[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


117th Congress                               Printed for the use of the
2d Session             Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
_______________________________________________________________________

                     Diverse Voices Reporting From Ukraine


                  [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


                             APRIL 20, 2022
                             
                             
                             
                            Briefing of the
             Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

_______________________________________________________________________

                            Washington: 2023



             Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
                    234 Ford House Office Building
                           Washington, DC 20515
                               202-225-1901
                            [email protected]
                            http://www.csce.gov
                               @HelsinkiComm


                    Legislative Branch Commissioners

              SENATE			        HOUSE
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 		STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
  Chairman				  Co-Chairman
ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi 		JOE WILSON, South Carolina   
  Ranking Member			  Ranking Member
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut		ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas			EMANUEL CLEAVER II, Missouri
MARCO RUBIO, Florida			BRIAN FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania
TIM SCOTT, South Carolina		RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire		RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina
TINA SMITH, Minnesota			GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin
THOM TILLIS, North Carolina		MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island
                                           
                      Executive Branch Commissioners

		  DEPARTMENT OF STATE, to be appointed
		 DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, to be appointed
		DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, to be appointed
		
                                 [II]		

     ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE

    The Helsinki process, formally titled the Conference on Security 
and Cooperation in Europe, traces its origin to the signing of the 
Helsinki Final Act in Finland on August 1, 1975, by the leaders of 33 
European countries, the United States and Canada. As of January 1, 
1995, the Helsinki process was renamed the Organization for Security 
and Cooperation in Europe [OSCE].
    The membership of the OSCE has expanded to 57 participating States, 
reflecting the breakup of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and 
Yugoslavia.
    The OSCE Secretariat is in Vienna, Austria, where weekly meetings 
of the participating States' permanent representatives are held. In 
addition, specialized seminars and meetings are convened in various 
locations. Periodic consultations are held among Senior Officials, 
Ministers and Heads of State or Government.
    Although the OSCE continues to engage in standard setting in the 
fields of military security, economic and environmental cooperation, 
and human rights and humanitarian concerns, the Organization is 
primarily focused on initiatives designed to prevent, manage and 
resolve conflict within and among the participating States. The 
Organization deploys numerous missions and field activities located in 
Southeastern and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. The 
website of the OSCE is: .

      ABOUT THE COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE

    The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as 
the Helsinki Commission, is an independent U.S. Government commission 
created in 1976 to monitor and encourage compliance by the 
participating States with their OSCE commitments, with a particular 
emphasis on human rights.
    The Commission consists of nine members from the United States 
Senate, nine members from the House of Representatives, and one member 
each from the Departments of State, Defense and Commerce. The positions 
of Chair and Co-Chair rotate between the Senate and House every two 
years, when a new Congress convenes. A professional staff assists the 
Commissioners in their work.
    In fulfilling its mandate, the Commission gathers and disseminates 
relevant information to the U.S. Congress and the public by convening 
hearings, issuing reports that reflect the views of Members of the 
Commission and/or its staff, and providing details about the activities 
of the Helsinki process and developments in OSCE participating States.
    The Commission also contributes to the formulation and execution of 
U.S. policy regarding the OSCE, including through Member and staff 
participation on U.S. Delegations to OSCE meetings. Members of the 
Commission have regular contact with parliamentarians, government 
officials, representatives of non-governmental organizations, and 
private individuals from participating States. The website of the 
Commission is: .

                                [III]

              Diverse Voices Reporting From Ukraine
                               __________
                               
                             April 20, 2022


                                  
                       COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT
								Page

Hon. Steve Cohen [D-TN], Co-Chairman				12

                        COMMITTEE STAFF PRESENT

Bakhti Nishanov, Senior Policy Advisor, Commission on 
Security and Cooperation in Europe				1

                              PARTICIPANTS

Oz Katerji, Freelance Conflict Journalist			2
Asami Terajima, Journalist, Kyiv Independent			7
Olga Tokariuk, Independent Journalist Based in Ukraine 
and Non-Resident Fellow, CEPA					8


                                [IV]

 
              Diverse Voices Reporting From Ukraine

                             __________                              

                           April 20, 2022


           Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
                          Washington, DC

    The briefing was held from 10:02 a.m. to 11:37 a.m. via 
videoconference, Bakhti Nishanov, Senior Policy Advisor, Commission on 
Security and Cooperation in Europe, presiding.

    Mr. Nishanov: [In progress.] Before we kick this off and before I 
offer some--[audio break].
    Thank you very much and good morning. My thoughts are probably as 
organized as my attire is this morning, so I am not going to really 
speak much except to thank the Helsinki Commission for putting together 
this panel. I am very involved and interested, and I think the world is 
in what is going on in Ukraine. I want to learn from each of the--our 
panelists about how we are getting information. I just look forward to 
listening and understanding and getting a better appreciation for the 
difficult task that you have and the important work that you do. Thank 
you.
    Mr. Nishanov: Thank you so much, Congressman. Really appreciate 
your participation. We will have a Q&A session where I know you always 
have very good questions, and we are looking forward to your 
participation.
    As I mentioned, you know, even today as I was--it just dawned on me 
that as I was saying good morning, wishing good morning to everyone it 
is with a full realization that people in Ukraine have not had a good 
morning in 2 months now. It is, of course, because of this completely 
unjustified murderous war that Russia is waging against Ukraine.
    This war is tragic and infuriating, but this war is also insidious. 
I want to make it clear, any war is insidious, but this one especially 
so because it is based on the narratives that deny the existence of the 
Ukrainian people, of the Ukrainian nationality and identity, and the 
utterly nonsensical claims of fighting Nazis in Ukraine. The horrors 
that we have seen and Ukrainians have lived, frankly, whether the Bucha 
massacre, the siege of Mariupol, the shelling of civilian homes, abuse 
of children and women, are in name of these completely false and 
ludicrous narratives that the Russian propaganda has been spreading.
    I want to make it clear: No far-right party made the parliamentary 
threshold in the last election in Ukraine. Ukraine has a Jewish 
president and had a Jewish prime minister as recently as a few years 
ago. It is also home to multiple ethnic and religious minorities, 
including the Crimean Tatars who have been staunch supporters of the 
Ukrainian nationhood. No--and frankly, it is just--it is painful to be 
even talking about it or repeating this--Ukraine is no Nazi haven. 
Despite this, this insidious narrative is strong--even, frankly, among 
the audiences who have access to unbiased information.
    We thought we would bring together a set of diverse voices covering 
Ukraine to highlight the unity of their narratives about what is truly 
happening in Ukraine. In many ways, today's briefing is unique. All we 
want to do, we want to spotlight the voices, let them tell their 
stories, and for us to listen, learn, and hopefully act. This is the 
important element. Acting and not just listening is very important.
    In some ways my job today is very easy because we have this 
remarkable, outstanding panel, people I have been following and 
listening to and learning from for years now. At the same time, it is 
an incredibly difficult briefing because of the reason why we have 
gathered here in the first place. I do wish, frankly, it was not 
happening because we are doing this and it is the war and it is the 
horror and massacres that are unfolding in Ukraine.
    With that, let me introduce our panel. We have three panelists 
today--witnesses today.
    Oz Katerji is a British-Lebanese freelance conflict journalist 
currently reporting in Kyiv. He has spent more than 13 years covering 
the Middle East and international conflicts with a focus on human 
rights and open-source investigative techniques.
    We also have Asami Terajima. Asami is a staff writer at the Kyiv 
Independent. She worked as a business reporter for the Kyiv Post until 
November 2021. She was originally from Japan, but she moved to Kyiv at 
a young age and lived in the capital ever since. She is currently 
working toward her MBA.
    Olga Tokariuk is an independent journalist and a non-resident 
fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis. She is based in 
Ukraine. Olga has vast experience working with Ukrainian national 
media. Her reports were published by Time, The Washington Post, The 
Daily Beast, NPR, you name it.
    This is an incredible honor for us to be hosting this panel of 
witnesses, and I think without further ado I would like to kick it off. 
First, if everybody's fine, I would like to start with Oz because he, I 
think, brings a really unique perspective. Oz, we are here to learn 
from you and to listen to what you are seeing on the ground in Ukraine. 
I also would like to ask you, since you have been focused on the 
Russian war in Syria, on the horrors that Russia has been--has been, 
you know, committing in Syria, if you could just also talk a little bit 
about some of the similarities of the narratives or strategies that you 
have seen in Syria and Ukraine to really drive home the point that what 
Russia's doing in Ukraine is not some one-off things. This is a 
systematic effort to eliminate people. With that, Oz, I am going to 
kick it off to you, and please jump in.
    Mr. Katerji: Sure. Thanks for having me. Thanks to the Helsinki 
Commission for organizing this.
    I would also like to personally thank Representative Cohen. The 
letter that he sent recently to the White House about restricting 
travel for British lawyers that have been involved in some quite 
horrific cases of basically intimidating journalists from reporting the 
truth on Russian dark money in London and around the world, and how 
Putin's network of oligarchs, you know, advance his power and his 
foreign policy interests around the world. These lawyers have been 
acting, you know, with impunity for a long time now, and there is no 
method currently to hold them accountable. It is really important that 
the Helsinki Commission has taken it upon itself to make these steps to 
hold British citizens--British lawyers who have been acting as the 
legal wing of Putin's Kremlin--Putin's kleptocratic, thuggish 
oligarchy--to hold them to account for their--for their role in this, 
because they do have a role in this and the role is multifaceted. There 
is the legal intimidation. There is the vast amounts of money that have 
been spent on media--Russia Today, Sputnik, and various, you know, 
fringe organizations on the far left and the far right that have had 
dark money pumped toward them to put out Russian propaganda. We have 
Russian propaganda being, you know, broadcast to the American public on 
right-wing talk shows. It is not just limited to Russian-sponsored 
television networks, but the long arm of this stuff is clear to see and 
has been clear to see for many years now.
    On to your question about the--speaking about the war in Syria, for 
me the war in Ukraine was not a surprise. I was not shocked that it was 
happening and I believed the intelligence assessments. I am a British-
Lebanese journalist. I focused my entire career on the Middle East. 
Obviously, in 2014 what happened in Crimea, what happened in the 
Donbas, these became really important. I recognized--not just myself; 
many of my colleagues recognized that what was happening in Syria and 
what was happening in Ukraine was part and parcel of the same 
geopolitical situation, and that is the solidification behind a fascist 
dictatorship in Russia.
    You know, Putin consolidated power. Russia is now a militarist, 
totalitarian dictatorship, a revanchist dictatorship with territorial 
goals. This is something that we considered not--not a possibility for 
a great power or a superpower in the post-World War II liberal order. 
It has happened now. We were told throughout history growing up, or at 
least my generation were, that no liberal democracy is going to be 
invaded by a, you know, nuclear-armed dictatorship, and such stuff is 
hysterical alarmism. Anyone who is focusing on Russia's actions in 
the--in the field of conflict can see the writing on the wall here. It 
did not just start in Syria. You had Georgia. You had Chechnya. These 
were the practice runs, Syria was the opening shot, and Ukraine is the 
continuation of Putin's war of expansion into Europe. It will not stop 
at Ukraine's borders unless it--Putin will not stop unless he is 
stopped.
    Let me--let me bring it straight back to Syria. The one thing that 
we saw Russia's involvement in Syria, they did not supply the manpower 
to Syria. That was supplied by Iran's various militias after the Assad 
regime spent all its manpower and most of--you know, huge swaths of the 
army defected and joined the Free Syrian Army--formed the Free Syrian 
Army. Assad was struggling for manpower and he required--he required 
Iran to provide that manpower for him. That still was not enough, and 
in 2015 Putin had to intervene militarily in Syria. Now, again, they 
did not provide huge amounts of manpower. What they did provide is 
military firepower and lots of it. That firepower was concentrated 
specifically targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure. This was 
widespread. It is systematic. It is documented. It is been proved by 
multiple U.N. human rights investigations--not that they are worth much 
in and of themselves, especially considering Russia's U.N. Security 
Council veto, which is something I will move on to later.
    Just to name a few of the atrocities committed, one of the most 
glaring ones was the aid convoy that was supposed to head into Aleppo. 
Russia was besieging Aleppo and they, after weeks of bargaining with 
the U.N. and over the Security Council, they agreed to let in a 
humanitarian aid convoy into the--into besieged Aleppo. What did Russia 
do? It bombed the convoy. It followed the convoy live on Russian State 
television, it cut the feed of the convoy, and then it bombed it for 2 
hours, and then it blamed the terrorists.
    Russia systematically targets civilians, civilian infrastructure, 
hospitals, schools, bread lines, then it denies that it committed these 
atrocities, and then it blames the atrocities on the people that are 
living in the areas that they have bombed. This is their doctrine. This 
is how they operate. This is their modus operandi. It has been 
consistent for years. Anyone who has tracked anything in Syria will 
tell you that the Russians bomb something, lie about it, and then blame 
the victims. They did that with a conscious effort to defeat every 
single pocket of resistance against the Assad regime, their client/
vassal State in Syria, to the point of they would besiege and they 
would starve and they would bombard. That was the tactic: besiege, 
starve, bombard.
    Once they besieged the area, they did not just--well, you could not 
say it was indiscriminate bombardment. Yes, the bombardment was 
indiscriminate, but they did discriminate. They were not bombing 
frontlines; they were bombing hospitals. We know because every time a 
field hospital was opened and those locations were handed to the United 
Nations for protection, the Russians would ask the United Nations for 
those locations for protection and then they would bomb those 
locations. This happened repeatedly, systematically, to the point that 
NGO's--including Medecins Sans Frontieres--had to stop providing the 
locations, the coordinates to the United Nations because that meant 
they were going to get bombed by Russia. It is as--it is as black and 
white as I am explaining it to you. There is no ambiguity. There is no 
nuance in what was happening here. We knew every step of the way that 
this was happening. We knew it was happening.
    I am going to be critical of the U.S. Government here. Successive 
administrations--Democrat and Republican--decided that allying with 
Russia in Syria was a goal to achieve a counterterrorism/war on terror 
goal in Syria. They allied with Russia, effectively, while Russia was 
bombarding systematically civilians. Russia suffered no significant 
sanctions for its behavior in Syria. It suffered no accountability for 
bombing aid convoys, for bombing hospitals, nothing. Not a single thing 
happened to Vladimir Putin and his regime. That was everything he 
needed to know, that he could act with total impunity.
    When it came to chemical weapons, yes, they were used by the 
regime, but they were launched from airbases where the Russians were, 
and then the Russians provided the diplomatic cover. In Syria, they 
provided the firepower and the diplomatic cover while Iran provided the 
troops.
    This gave us two things with the war in Ukraine. One, it taught 
Putin that he could act with total impunity when it came to war crimes 
and targeting civilians--that no one, not a single soul, not a single 
government, was going to act to stop him--not one. The second thing it 
taught him was that war is easy and that all you have to do is besiege 
a civilian population, bombard it, starve it, target its critical 
infrastructure, and you will break the will to fight of the population. 
That is where he strategically miscalculated, because he was not 
supplying the manpower required to do that. Iran was sending in human 
wave attacks, tens of thousands of troops from poor backgrounds in 
Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan. Recruiting--forcibly recruiting teenagers 
to be human wave attacks, to basically--so the Syrian rebels run out of 
ammo. That is the point of these human wave attacks. They wore the 
Syrians down through Iranian manpower and Russian heavy bombardment.
    It is not difficult to see Putin looking at Ukraine and thinking: 
There is not a single person in the world that is going to stop me if I 
bomb a Ukrainian hospital tomorrow. He was right there, because no one 
has--no one has lifted a finger to stop him personally, no one. What he 
did not understand was that the manpower losses would be significant, 
and that Ukrainians would fight to defend their territory. It was not 
so much spoken about, about Syrian rebels who did not have a proper 
army, who did not have international military support, who did not have 
diplomatic cover, they did not have any of this. They still managed to 
hold back the regime and its forces in towns like Ghouta. For 5 years 
they managed to hold out under siege, bombardment, starvation.
    Putin really, really underestimated what he was actually doing in 
Syria. And he tried to apply that same doctrine to Ukraine, and he has. 
He has been bombing hospitals. He has been bombing schools. He has been 
bombing bread lines. He has been bombing Holocaust memorial centers. 
This is what he has been doing. He has been committing crimes against 
humanity--systematic crimes against humanity--and war crimes. He has 
been doing so with his own justifications that he said very proudly in 
his speeches addressing the Nation, that he is doing it because he does 
not believe that Ukraine exists. He does not believe that Ukrainian 
national identity exists.
    In fact, he believes that any expression of Ukrainian national 
identity is equivalent to Nazism. That is why they are talking about 
Nazism. It is not because of the, you know, 3,000-4,000 members of the 
Azov Battalion. It is because he believes that the Ukrainian national 
identity, any national identity that does not want to be subordinate to 
Russia, to Putin, to the Kremlin, is Nazism, and that is why he has 
focused his propaganda on this lie, this absurd, disgusting lie that 
Ukrainian people are all Nazis, it is a Nazi State.
    I can tell you myself, the things that I have witnessed, Muslims, 
Jews, gays, lesbians, transgender people, all members of the 
territorial defense fighting alongside each other in the defense of 
their nation. That is not a Nazi State. That is not a pure 
ethnonationalism at play here. I met immigrants, a Libyan who moved 
here 6 years ago after fighting Gadhafi, sought refuge and asylum here 
in the Ukraine. Now he has decided, a Muslim Libyan, has decided to 
join the territorial defense here. Again, this is not a Neo-Nazi. It is 
not someone who believes the pure Aryan race.
    There are people like that that exist in Ukraine, a small 
percentage of them. There are people like that that exist in the United 
States of America. There are very many of them that tried to storm the 
Capitol on the 6 of January. We should not be surprised or shocked by 
the existence of far-right elements. What we should be judging is, as 
you said, Bakhti, what political power do they have in this country? 
None. They have no power. This country's led by a Jewish president. It 
is very clear that Russian propaganda is trying to insinuate, imply 
that it is fighting terrorists, Nazis, to dehumanize the Ukrainian 
people in order to justify its systematic war crimes and crimes against 
humanity against them.
    The question that I would like to pose to the Helsinki Commission 
is at what point does the intent to destroy Ukraine as a Nation, the 
intent to destroy Ukrainian national identity, systematic war crimes 
and crimes against humanity--at what point does that reach the 
threshold for genocide? The intent is there. It is absolutely there. 
From Putin's own words, from Putin's propagandists. The intent is 
there. The question is, what does this definition, if it is proved 
internationally, what does it even mean? What are we willing to do to 
end the war in Ukraine?
    I am still yet to find out, other than weapons deliveries, what the 
plan is if Ukrainian defenses collapse. What is the plan for, you know, 
if Russian troops end up on the Polish border? At what point are we 
just going not going to stop reacting to things and start preempting 
things, because anyone who covered the war in Syria and saw the war 
crimes there, and saw the impunity that Putin got away with there could 
see the writing on the wall. This was not going to end in Syria. It is 
not going to end in Ukraine. It goes further than that.
    I am a British citizen. In my lifetime I have seen Litvinenko 
poisoned with a radioactive substance. We have seen the attempted 
assassination of the Skripals with a chemical nerve agent, both on the 
streets of Britain. A radioactive and chemical weapons substance used 
by the Putin regime on the streets of Britain. This is not a regime 
that respects international norms. It is a fascist regime that uses 
international norms to exploit them in order to advance its goals 
strategically, politically, geographically.
    I suppose my time here--you have seen the reports. You do not need 
me to reinforce them. I have stood over the graves, the mass graves, in 
Bucha. I have seen these civilians executed and lying in the streets--
seen them with my own eyes. We know what Russia--I have heard the 
testimonies with my own ears of what Russian troops did to Ukrainian 
civilians. This is not a mystery. There is no ambiguity here. We know 
what happened. We know what happened, and my job now is to tell you, 
from my experience, that this is not going to end here unless it is 
stopped.
    I am not a politician. I am not the kind of person who can tell you 
all of the ways that the U.S. Government can employ to stop this 
tyrannical, fascist dictatorship from slaughtering its way through 
Europe. But it needs to act, and the president of Ukraine is not 
constantly talking about the need for further weaponry and further 
reinforcements if he did not need them, and if he did not think the 
situation was not grave. Right now Russia's regrouping its strength and 
attacking the east.
    No one should be under any doubts. Putin will not stop in the 
Donbas. He might declare a temporary victory, but he will come for Kyiv 
again. If nothing changes in the international world order, Putin has 
already been given impunity for decades now. There has to be a line 
drawn in the sand. Right now, Ukraine is fighting for the entirety of 
the free world, the entirety of the liberal world order falls on the 
shoulders of Ukraine, which fights alone against a much stronger foe, 
which has decided that it wants to target a civilian population in 
order to destroy Ukrainian nationhood. Ukraine needs military aid, and 
it needs it now. Thank you.
    Mr. Nishanov: Oz, thank you so much for this powerful and morally 
clear statement and, frankly, advocacy. We all are watching with horror 
what is going on but I think one thing that you said, it is black and 
white. This is not a situation where we have to go and reassess and 
reassess again and see what is going on. People are dying. Innocent 
people are dying. The time to act, now, and I think the most important 
thing that you said is not to be in this constant reactive mode. We are 
constantly reacting, and what you are saying is we need to be acting. 
We need to put them in a situation where they are reacting.
    Mr. Katerji: I want to go further. I want to say that the future of 
liberal democracy--the future of liberal democracy, it is dependent on 
what happens here in Ukraine. If that worries you, if that terrifies 
you, then it should do. If you are not afraid, you have not been paying 
attention to what has just happened since February 24. The writing is 
clearly on the wall. Liberal democracy is at threat. Totalitarian 
regimes--Russia's not the only one--are circling the wagons now, 
because they believe that liberal democracy can be destroyed, it can 
collapse. We do not want to wake up in a world where that is the case, 
and it is imperative that liberal democratic nations learn how to 
respond to this and respond to this fast. It is imperative.
    Mr. Nishanov: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.
    Asami, may I turn to you? You have a fascinating life story. Your 
personal story, I think, is really, really interesting and fascinating. 
If you could, as a--again, because we are highlighting sort of diverse 
voices that are covering the war in Ukraine. Can you speak a little bit 
about what you are seeing as a minority in Ukraine? What are you seeing 
on the ground? What is it that you say to someone--somebody who, I 
mean, sometimes is a well-meaning person, that says, well, actually, 
there is an issue with the Nazis or far-right movement? As a minority 
Ukrainian--I do not know if you are a Ukrainian national--but who has 
lived there for a long time, what is it that you see? What are you 
seeing on the ground?
    Mr. Terajima: Ukraine is the most freedom-loving country that I 
have never lived in, that I have ever visited. Ever since the first 
days that I came here, Ukrainian people have treated me as one of their 
own. Ukraine has been my home ever since, you know, when I moved here 
at the age of 10. So all the--all the screams about Nazism, this is 
crazy to me because it is just not true, and right now since February 
24 the lives of Ukrainians and the lives of everyone living in Ukraine 
have completely changed. We are right now every single day, as the war 
continues, more Ukrainian civilians are dying, and more cities are 
being destroyed, and the list of cities that are under siege just 
grows.
    Russia is only intensifying these indiscriminate attacks against 
civilians, targeting civilians, and civilian infrastructure. It is 
destroying hospitals, orphanages, schools, and just anything that they 
see. Because Ukraine's--compared to what we had in 2014, Ukraine's 
military is significantly stronger. This has frustrated Russia, and 
Russia has therefore, because it has not been able to achieve its goal 
that it thought it was going to achieve in a very short time, it 
shifted its focus to civilian targets. Now we have the war--the battle 
of Donbas has begun on April 18, and we know that hundreds of civilians 
are still there in the region.
    We also know what is happening in the city of Mariupol in southern 
Ukraine, where there is an estimated 100,000 people still stuck in the 
city. Every single day, civilians are trying to evacuate but Russia 
continues to shell people who are just simply trying to evacuate. Now 
we know that the last--reportedly, the last remaining Ukrainian 
defenders are now in Azovstal steel plant trying to hold out Russian 
forces. They are significantly outnumbered, and we also know that in 
this steel plant there is more than 1,000 civilians--children, women, 
and elderly--who are still there hanging onto hope that they could live 
and see the outside world.
    We still do not know the number of civilians who have been killed. 
We also have a lot of people who have lost their homes, lost their 
cities, and have had to flee from what--you know, where they grew up. I 
have talked--for my reporting, I have been focusing on humanitarian 
stories, talking to the locals in various parts of Ukraine, starting 
from Donbas to Kharkiv where--you know, it is the second-largest city 
in Ukraine with a population of 1.4 million people. Yet, every single 
day Russia continues to shell, even to intensify shelling, in this 
Kharkiv city.
    I have been talking to the survivors of Mariupol, and a woman who 
survived the bombed drama theater in Mariupol. From everyone that I 
talked to have shared with me these heartbreaking stories, because 
behind every headline is a tragic humanitarian story that is yet to be 
uncovered. This is what I am focusing on right now, to talk to as many 
locals as possible because, yes, they have been through a lot. Many of 
them have lost their relatives, have lost their homes.
    Yet, they try to rebuild their lives in some way because, from what 
I learned from living over 12 years in Ukraine, is that Ukrainian 
people are the most brave--the bravest people that I have ever met, and 
even in such difficulty, people are not panicking. People are trying to 
stay calm as much as possible because at the end of the day panic does 
not yield results and everyone knows that staying united is the best 
way to move forward.
    Mr. Nishanov: Sorry, this has been incredible. Literally every 
sentence that you said could be a motivational poster, to be perfectly 
honest. I think the most freedom loving people, it is--I have known 
Ukraine for a long time. I have friends, former colleagues, and it is--
I 100 percent agree with your assessment. Most freedom loving, fun 
loving, outgoing people out there, and it is just tragic and painful to 
see what is going on. I think to the point that you mentioned about 
rebuilding, I think sometimes I see these posts about, you know, a town 
or a village cleaning up, you know, 2 days after a bombing, and it is 
just incredible.
    I think this sense of pride in who they are and what they represent 
is just incredible. It just gives me, frankly, you know, just thinking 
about it, talking about it just gives me the goosebumps, just the 
incredible--you know, the spirit of the Nation, and the fact that, you 
know, somebody tries to deny this, that it does not exist, to me is the 
most asinine and insidious thing out there. This has been incredible. I 
think--I am sure we are going to have a lot of questions for you and 
Oz.
    I would like--Olga, I would like to turn to you, if possible. You 
have an incredible voice, and I think you have been reaching out and 
you have reached to people, and people that I know were absolutely--
that who could not place a map--Ukraine on a map, are, you know, 
talking about you, frankly. I think, you know, that is one of the 
things that you have been doing consistently and strongly.
    One thing that I would like to ask, and I know if you do not want 
to talk about it that is perfectly fine, but what was it like to wake 
up on the morning of, on the 24? What did it feel like? How did it--
what were people saying? What was the mood? I mean, we saw people 
mobilized very quickly. If you could just talk about it a little bit, 
and then discuss whatever else you are seeing on the ground. Again, we 
are here to listen to all of you. Thank you.
    Mr. Tokariuk: Thank you, Bakhti, and thank you to, you know, other 
speakers, my colleagues who were speaking before me. I really 
appreciate what you said, and I agree with what has been said. I want 
to thank you also, Asami, for your words that Ukrainians are the most 
freedom-loving people. You know, I have been living in Ukraine, like, 
all of my life. I had a brief period of study abroad in Italy. I made a 
conscious decision after graduating, despite the opportunities that I 
had to stay abroad to continue, you know, do an academic career or any 
other career, to return to Ukraine and to contribute to the development 
of this country. That was back in 2013.
    You know, the irony was that several months after I returned to 
Ukraine with this conscious decision to work here as a journalist the 
protest at Maidan Square began, the revolution of dignity. That was 
actually my second revolution, you know. In thirty-seven years of my 
life, I participated and I witnessed two revolutions in Ukraine. One 
was the Orange Revolution in 2004. I was still a journalism student 
back then. You know, I was in the square distributing leaflets to the 
people who were camping there for weeks in freezing temperatures.
    People from all over Ukraine, who protested against an attempt to 
rig the election, wanted to have a free election, who are caring, you 
know, about democratic process, who wanted to, you know, return this 
right and give back this right, and get back the right to have a free 
and fair election and to have the leaders that they want to have, and 
they voted for. Not that, you know, someone was decided on top here in 
Kyiv, or maybe even in Moscow. So that was my first revolution.
    The second was in 2013 and 2014, the revolution of dignity when, 
again, Ukrainians protested against the decision of the government to 
reverse the course of its rapprochement with the European Union. Then 
pro-Russian President Yanukovych decided that he would not sign an 
association agreement with the EU, and people protested against that 
because they saw the future of Ukraine in a family of free and 
democratic nations. That protest ended in bloodshed when 100 protesters 
were shot in central square of Kyiv. I was, you know, during those 
months--this revolution lasted for several months--I was there almost 
daily reporting form there, writing, also, like, tweeting and talking 
to people and, you know, just witnessing this historical event.
    Of course, me and no one, I think, in Ukraine at that point thought 
that the war is possible, that Russia would respond to this, Ukrainians 
desire to be--you know, a free and democratic country, to be a part of 
the Western world, with a military action. Russia annexed Crimea. 
Russia launched its special forces into Donbas to foment an uprising 
there. Also Russian citizens and Russian agents were participating in--
you know, in seizing of the governmental offices in Donetsk and Luhansk 
regions back in 2014.
    Since there, for 8 years, Russia has been financing, supplying, the 
military forces fighting against the Ukrainian armed forces in Donetsk 
and Luhansk regions. Since February 2014 of this year, Russia launched 
a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Well, you know, I think maybe I was 
not--I was one of probably few people around me here in Ukraine who 
believed that Russia could launch this full-scale invasion. Most of my 
contacts, even journalists, were really--they were refusing somehow to 
believe that all those warnings that, you know, we were receiving from 
the U.S. or from the U.K. and from other Western countries' 
intelligence, they were true.
    Most people still, you know--I do not know. Like, it is difficult 
to explain why there was this sort of denial. Of course, the Ukrainian 
government also tried to downplay the risk. Even people who were very 
well informed, you know, who--as I said, my colleagues, journalists who 
are receiving--like, reading the news and reading all these warnings 
from the Western intelligence and they have no reason, actually, to 
doubt, you know, the authenticity of this data, they still, somehow, 
refused to believe that the full-scale invasion and a full-scale war is 
possible. I think it was because, you know, we are just like you. We 
lived in a country that was, you know, free and democratic. It was the 
country where we went to the elections every several years where we 
elected our representatives.
    Ukraine is the country that had the freedom of speech, you know, 
that was functioning media, diverse media scene. Ukraine has a strong 
civil society with a lot of NGO's who kept the government accountable 
and reacted to any attempt to, you know, somehow concentrate the power 
or adopt some law that people did not agree with. We had this feeling, 
like, we are part of the free world.
    Of course, there was still a lot of problems with the corruption, 
with other things, but we are fighting with that and we are faring 
pretty well. Like, we are in our own house and we are sorting out our 
problems because, in fact, despite the war that Russia launched back in 
2014 on Donbas, Ukraine has been making remarkable progress in 
different areas since then.
    Since in the last 8 years, you know, Ukraine has seen steady 
economic growth, despite the pandemic. The IT sector, in particular, 
was booming in Ukraine and many IT professionals emerged in these years 
who were working with various international companies, and a lot of 
Ukrainian IT startups also made their way onto the global scene.
    You know, a lot of people in Ukraine, they had this international 
exposure. They were working with colleagues in other countries, 
especially as the pandemic made online work something, like, normal and 
ordinary. That is why, I think, for millions of my compatriots here it 
did not even occur that this, like, normality that we had and the fact 
that, you know, the country is developing, that it is a free and 
democratic country just like any Western country, that it could be 
somehow put in danger.
    Of course, we heard all the, you know, rhetoric coming from the 
Kremlin. We have heard Russian propaganda announcing their plans to 
attack Ukraine. Most people in Ukraine just shrugged it off. You know, 
they thought, well, they are just making a fuss, you know, for some 
domestic--for the domestic audience for--to consolidate the--you know, 
the grab on power that Putin had.
    I think this was, of course, something that, for many, it was a 
surprise. As I said, I was an exception probably because several days 
before Russia launched the full-scale invasion I, actually, you know, 
told my husband that we should take our kid and we have to go to our 
relatives in western Ukraine. I do not know, like, how it happened and 
I felt very guilty initially because no one around me was making a 
similar move. You know, people were just staying put, going to work, 
and even, like, those people I told about my decision and I actually 
encouraged them to consider doing the same.
    I felt guilty and I felt a bit, like, silly because I was, like, 
maybe I am overreacting. Maybe I am overestimating it, you know, this 
threat. I thought, okay, let is just--we will just do this, kind of go 
on a vacation to western Ukraine and we will see what happens because, 
as I said, we have, like, relatives here.
    On the morning of February 24, I woke up. It was still dark 
outside. I think it was, like, 6 a.m. or 7 a.m., still pretty early, 
and the first thing I did was grabbing my phone as I did on previous 
mornings, and then, yes, I saw the news on the Interfax News Agency 
website that Russia started attacking from multiple directions. Like, I 
woke up my husband and I told him, like, it is started. The war has 
started.
    Then after, like, I think, 10 minutes, we were all--like, the 
relatives and us and everyone who lives in the same house in front of 
the TV and, you know, watching the latest news. In the next hours, we 
were on our--on the phones with our relatives and friends in Kyiv 
telling them, come here. We have a place for you. Take your children.
    Even now, like, in the house where we are staying here in western 
Ukraine we are hosting internally displaced people from Kyiv and other 
Ukrainian regions because this part of the country, western Ukraine, 
has become a hub for millions of Ukrainians who are fleeing from other 
parts of the country.
    You know, to cut the long story short, I just wanted--like, the 
message that I wanted to convey here today is that I am in relative 
safety now. My family is in relative safety here in western Ukraine. In 
fact, no part of Ukraine is safe.
    Russia is launching missile strikes, missile attacks, on the 
western part of the country where millions of people fled hoping that 
it would be safe for just a couple of days before Russia attacked Lviv, 
a major city in western Ukraine, killing seven people and injuring more 
than a dozen, including children. No part of Ukraine is safe.
    Of course, we are watching very closely with huge anxiety what is 
happening, you know, in Kharkiv, in Mariupol, in Donbas, elsewhere. We 
are very happy that Ukraine armed forces managed to liberate the 
northern part of the country, that they kicked Russians out from Kyiv 
region, from Chernihiv region, from Sumy region, and, actually, we have 
all seen what they did there--the horrific human rights violations, war 
crimes, execution of civilians, massive rape, looting, torture.
    Just today, I talked to a person from Chernihiv region whose 
brother is missing after being taken by Russian soldiers back on March 
4. For a month and a half he has not heard anything from his brother, 
and the brother was only taken by Russians because they suspected that 
he was passing some information to the Ukrainian armed forces. However, 
like, his brother says that he has not done anything like that. They, 
basically, took people for no reason and their relatives did not know 
what happened to them.
    Another person who was taken with him was found murdered--killed--
on the position of where Russian troops were staying. You know, all 
these stories are emerging every day and we know that these things are 
continuing in those territories that are currently under Russian 
occupation in the south of Ukraine, in the east of Ukraine.
    There are reports of kidnappings, disappearances, and forced 
deportations. Half a million of Ukrainians have been forcibly deported 
to Russia against their own will, and these people are taking their 
documents from them, are taking their IDs. They cannot return to 
Ukraine. They are being sent to remote areas of Russia. A massive scale 
of human rights abuses and repression that is going on in the occupied 
territories.
    If Russia is not stopped, if Russia is allowed to grab more of 
Ukraine's territory, this is going to happen everywhere. I know that if 
Russia wins in Ukraine, if it is allowed to win in Ukraine, I will not 
be able to stay in this country. My life will be in danger. I am not 
sure if I will be able to survive, but I will--even if I will, I will 
have to flee.
    I will have to go away, and so many of my--not just journalists 
but, you know, many Ukrainians, not only activists, not only those who 
are fighting, you know, contributing to the development of Ukraine 
working in NGO's, working in human rights organizations and the civil 
society organizations, journalists, they all definitely are the first 
targets of the Russians.
    Even, you know, ordinary--millions of Ukrainians who just hold the 
Ukrainian flag in their house, who speak Ukrainian language, who know 
the words of the Ukrainian national anthem, they will become targets as 
well.
    You know, Russia will just perpetrate the genocide of a massive 
scale. I just want all of you to be conscious of this, that, you know, 
Russia will not stop in Donbas. It will not stop somewhere. No one in 
Ukraine is safe and can be safe unless there is a defeat of Russia and 
Russia is defeated and Ukraine wins this war. We are not saying in 
Ukraine when this war ends. We are saying when Ukraine wins. This 
should be also the desire and the goal, I think, of the whole free 
world to make everything possible so that Ukraine wins this war.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Nishanov: Olga, thank you so much. I know it is hard for you to 
be talking about it. This is--for all of you this is personal. This is 
not just a story that you are covering. You are living it and I think, 
for us, as much as we all, frankly, wake up in the morning and read the 
news and the horrors that we see , that they are painful, and anxiety 
that you are talking about, I think, is among everyone. It is nothing 
compared to what you are doing and what you are living through. I 
cannot even imagine.
    Thank you all for your strength and thank you all for continuing 
doing what you are doing, despite all of the--I do not want to call 
them challenges. I mean, a challenge is when you, you know, you have a 
difficulty. This is just a calamity. You are living through a calamity 
and, despite that, that you are continuing to do what you do is just 
incredible.
    I think one thing that you have pointed out, and I think this is 
really important, is Ukraine has changed its government. People in 
Ukraine changed its government twice. When the Ukrainians are not happy 
they will go do it, and I do not know how, frankly, stupid you have to 
be to assume that you can, you know, do something, that you can just do 
something to people like that. People in Ukraine are freedom loving. 
They know what they want and it is incredible.
    Ukraine is an inspiration to all of us and Ukraine is an 
inspiration, above all, from what I am seeing, to Ukrainians because 
even people, you know--again, I know Ukrainians from all sides of--
walks of life and, you know, people who used to argue with each other, 
fight with each other, disagree with each other from different parties, 
everybody has come together. The unity is inspiring and I think this is 
incredible.
    Just one note to everyone who is listening to this. We have--if you 
have questions, please--we have a chat box. It is--it would be to your 
right corner. Please type in your question and I will ask our panelists 
this question.
    While you are thinking about your questions, Congressman Cohen, you 
have listened to this. I was wondering if you might want to offer any 
thoughts.
    Well, thank you very much. I thank each of the three panelists for 
their testimony, for their courage. I think we all, in America, not all 
of us--there is some of us that are out there, the crazies in our 
caucus and our Congress--not our caucus, but in our Congress. Almost--I 
would say 95 percent of the American Congress is supportive and most of 
the American public. I see some Twitter messages sometimes from either 
Russiaphiles or Russian agents that make you wonder. Regardless, I 
appreciate it.
    Oz, you, in particular, I appreciated your testimony. I agree with 
everything you said. One of the privileges I have as Co-chairman of the 
Helsinki Commission is to meet with some outstanding human beings who 
inspire me, one of whom is Bill Browder, who came and spent about an 
hour with me last week before he testified before our committee.
    Another is Khodorkovsky, who spent about an hour with a couple of 
members of the Commission and myself, and they were pretty much 
together on the idea that you expressed that Putin is a mafia boss, he 
is a bully, and he can only be stopped with power, that he--Macron's 
talking to him every other day, which I do not think he is doing now. 
He is having to defend himself with Le Pen. That Putin does not care, 
and he could call him up and say we are not going to go in and do 
anything does not help. He is only going to--there need to be red lines 
drawn. One of the parties suggested we should have a red line in Odesa 
and say, if you cross this line and attack Odesa we are going to take 
out your ships in the Black Sea, and then he is inevitably going to 
cross that red line and then you got to take out his ships in the Black 
Sea. The Ukrainians showed you could do it with Neptunes. We can do 
with Harpoons. It could be done easy enough or it could be done with 
air flights. I do not think we should be concerned about that, 
particularly.
    The other was a red line in Kharkiv, and if he attacks Kharkiv you 
send in airpower to destroy the air bases from which the planes came 
from or the sites where the missiles came from. You have to have red 
lines, you have to stand up, and you have to stop him. That is the only 
way he will ever communicate any kind of peace treaty. He is a liar. 
Nothing he says can be believed and, you know, much of what we see 
today reminds us of Syria. Indeed, Syria was, maybe, the canary, a very 
loud canary, that we should have listened to. Same for Georgia. Same 
thing for Chechnya. We have seen it.
    America, in many ways, is fortunate this war is occurring. I hate 
to say it. It sounds--but we are having an inevitable war with Russia. 
The Ukrainian troops are not NATO troops, not American troops, and all 
we need to do is supply them with weaponry. I can understand the 
concern about a No-Fly Zone but I can--never have understood publicly 
talking about the Polish MiGs and the questions of whether they should 
be turned over in Poland or whether they should be turned over on our 
base in Germany. We should have found a way to do it, and, apparently, 
we are finding a way to get our military equipment into Ukraine to help 
the Ukrainian military, now this, quote/unquote, we talk about the $800 
million package and then the next $800 million package, which contains 
X, Y, and Z. No airplanes, I do not believe, but who knows what will 
end up happening? I do not see how they get it in to the Ukrainians, 
particularly in eastern Ukraine. We have waited too long, and I wonder 
if any, the three of you all--do you all have any idea about or seen 
any convoys of equipment?
    Oz, please, tell me about it. Teach me.
    Mr. Katerji: Yes. From my understanding from my contacts in 
Ukraine, I understand that there have been steady supply of shipments 
of weaponry traveling from Poland into Ukraine and that not one, not 
one, of those convoys has been targeted by Russian fire in the entire 
duration of the war.
    I understand that--Reuters confirmed this--that Turkish Bayraktar 
TB-2 drones, that further of those have been delivered by the Turkish 
supplier and they traveled in through Poland, through the west of the 
country. As far as I understand it, the Turks, the Eastern Europeans, 
are proving that there can be supply lines of heavy weaponry, game-
changing weaponry, heading into the country from the west, from Poland, 
and that those convoys can be protected from Russian strikes.
    Our partners in Europe and--are proving that it can be done and, 
really, America needs to--
    Co-chair Cohen: We need to--
    Mr. Katerji: --show the--show the courage of its convictions. 
Currently, it lacks the courage of its convictions. If America wants 
Ukraine to win this war, you know, it needs ammunition. Ukraine needs 
ammunition. It needs materiel. It needs tanks. It needs fighter jets. 
It needs the kinds of things that will strike fear into the hearts of 
an already much stronger army. That is what will make the difference 
here.
    Ukrainians have already got the manpower and the will to fight in a 
way that is terrified the Russians but they do not have the equipment 
they need, and the one thing that we are not talking enough about is 
that while the equipment is very good, the list of equipment, it is 
being sent slowly and that equipment only lasts a week and a half, 2 
weeks, in the war here.
    You know, there needs to be more, much more, and it might be 
unpalatable for people to hear talk of weaponry being sent to an active 
conflict. But this is democracy versus totalitarianism. It is light 
versus darkness. We have no choice but to support the Ukrainian people 
in this to the point of victory, and anything less than that will be a 
disaster for the entire European project.
    Co-chair Cohen: I totally agree with you, and I suggest--you know, 
I have been disappointed. I hate to say this. I am a Democrat. I am an 
American, all those things. I have been disappointed with the response 
from Jump Street, our intelligence and our Defense Department and we 
have--so many people want to stand up and go, oh, our Defense 
Department and our administration and our intelligence, you know, 
salute.
    They were wrong from Jump Street. They said that it would be 24 to 
48 hours and Kyiv would fall, and then two to 3 weeks later they said 
it will be 10 days to 2 weeks and Kyiv will fall. Intelligence was 
wrong. Defense was wrong. State Department was wrong.
    When one of our members suggested we should send in better 
weaponry--better air defense weaponry--early on, the response from 
State, kind of under their breath but it was audible and clear to me, 
was, we do not want to risk sending that weaponry because they will 
fall so quickly to the Russians the Russians will have our weaponry and 
they will have our knowledge of the technology of the weaponry and they 
will have the weaponry. Because of that, they do not have it. They did 
not have it and they do not have it because our intelligence was wrong.
    They could not understand a determined and motivated group that 
would fight for liberty and for their country and for their identities 
as the Ukrainians have. They could not see that, for some reason.
    I have to say I said this early on. We were in Lithuania before the 
war broke out, and it might have broken out. We were there, give or 
take, when it broke out. We might have been in Vienna. I told a 
Lithuanian press assembly that we might be underestimating what Ukraine 
can do because a motivated group can do so much more.
    I have to admit, I was thinking a little bit in my own perspective 
as a sports fan, and I know how a team that is underappreciated and not 
as strong as the other team can be fired up to beat the stronger team 
and to play at home and to have the home court advantage and they can 
do miraculous things, and I thought the same thing could happen here 
and it did happen here, but we have been wrong.
    Oz, you say we are getting the equipment in and I am sure we are, 
but are we getting it to the east? How do you get it into the east when 
one side is Russia and the other sides are Russian troops now cutting--
trying to cut Ukrainian troops off? How do you get into Donetsk and 
Luhansk? How are the weaponry getting in there, do you think?
    Mr. Katerji: Those areas still are encircled. The front lines are 
still available. Obviously, trying to get weapons like that into 
Mariupol would be, you know, not feasible. You know, we are at a 
critical junction now in time where these frontlines are still 
accessible. Are we going to wait 2 weeks before, you know, maybe, you 
know, a hundred thousand Russian--Ukrainian troops are surrounded due 
to a Russian offensive?
    We do not want to wait for that point to happen. It really is--we 
are at a critical junction of this war. Ukraine can win with support. 
It is about getting that support there now. Not tomorrow, not the day 
after, now.
    Co-chair Cohen: Well, thank you. I appreciate that and I hope we 
can get it in. It seems like the administration is waking up somewhat 
to this current announcement. They are going to send in this additional 
800 million dollars and they are going to do it quickly, as quickly as 
they can. We have been slow and this--the administration has been slow 
and I blame intelligence, Defense, State, the whole crowd, and they are 
starting to wake up a bit.
    We are lucky that the Ukrainians are there to fight the Russians. 
All we need to do is give them the weapons. We need to get them the 
tanks. We need to get them the Howitzers. We need to find a way to get 
them the airplanes they can fly, and if not, we need to teach them how 
to fly the airplanes or maybe send an aide to go in with them in the 
airplane. We do not know who in the hell that guy is when something 
happens, but we need to get support there.
    Mariupol--those are such courageous men and women and it is just--
it is a disaster waiting to happen, and they are fighting and I do not 
think there is much we can do at this point.
    Oz, you remind me a lot of my dear departed friend, Christopher 
Hitchens, not just your accent but your knowledge, your clear message 
about what needs to happen, and good versus evil and light versus dark. 
Christopher spoke that way as well and he was one of my dear friends. I 
do not know. Do you think--
    Mr. Katerji: I am friends with his son, so I just wanted to--
    Co-chair Cohen: Oh, excellent. Do you know the Cockburn family or 
do you know of the Cockburn family?
    Mr. Katerji: As in Patrick Cockburn, yes. I will have to be honest 
with you. Particularly given his testimony to the Foreign Affairs 
Select Committee in the U.K., his position on the Assad regime is one 
of the worst of any mainstream reporter working in the Middle East 
today. I am not a fan of Patrick Cockburn's work. I think he is very 
sympathetic toward the Assad dictatorship.
    Co-chair Cohen: Well, I appreciate your candor. I know Patrick 
through Christopher. Patrick had a much more severe case of polio than 
I had, but I had polio and I have post-polio so I have problems 
occasionally. Patrick has unbelievable problems to surmount. Even 
getting up is difficult for him.
    His brother, Andrew, is coming to visit in Memphis for the next 4 
days. He is coming in tonight and we are going to spend a lot of time 
together. I did not know Alexander. They are great family and they--of 
course, Andrew is more sympathetic and knowledgeable about military 
weaponry and there is a lot we will discuss in the next three or 4 
days.
    Thank you very much.
    Olga, I cannot imagine. This is your country now and, Asami, it is 
yours, too, and to have to give up your country has got to be just--the 
possibility of having to leave is awful. I mean, a lot of what we have 
is our memories, our possessions, store in them, memories, our friends, 
sites that we think of and remember events at and they are parts of our 
lives. To have to leave that, which so many Ukrainians have, is--it is 
awful. It is giving up much of their life. It is almost--there are many 
deaths. They are little deaths, and Putin does not care.
    I have been a strong vocal critic of Donald Trump and I think a lot 
of what we are seeing today is because of Donald Trump. I think we did 
not stand up with Ukraine when Trump was president. Instead, we tried 
to use them as a way to get Hunter Biden dirt or something that they 
thought was dirt and, we did not care about Ukraine and we treated them 
as a political opportunity, at least Trump did.
    The Republicans, not all but most, did not impeach him for that 
because there was surety that his actions--and they were coward--to 
what is really a totalitarian, dictating, grifting, lying MF who was 
president of the United States, and he is no different than Putin and 
Orban and them.
    Oz, you are on.
    Mr. Katerji: I would really--I would like to echo your sentiments. 
I completely agree. Speaking as a Brit, so I do not have any partisan 
affiliations here--well, I mean, I endorsed Hillary Clinton for 
president in 2016. Not that my endorsement as a British journalist 
makes much difference.
    I want to say that I think it would be unfair to let the Obama 
administration off the hook, including Biden, for the way that they 
treated and reacted to the invasion of Donbas and Crimea in 2014. That 
happened under Obama's watch, and I feel like if the diplomatic 
response had been stronger that we would be in a better position than 
we are today.
    It is not about--it is not about assigning blame. It is about 
learning where the mistakes were made and trying to stop them from 
happening in the future.
    Co-chair Cohen: Well, you are right, Oz, and I was with a former 
Obama cabinet official the other day and he said to me that Obama often 
said to him what we did was not necessarily what we aimed to do and it 
was not perfect but it was better, and it is all--doing better is good.
    Better is good, but when you settle for better you are letting 
problems fester and they are going to come back on you in the future, 
and we had a lot of that then. That was not a perfect administration 
either. It was better, and the fact is they did not win--they did not 
have a Senate after a while. They had a Senate for a couple of terms 
and we lost the House. There is only so much you can do. Biden beat 
Trump, and I do not know if another candidate would have beaten Trump. 
Maybe they would have. Simply by stopping Trump from having another 
term makes Biden a great president, a great figure. Maybe not a great 
president but a great figure.
    I am concerned about 2022 and losing the House and losing the 
Senate, and I am concerned about 2024 if that happens. I talk to 
Michael Cohen occasionally, Trump's former consigliere. He does not 
think Trump will run because he could not stand the idea of being 
defeated.
    If he sets up and gets the secretary of states elected that agree 
with him and they change the rules in the states, which they have done, 
on how they determine who is the electors at the Electoral College, he 
will not have to worry about losing because he will steal it, just like 
he tried to do on January 6.
    We had a coup d'etat. It failed, and the Republicans in our 
Congress are not willing to admit it or stand up to it because some of 
them are complicit, and there is a lot going on that is very scary in 
our country and I am concerned about our Congress. I am concerned about 
our future and where we will be. We need to stand strong and I think we 
are going to get Ukraine help. Hopefully, it is going to be sufficient 
and we stop the Russians because they are going to go back into 
Estonia.
    I was in Estonia not long ago, a year or so, and they talked about 
how the Russians came in. The Russians sent Russians into Estonia, and 
there is a large part of the eastern edge of Estonia that is Russian 
occupied, and we drove through there and the people were walking around 
and there was, like, Russian style architectural, if you call it 
architecture--it is almost an oxymoron, Russian architecture but--that 
functionality, and all the buildings looked like that and the people 
were walking around. They looked like what you saw in movies of Russia 
from other days.
    They will move people in to try to take over, and they have tried 
to kill Ukrainians. They are happy when Ukrainians evacuate. They want 
them to leave the country and not to come back and they want to kill 
them if they are there, and they will send Russians. They will move 
them into Ukraine to take over and make it a Russian State.
    It is scary, and they will go to Estonia. I was in Lithuania. They 
have moved their troops in Belarus right to the edge of the border of 
Lithuania. They have taken over the old Soviet forts, and they will 
come into Lithuania and then we will have to have--we will have to have 
a ground war and a war. It will happen, and it is better to fight it in 
Ukraine and to fight it with our troops, et cetera, in Estonia and 
Lithuania, which would happen, and Poland and wherever. This is the 
crucial moment in the fight for democracy and the fight for the West. 
Thank you, all.
    Mr. Nishanov: Thank you, Congressman Cohen. Thank you, Co-chair. 
You have always been--you have always provided clear guidance on what 
the priorities when it comes to Ukraine should be, and we appreciate 
your leadership on all of these and, frankly, not being afraid to be 
critical of this administration. We appreciate everything that you have 
done.
    I have a couple of questions for our witnesses. Asami, maybe--I 
think, since you mentioned you were talking to the--to people who have 
been through the horrors of the Russian invasion, how do you interview 
people with sensitivity and professionalism, people who have suffered 
incredible trauma, right? People who you are talking to, they have 
lived through just horrors, how do you interview them? Are people 
willing to be interviewed to share their stories with you? What are--
how is that working?
    Mr. Terajima: I think it really depends on how you approach them 
because, as I reported, the most important thing is for me to make the 
interviewee feel comfortable telling their story because if she or he 
is not comfortable talking about it, then I would rather--you know, 
they need space.
    I think--so, first, I would ask for permission and try to make them 
feel as comfortable as possible, and many of the people that I have 
been talking to they were, you know, openly talking about what they 
have been through and they have even, like, you know, invited me to 
their houses and showed all the destructions that the Russian occupiers 
have left because they want people to know. They want the world to know 
what happened to their towns, what happened to their people.
    I think that, in a way, it was also therapeutic for them because 
many have--because many of them after, like, having the interview they 
smile. They begin to smile and talk to me, like, about other things and 
ask me questions about why I am here in Ukraine and what I am doing 
here and just, you know, we became friends at the end of the interview.
    As a reporter, this is the most important thing for me is to build 
a personal connection with the people that I am talking to and to 
feel--to make them feel as comfortable as possible and to make sure 
that we are documenting as many Russian war crimes as possible because 
we need the world to witness everything that they are doing here and we 
need to make sure that Russia is paying for all the Ukrainian blood 
that is spilled on our land.
    I wanted to add to the previous conversation, even though the 
challenges are significant and every single day we, in Ukraine, it is a 
very difficult moment for all of us and every day we wake up to news 
about, you know, what happened in, let us say, eastern Ukraine, or the 
other day I woke up reading about the missile attacks that hit Lviv, 
the western city, where, you know, there is at least 350,000 people who 
are evacuated--who have been evacuated from eastern Ukraine.
    There is lots of people living there, thinking that it will be 
safe, and all of a sudden they are hit with a missile strike. Nowhere 
in Ukraine is safe, as Olga said. The morale remains high and what--
according to a survey that was--according to a survey released about 3 
weeks ago, over 90 percent of the people in Ukraine believe that 
Ukraine will win.
    We all know that there is uncertainty about what will happen and we 
know that difficult months are ahead, if not, maybe even a year or even 
more. We do not know how long this lasts, and every single day that 
this war continues more civilians are dying. More towns and more cities 
are being under siege and being destroyed and more families are being 
disrupted and more children are dying because this war only--also 
affects children and the future generations of Ukraine.
    Right now what we need is ammunition, as you said, and also we need 
fighter jets as soon as possible and right now. Russia's air force is, 
unfortunately, more than 10 times larger than the one that we have in 
Ukraine, and Russia has so far not been able to achieve total air 
supremacy because the Ukrainian airspace is still being contested.
    Russia does enjoy Russian--Russia does not enjoy air superiority in 
Ukraine and they have been--as you can see, they have been shelling--
launching rocket attacks all across Ukraine, even in the western part 
of the country. We need fighter jets as soon as possible. We need more 
tanks. We need more heavy weaponries.
    Some Western officials are afraid that sending fighter jets would 
escalate the war. This is, in fact, not true because the fighter jets 
are not so significantly different from the heavy weapons that the West 
is already sending and the West is, I hope, will be sending more in the 
future.
    We need weapons as soon as possible because peace talks with Russia 
are--unfortunately, we do not have high hopes for it and--and there is 
no reason for us to believe what Russia is saying and we will never 
believe what they have--what they will--what promises that they will 
make.
    Mr. Nishanov: Thank you so much, Asami.
    Olga, if I may direct this question to you. We have a question. 
Have you or your colleagues found that Russian forces are deliberately 
targeting journalists? I know there were multiple deaths. Can you speak 
to how deliberate the Russian forces are in their targeting of 
journalists?
    Mr. Tokariuk: Yes. That is a very important question and, in fact, 
we have seen that many journalists were already killed in this war. By 
the Ukrainian government counts, it is about 20. They are also counting 
those journalists who were killed as a result of explosions in their 
cities. So not, like, you know, while they were performing their duties 
as journalists.
    We can definitely speak about at least several instances when 
journalists were deliberately killed by Russians while in the field 
while working and one of such cases is a Ukrainian photographer, Maks 
Levin. We worked together at Hromadske, an independent Ukrainian TV 
station.
    Maks was one of the most brilliant Ukrainian photographers. He 
covered the war since 2014. He survived the Ilovaisk massacre when 
Ukrainian troops were surrounded and the Russians promised a safe 
passage for them but, instead, they were ambushed and many--like, 
hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers were killed in Ilovaisk.
    Maks was there. He, miraculously, escaped alive from Ilovaisk, and 
since then he was working on, you know, several projects related to 
Ilovaisk and also, in general, to Russian war in Ukraine. A person with 
a lot of, you know, experience of working in conflict zones, a person 
who knew how to move, who, you know, was trained in--like, who was 
familiar with all the safety protocols for journalists working in a war 
zone. He disappeared. He went missing in mid-March in the northern 
suburbs of Kyiv and then several weeks later after Russian retreat from 
those areas his body was found there with gun wounds. He died after 
being shot by Russian soldiers.
    Maks, of course, was wearing, you know, no recognition marks. He 
was wearing protective gear but it did not help because it seemed that 
Russian soldiers deliberately, you know, targeted and killed him as a 
journalist. He is just one example. You know, there were other 
journalists, both Ukrainian and foreign, who were killed deliberately 
by Russians, mostly in the areas around Kyiv in the first months of the 
war.
    There are also multiple cases of abduction, kidnappings of 
journalists, in the occupied territories of southern Ukraine--Kherson 
region, Mykolaiv region. Parts of the latter two are under control of 
the Russian occupying forces and we are hearing, you know, very 
worrying reports about the abduction of journalists. Just today, 
actually, I did not have time to read more about the story but I saw 
that the blogger in Kherson was shot dead in his car.
    You know, it seems that Russians are deliberately targeting 
journalists. They want the world to, you know, not to get the truth 
about what is happening. In fact, we know that also journalists in 
Mariupol, two Associated Press photographers for the reporters who were 
present there in February and in March and who, you know, reported the 
bombing of the maternity hospital, who documented it, who took photos 
and videos of that, who also documented the bombing of the drama 
theatre in Mariupol, later, they--when they--they had to flee, 
actually, Mariupol. They had to escape the city because Russians, 
basically, were looking for them, were hunting for them.
    They got tipped off by the Ukrainian police and Ukrainian forces 
that they have to get out and they wer--like, a passage was organized 
for them. Like, somehow these Ukrainian forces managed to take them out 
from Mariupol, and they were telling, like, a very detailed account of, 
you know, of the--how they were working in Mariupol and how Russians 
were looking for them.
    It is a deliberate tactic, you know, to target journalists, 
independent journalists, journalists of foreign outlets, also Ukrainian 
journalists, those journalists who are reporting the truth. At the same 
time, we have to say that Russia is also facilitating the access to 
territories that it occupies to so-called journalists who are, in fact, 
propagandists, not just from Russia but also from China.
    We have seen reporters of Chinese State media who are in Mariupol 
and in other areas under Russian control, of course, making, you know, 
reports about Russian liberators and how local population is happy that 
Russians came and, you know, they are liberating them from Ukrainian 
Nazis. Well, obvious propaganda.
    What is the most worrying is that not only Russian and Chinese 
journalists are doing that. Okay, not journalists. They are, you know, 
propagandists. There are also Western ones. There is Graham Phillips, 
the U.K.--you know, I do not know how to call him. Definitely not a 
journalist, someone who was pushing Russian propaganda since 2014.
    There are Italian journalists also in Mariupol and in Russian-
occupied territories who are in Italy polluting the information space 
with all the, you know, crazy conspiracies, Russian narratives and, in 
general, they are distorting the picture and, you know--and the fact 
that they are getting invited on major TV shows, also on mainstream 
television, sometimes also on the public TV, this is something, really, 
very worrying.
    There is a huge propaganda and disinformation war going on in the 
West as well and I think we should be also cautious about that and 
should be paying attention to that, and should be asking questions how 
is that possible, how these people get there, what are they doing 
there, how Russians facilitate and enable their work. I have, you know, 
my reasons to believe that they are not doing that for free, either. 
Also, you know, how the governments should react to this and also the 
media. They should not be given a space, given airtime, giving, you 
know, a platform to these people.
    Of course, big tech has a responsibility as well, because we know 
that YouTube, for example, provides a platform to these people who earn 
money, who--you know, whether this--spreading this genocidal 
propaganda. That is another issue but still very, very important.
    Mr. Nishanov: Olga, I think you have just--absolutely, absolutely 
correct in that and I think that is one of the reasons why we wanted to 
do this is because, again, as I pointed out, people who have access to 
free information are spreading the same narratives, I mean, people who 
should know better deliberately, like you pointed out, sometimes maybe 
not deliberately.
    The point is, again, we wanted to highlight you, the three of you, 
as the voices who are on the ground, who are talking to different 
people, who are a diverse set of people who are in Ukraine. Yet, there 
is--like I pointed out, there is a unity in your narrative, and it is 
not because somebody's telling you but because you are telling the 
truth.
    One question that I got from a YouTube comment is, and I think just 
this is a--seems like somebody from the United States--they are asking 
a very specific question in a very sort of American way. What is one 
thing you would like to see the United States and its allies to do in 
Ukraine in terms of aid?
    I think, Asami, you would mentioned the jets. I mean, please feel 
free to add anything else. What is the one thing? I realize that one 
thing is never a one thing, but what is the--what would you like to see 
in the next 2 weeks? As we, as all of you pointed out, the next 2 weeks 
are going to be very critical to the war.
    Mr. Katerji: I will go first. I will offer you three things. That 
is fighter jets, anti-aircraft systems, and man-portable air-defense 
systems--MANPADS. They need them now.
    Mr. Terajima: I would agree with Oz. We need fighters as soon as 
possible and anti-air defense and everything. We need every--all the 
heavy weaponry that is needed to protect Ukraine because we need to end 
this war as soon as possible.
    I think, another important thing that is often not talked about 
enough is about for people, for people all over the world, to continue 
thinking about Ukraine and to continue having interest in what is 
happening here because if that goes away then it is even more difficult 
to, you know, impose tougher sanctions or, you know, alienates Russia 
from the rest of the world.
    We need everyone, like, either you--whether you are a student or 
whether you are, you know, working already everyone to think about what 
is happening in Ukraine every single day and continue keeping up with 
the news.
    Mr. Nishanov: Perfect. Thank you.
    Mr. Tokariuk: I would add that I think the U.S. should be working 
more closely and talking more persuasively with the European partners, 
especially with Germany. You know, the German government is really 
very, very reluctant and very disappointing and, you know, unwilling to 
provide Ukraine with heavy weapons.
    Germany is the only, basically, European country with major 
significance who is against the oil and gas embargo on Russia. Of 
course, it will have costs for Germany, but the cost for Ukraine and, 
potentially, for Europe and, you know, the free world are much higher.
    I think the U.S. should be working, like, persuading Germans, 
persuading European allies, to, you know, take a more harsh stance on 
Russia, to somehow wake up to the reality, because I have a feeling 
that while Americans, you know, and people in the U.K. have a better 
understanding of what is happening, I have a feeling that many 
continental Europeans, especially in Western Europe, they are still in 
denial. They are still living in a very dangerous illusion and a very--
they have a very naive approach to what is happening.
    I hear--you know, when I hear suggestions that Ukraine should just 
surrender for the sake of saving lives, you know, this is so 
dangerously naive. If Ukrainians surrender, there will be no more 
Ukraine and Ukrainian lives will be even more in danger.
    Now there is a hope for these lives to be saved. If Russia is 
allowed to win it is the end of Ukrainians. You know, they will just 
have carte blanche for genocide. Somehow, I think there should be more, 
like, stronger transatlantic communication, cooperation, and action on 
Ukraine.
    Mr. Nishanov: Perfect. Thank you so much. One very quick question 
from a Senate staffer. They are asking, is it helpful when European 
leaders or any other political leaders visit Ukraine? Does it strain 
the logistical--are there logistical challenges that are associated 
with it?
    Are there any negatives? I mean, all they can see is a positive. Is 
there anything negative to political leaders from the West or, frankly, 
from anywhere in the world who are friendly to Ukraine visiting 
Ukraine? Is that a good thing? Is that a helpful thing?
    Mr. Katerji: I think it is a good thing as long as it is backed up 
with an increase in support. If you want to come here for a photo 
opportunity, as powerful a symbol as that is for the Ukrainian people a 
photo is not going to change the course of the war.
    If you are turning up with a lorry of, you know, 20 MiG fighter 
jets behind you, then, yes, come for the photo op. You know, the more 
the merrier.
    Mr. Terajima: I also agree that--
    Mr. Tokariuk: Yes, I--
    Mr. Terajima: Go ahead. [Laughs.] Sorry.
    Mr. Tokariuk: No, no, Asami. Go ahead.
    Mr. Terajima: Oh. I was going to say that, yes, I agree with all 
that. Yes, it is good. I think there is more benefits of, you know, 
world leaders visiting Kyiv and meeting President Zelensky themselves 
and because this shows solidarity, how the world is, you know, united. 
The world is showing a united front against Russia.
    They need to come with more sanctions and also for more promises of 
weapon deliveries and more actions on how to help Ukraine.
    Mr. Tokariuk: Yes, I agree with my colleagues and I would just add 
that Russians are really nervous when they see all these foreign 
leaders visiting Kyiv because, you know, they get the feeling that the 
world stands with Ukraine, and also they hold off their missile attacks 
they would otherwise be launching, you know. They are really--like, 
they are uneasy with the thought of, like, hitting Kyiv or hitting 
Ukrainian railways where there might be a train where, you know, some 
Western leader is inside.
    More of these visits are needed because this also increases, 
somehow, a security of Ukraine, I would argue, and, of course, Joe 
Biden would be very welcome to visit Kyiv. I know that many Ukrainians 
would see it as the most powerful signal that could be sent.
    Mr. Katerji: It really is. I mean, Joe Biden is different. You 
know, I do not think Scholz is going to get a very merry reception here 
at the moment, or Macron, for that matter. A visit from Biden would be 
very different. Put it that way.
    Mr. Nishanov: Great. Thank you so much. I know we are running out 
of time but one more question, and I am being very frank here. This is 
a bit of an unfair question, so feel free to answer or not answer this 
question.
    One of the questions that I got was do you think we need to engage 
Russians on the propaganda war? Because the question is they seem to 
be--the vast majority of them, according to polls, seem to be 
completely brainwashed.
    Is it a waste of resources and time to try to convince them 
otherwise that what is happening in Ukraine is, potentially, a 
genocidal war, that they are killing Ukrainians, raping babies? Is this 
worth engaging the Russian citizens who may--the idea being that they 
may, potentially, then put pressure on the government?
    Mr. Katerji: So my feeling about--
    Mr. Nishanov: Maybe an unfair question, but--yes, please.
    Mr. Katerji: My feeling about that is very clear. I would recommend 
people read Hannah Arendt on ``The Origins of Totalitarianism.'' I 
believe that Russia is a fascist military dictatorship in the same vein 
that the Third Reich was in 1940. I believe that trying to convince 
these people who are brainwashed that their government is committing 
fascist crimes is a waste of time, a waste of resources.
    The only language that Russia will understand is a military defeat. 
That is the only language they will understand. The longer that we keep 
prevaricating, wasting time, you know, thinking that there is an 
alternative solution, that maybe we can, you know, have a diplomatic 
breakthrough by talking to Russian people about this it is just--it is 
a fantasy and I would--at this point, it is insulting to the Ukrainian 
people, in my opinion.
    Mr. Nishanov: Olga, Asami, do you--any thoughts on that?
    Mr. Tokariuk: Yes. Well, I think this question partially stems from 
the recent proposal of Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader 
who is now in jail, to dedicate more resources not into buying Javelins 
for Ukraine but into investing to combat Russian--the Kremlin 
propaganda.
    You know, this idea was not very well received here in Ukraine 
because it was seen as if somehow Navalny is saying that, well, it does 
not really make much sense to arm Ukraine and you should, rather, like, 
work with Russian people. So while, of course, definitely, there is a 
need to work with Russian society, I think that, in fact, there are so 
many--there is so much evidence of, you know, even those Russians who 
know what is happening in Ukraine, who get this information from their 
relatives in Ukraine or, you know, their former friends in Ukraine so 
they have access to information, but they refuse to believe that this 
is actually happening.
    They choose, actually, to believe Russian State propaganda because 
that somehow absolves them of responsibility and of the need to react. 
So people in Russia, many of them, know what is happening but they 
choose to turn a blind eye to it because somehow, you know, if they 
endorsed the position of the Russian government and they would support 
this war, well, then they--you know, they do not feel that somehow it 
is their responsibility to stop it.
    Unfortunately, Russian imperialism is not something new. It is not 
something that only Putin now is--you know, is doing. For centuries, 
Russia in the Russian empire, Soviet empire, now post-Soviet Russia had 
an imperialistic attitude to the colonial attitude to Ukraine. It 
exterminated, you know, Ukrainians in many campaigns--artificial famine 
in the 1930's, you know, aggressions against Ukrainians, gulags for 
Ukrainian intelligentsia in Soviet times, just to name a few over the 
last 100 years.
    The problem is so deep rooted it is not--we cannot, you know, 
absolve Russians of responsibility by saying that this is just because 
they are watching propaganda and they do not know what is happening. 
Many of them know what is happening. They endorse this war or at least 
they choose to ignore it and not react to it because deep down they are 
imperialists and they support this Russian imperialist attitude to 
Ukraine.
    I think, you know, Russia must be defeated militarily and then 
Russia should undergo, the Russian society as well, the process of--you 
know, the crimes should be punished. Perpetrators should be brought to 
justice. An international tribunal should be established and there 
should be a vast debate and a reflection in the Russian society about 
what led to this war, you know, about the whole ideology--Russian 
imperialist ideology. It should be abandoned.
    There are no easy solutions, you know, and just, like, investing in 
combating propaganda will not solve this.
    Mr. Terajima: I agree with my colleagues as well. Trying to engage 
with the Russian public, who have been--you know, who grew up listening 
and watching this Russian propaganda is practically impossible and 
there is no point as well because we need to focus on other efforts to 
help Ukraine--to directly help Ukraine and there is so many things that 
the world should do rather than, you know, trying to engage with the 
Russian people and let them understand what is happening in Ukraine 
because, as Olga said, majority of them support Russia's war against 
Ukraine. The majority of them know what is happening in Ukraine and, 
yet, they do not stand up against it.
    I have a friend--I used to live in Moscow myself. I grew up there 
in my childhood as well and--[audio break]--told me that they do not--
they do not want to see what their country is doing, what their 
soldiers are doing, because they cannot do anything about it. Many of 
them do not--even if they do know, they do not want to directly engage 
to stop the war or speak up against it. There are so many other things 
that the world should be doing rather than trying to convince the 
Russian public about stopping their government and stopping their 
soldiers.
    Mr. Nishanov: This has been incredible. Thank you so much. Very, 
very clear answers to the questions that--to the difficult questions 
that that we had here on the panel. I think there is no doubt in 
anyone's mind that Ukraine is going to prevail, that Ukraine is going 
to win. There is no question in my mind and everyone that I talk to on 
the Hill, whether--or, you know, with the administration there is just 
no question that it is going to happen.
    The question is it is the cost the Ukrainians are going to--that 
will bear in the process and how many lives are going to be sacrificed, 
frankly, before this goal is achieved. Ukrainians will win. Ukraine, as 
a Nation, will continue. There is no question.
    From what we are hearing today from you is we need to do more to 
make sure that the costs that are--that are incredible already, that 
are just unbelievable already, that they are not continuing to 
multiply. That is the message that we are going to take away from this 
and that is the message that we are going to continue using and 
continue employing in shoring up support for Ukraine, for even more 
support.
    I think--I know that Congressman Cohen is with us, but as he 
pointed out, you know, a lot of things that, again, even within the, 
you know, certain parties, it is not a partisan issue. Ninety-five 
percent of Congress, as he said, is on board. So more support is going 
to come and your testimony today will--no doubt in my mind, will 
contribute to that.
    Thank you so much for having this incredibly difficult conversation 
and I am really hoping the next one that we are going to do we are 
going to do, maybe, in Kyiv or maybe somewhere in Ukraine. Maybe we do 
it in-person and--you know, because these conversations are important.
    I think, Asami, as you pointed out, it is really important that the 
world, you know, does not turn away. This is happening and people are 
dying and we need to be continuing to be talking about this, and your 
contributions are immeasurable from what you do day to day and from 
this panel, frankly. I mean, this is just one effort that you do. What 
you do day in and day out is incredible.
    From the bottom of my heart and from the Commission, on the 
Commission's behalf, on all the commissioners that we have and, as you 
guys know, we are both Republican and Democrat. We are nonpartisan but 
we are bicameral. We have the Members of Congress. We have senators.
    On behalf of everyone, thank you so much for doing this. If you 
have any parting words that you would like to share with us please do 
so, and we are already running out of time but we are here to hear from 
you.
    Mr. Katerji: Thank you.
    Mr. Terajima: Slava Ukraini! [Glory to Ukraine]! Thank you. Thank 
you as well. I just wanted to say glory to Ukraine and glory to the 
heroes, as we say here in Ukraine.
    Mr. Katerji: Thank you very much to the Commission for having me. 
If there is anything you can take away from this it is that I believe 
Ukraine can win this war with material aid that it needs and I urge 
Western capitals to hear the cry from Ukraine for the aid that it needs 
to win this war, the war of extermination against its people.
    Mr. Tokariuk: Yes. I just want to say that I wish everyone in the 
world believed in Ukraine's victory as much as the Ukrainians 
themselves do.
    Mr. Nishanov: Absolutely. That is an incredible, incredible 
statement to close out this briefing. Thank you so much.
    Once again, please feel free to reach out with--and I think, you 
know, we might have some followup questions so I might come back to you 
with some questions from staffers and Members of Congress.
    Again, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you so much. Most 
importantly, stay safe, everyone, you, your loved ones, everyone you 
know, but also all of Ukraine. Thank you so much.
    Mr. Tokariuk: Thank you.
    Mr. Terajima: Thank you.
    [Whereupon, at 11:37 a.m., the briefing ended.]

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