They view this, I think rightly so, as a campaign of extermination, exterminating Ukraine, exterminating the Ukrainian people. assistance, international assistance to beat back the Russians. But most of all, what I'm hearing is their resolve that they are going to fight this and that they are going to win. I'm hearing all sorts of things - their anger at Russia, their concerns for their children and the future. On what she's hearing from friends and colleagues in Ukraine right now Yovanovitch's new memoir is Lessons From the Edge. What Congress was asking me to do by testifying was a legal request, and it was wrong of the Trump administration to try to bar us from testifying." "But in the end, as I was thinking about this, it just felt and I knew that my greater obligation was to the Constitution. "It really felt like kind of the final break with the State Department," she says of her testimony during the impeachment inquiry. Though the State Department pressured her not to testify, she took the stand to detail the smear campaign and Giuliani's plot to oust her. In 2019, Yovanovitch became one of the star witnesses during the inquiry that led to Trump's first impeachment, which revolved around his dealings with Ukraine. "It undermined our diplomacy, because if I could be sent out of post after a smear campaign perpetrated not only by the Ukrainians but by my own government, then the same thing could happen to others." "The whole episode around me was so unusual and so wrong," Yovanovitch says. Eventually she was abruptly removed from her post. Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer at the time, accused her of being corrupt and working against the president, and Trump later went on to smear her on social media. During the Trump presidency, however, Yovanovitch found herself in the crosshairs of the administration's efforts to dig up dirt on Hunter Biden's business dealings in Ukraine. President Barack Obama nominated Yovanovitch to the Ukrainian ambassadorship in 2016, two years after Russia invaded and annexed Ukraine's Crimea region. And I think he certainly miscalculated the resolve of the West and that we would go to the assistance of Ukraine." "I think miscalculated how well his own military would do. "The Ukrainian people are standing up and saying, 'This is not going to happen,' " she says. But, she adds, Putin seems to have underestimated the Ukrainian people and their military. She says she used to view Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "bully." Now, she sees him as a "war criminal" who is intent on reconstituting the Soviet Union. "The kind of world we're going to be living in, when this is all done, is being determined now," she says.Ī career diplomat, Yovanovitch is familiar with the players and politics of both Russia and Ukraine. ambassador to Ukraine, says Russia's invasion represents a "battle of freedom versus tyranny" - with implications that span the globe.
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