ukrainian nation, – of eradicating its identity, its history, its culture and its independence.  He wants Ukraine in his new Russian Union.  For Ukraine – this is an existential threat.  That is why Ukrainians surprised the world and repelled the Russian military for two and a half years, and that is why Ukrainians will fight and will win this war.

The ruthless killings of innocent children and civilians is intended as a provocation to demonstrate that Putin will continue its violence with impunity because he believes that NATO and the West are in disarray, and they lack the will to stop him.  He is also sending a message to the other former Soviet republics as a warning of what awaits them if they decide to oppose the Kremlin’s will.

That is why the war against Ukraine has acquired an existential character for Russia in an imperial way and for Ukraine as a matter of life or death, and no peace agreement between Moscow and Kyiv will guarantee that the war will not resume in a few years. An armistice will only provide time for Moscow to rearm for another war.

The only way to stop the war in Ukraine is to provide Ukraine with the necessary weapons to defeat the enemy and close the sky, and to increase the price of Russian military aggression. In our system of international political order, the only realistic security guarantee is Ukraine’s membership in NATO.   But such a decision is impossible without a consolidated position of the Western countries.

For the Western Alliance, the stakes in Ukraine are higher than ever. The loss in Ukraine will be a loss for the West and it will inevitably result in a complete change of the political landscape in Europe, and it will result in the decline of the Euro-Atlantic Alliance and territory as we know it.

NATO – the security alliance that has repeatedly proven its effectiveness and commitment to common values ​​- cannot allow such a development. The task for us – the civil society and the expert environment in our countries is to convey to our governments the threat to the security of our countries, and to our people.  With joint efforts, we in the western world, and the members of NATO must find the determination for a firm, clear and effective response to the latest Russian threat.

Thank you for continuing the work of this organization through all the years because it is now as important as in the worst years of communism.  God bless the work you are doing.