Fukuyama on Ukraine's victory, Biden's fears, and how to make Russia compromise

Professor Francis Fukuyama is a world-renowned American philosopher and researcher in politics and international relations. He has always been a staunch supporter of Ukraine.

Prof Fukuyama strives to convince American thought leaders of the importance of supporting Ukraine, especially now, in times of war. However, Fukuyama openly admits that support for Ukraine in the US has waned.

Sergiy Sydorenko, the European Pravda editor, met with him in Kyiv on the sidelines of the annual Yalta European Strategy (YES) conference to talk about realistic ways of ending the war, and what would compel the Russians to make concessions.

Watch the full interview or read an abrupt version in the article - Fukuyama: Russians are not feeling enough pain and suffering to agree to a ceasefire.

I don't think it's a large number who are opposing Ukraine's victory.

There is an extreme right wing of the Republican Party that’s turned against Ukraine, but even among Republicans, I think the support is still there.

The problem is that Donald Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. He does not like Ukraine, and therefore his fanatical followers will repeat anything he says.

Trump says the war has to end. What he means by that is it ends on Russian terms, where Russia gets to keep what it has taken and you get some kind of a ceasefire.

But she [Kamala Harris] was very clear that that's not an acceptable outcome. And for the Democrats, the goal of the war is still for Ukraine to win.

But first of all, Donald Trump is not the United States.

The real policy choices come down to what level of risk Americans think they’re willing to take in order to have Ukraine win. 

The real issues right now have to do exactly with what kind of weapons you get and what use is going to be made of them.

We supply ATACMS and F-16s. Are they allowed to hit targets in Russia?

I can assure you, ordinary Americans have no opinion about this whatsoever. 

In general, many Americans would be happy to see the Biden administration lift some of the restrictions that they’ve placed.

But because of that long experience, Biden has a lot of confidence in his own judgment about foreign policy, and that makes him less flexible than somebody with less experience.

There’s growing explicit opposition to Ukraine coming from extreme right-wing populist parties.

The ability of Ukraine to liberate the whole of the 1991 territorial extent is going to be very difficult at this point. 

What we are talking about are the conditions for a ceasefire, not a peace agreement.

I do think you can have a situation where you do have a ceasefire, but you actually don't agree to territorial losses.

You obviously have to increase the pain that Russia is suffering. Russia’s not going to agree to a ceasefire unless it feels compelled to do so, and right now they’re not feeling enough pain for that to happen.