Recently, two Ukrainian scientists gave an interview in which they reflected on the current situation in Ukraine.

A version of the interview  appeared in  the Dutch newspaper NRC of March 15, 2025. It can be downloaded with the above link.

An English translation is reprinted below, with permission.

INTERVIEW

Political Science How should Ukraine proceed? Two fled scientists are concerned. "We know that if we give up our resistance, we will be occupied."

Yuliia Kurnyshova (left) and Oleksandra Moskalenko in the garden of NIAS, a research institute in Amsterdam.

Photo Roger Cremers

Yuliia Kurnyshova fled with her son on the first day of the Russian invasion, in February 2022. She crossed the border into Poland and has not returned since. "The bombing had started, it was purely survival." She wants to return as soon as possible. "My future is there, in Ukraine." Colleague Oleksandra ('Sasha') Moskalenko left shortly before the war with her daughter, after consulting with the family. Her husband stayed behind.

Both scientists are now temporarily staying as fellows at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies in Amsterdam (NIAS). Political scientist Kurnyshova (1980) is in the Safe Haven Program for researchers from conflict and war zones, partly funded by the University of Amsterdam and Maastricht University. She studies moral-legal aspects of the war and peace processes. Political economist Moskalenko (1983) is researching as a Duisenberg Fellow the financial reactions of the EU and their effects on the Ukrainian economy.

The developments around Ukraine are turbulent. How are you doing?

Kurnyshova, firmly: "That turbulence is not from the past few days or weeks for us. We have been in it for more than ten years, personally and professionally. Sasha and I have the advantage, in a sense, that besides being Ukrainian citizens, we are academics who can analyze the issues professionally."

How do you view the mineral deal as a political scientist and economist?

Moskalenko has a print of the draft text of the agreement in front of her on the table. "It is a declaration of intent to create a fund for the reconstruction of Ukraine, without security guarantees. That is contrary to the Budapest Declaration of 1994, in which Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for recognition of its sovereignty and guarantees by the US, Russia, China, England, and France."

Moscow wants a comprehensive arrangement that is a return to the Yalta Conference of 1945

What does Trump gain from it?

Moskalenko: "That he can show the American public that he has gotten something from Ukraine. How much that is worth, we don't know. We have no good idea of the minerals in the Ukrainian soil. Some minerals are also very difficult to extract from the ground, it can take years before it yields anything. So it is now mainly a plan for the stage."

Kurnyshova: "Both Trump and his vice president Vance present the deal as a kind of deterrent. If there are American companies active, the Russians would somehow become afraid and no longer dare to attack. That is an illusion. It is exactly the opposite: those companies will only come to do business when there is peace. This whole way of thinking is wrong."

Why did Zelensky come up with it then?

Kuryshova: "As part of a much broader peace plan, a first step. Trump only picked this out because it suited him."

Moskalenko: "It is also important that a country remains economically attractive to investors during wartime. That is also a task for a government in war."

Does Washington now completely follow the line that Moscow wants, according to you?

Kurnyshova: "The main difference with Moscow is that Trump wants a quick solution, a ceasefire at any cost – at the expense of Ukraine. Russia has no interest in quick solutions. It will not stop fighting, with violence. What Putin wants is to make Trump an ally of a bloody appeasement. Moscow wants a comprehensive arrangement that is a return to the Yalta Conference of 1945 when the Allies divided Europe into spheres of influence."

You study legal-moral arrangements for peace. The current trend seems clear to me: might makes right, power over law.

Kurnyshova: "Absolutely. That is absolutely true, unfortunately. After World War II, Europe was reshaped on a normative basis to prevent repetition. The most powerful countries in the world now make it clear that that normative basis no longer matters, that values no longer count. It is now transactional behavior, pragmatism, and power thinking. That affects everything. You already see an erosion of international institutions like NATO that are built on that normative basis."

And economically; money is power.

Moskalenko: "May I give some data on the economic situation of Ukraine? Of course, the economy is in bad shape, but the country is not completely broken. We had a big blow after the start of the full-scale invasion – up to 45 percent of GDP – but with international military and financial support, there is now economic growth again, albeit below the pre-war level. That shows the resilience of the Ukrainian population and economy."

Where does Trump get his wild figures about American support, up to 350 billion dollars?

Moskalenko sighs. "It is not true. If you add everything up, according to the German Kiel Institute, you come to 267 billion euros in support by the end of February, the majority coming from the EU, not the US. That amount seems enormous, but as a part of the American or German GDP, it is less than 0.2 percent. It is really not a huge burden, it sometimes seems more like a political pet project than a large-scale investment in European security."

What have been the main changes for Ukraine? A country that does not exist, according to Putin.

Kurnyshova, indignantly: "Why is he so obsessed with it then, for years? Putin says all sorts of contradictory things about Ukraine. The main thing is that Ukraine still has great internal cohesion and national loyalty after three years of war. Support for Zelensky is strong, everyone sees how unfairly he is treated. Not only does he have to pay for protecting all of Europe against this aggressor, but he also gets blamed for somehow starting it. We are attacked by a nuclear power! Then stopping military aid is a dramatic form of betrayal. But it unites Ukraine. We have no choice. We know that if we give up our resistance, we will be occupied and that if we are occupied, there will be repetitions of Bucha."

Is reconciliation with Russia possible?

Kurnyshova: "Not in the foreseeable future, too much has happened. The violence, the war crimes, atrocities that you could not have imagined in the 21st century."

Moskalenko: "This is an existential war. Russia is trying to steal our history, we are now rethinking it. Kiev is older than Moscow, not the other way around."

Kurnyshova: "Our nationalism – and I mean that in the good sense of the word – is comparable to that of the Baltic states after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Our future lies within Europe, loud and clear. We have no other option, our neighbor will not suddenly disappear."

Even in the Netherlands, some politicians and intellectuals still portray Ukraine as an internally hopelessly divided, corrupt country.

Kurnyshova: "That is the Russian narrative. They have been spreading it for years. But if we are so divided and corrupt, how have we been able to resist their powerful army for three years? The banking system in Ukraine functions, healthcare, the social system. Yes, there are cases of corruption, but do not portray us as the embodiment of European corruption."

You still hear: it all started as a civil war.

Kurnyshova grimaces. "Yes, horrible. It is not a 'conflict', it is not a 'civil war', it is not about 'protecting Russian-speaking populations'. All Russian propaganda. Unfortunately, you see it works with Trump. He repeats the ridiculous story that Ukraine started it, he wants to stop the 'senseless bloodshed'. Oh my God, senseless? He devalues all the losses Ukraine has suffered to remain independent."

When I grew up as a child in the east, I was ashamed to speak Ukrainian

What is still the role of the oligarchs?

Both burst into laughter. 

Kurnyshova: "Where have they gone? They have disappeared!" 

Moskalenko: "Before the war, an anti-oligarch law was passed by parliament. There are now a few cases. Every developing country initially has a period of unregulated capital accumulation, that was also the case in the United States. In Ukraine, this happened in the 1990s. Before the war, regulation began to turn the oligarchs into more 'ordinary' businessmen."

Kunyshova: "Oligarchs had interests in the occupied territories in the east. They also benefit from a sovereign state, otherwise, the Russians will divide everything there among their own oligarchs."

Has Ukraine's outlook definitively shifted towards the West, according to you?

Kurnyshova: "Ukraine and Russia are moving in precisely opposite directions. In Putin's Russia, the national community is defined ethnically and culturally. Only Russians are 'real' Russian citizens, even though the country consists of various peoples. In Ukraine, that has never been the case. We are now shaping our country as a political nation, for citizenship it is only required that you recognize Ukraine as an independent, sovereign state."

"While Russia is moving in the opposite direction, society there is highly depoliticized. It is not safe to express a dissenting opinion. In Ukraine, despite martial law and media restrictions, you can speak freely, for or against Zelensky."

Moskalenko: "That your ethnic background is important was imposed on us by the Russians during the Soviet Union. When I grew up as a child in the east, I was ashamed to speak Ukrainian. Even after independence, there was that pressure. It is a remnant of Russian imperialism. While Ukrainian is a much richer language than Russian."

Kurnyshova laughs: "That last part is outside our expertise."

Moskalenko, undisturbed: "No, no, it is part of it. Language is crucial, it is a political issue. That is why we all speak Ukrainian now. And really, it is a very beautiful language."

Correction March 11, 2025: In an earlier version of this article, it was stated that the Yalta Conference took place in 1944, that should be 1945 and has been corrected above.