Anne Applebaum

on their own.

And what about the Russians organizing elections?

The Russians haven't had free elections for 20 years.

So, you know, it had that element in it that the Russians were somehow wanted to change the Ukrainian leadership and maybe hoped to shape the elections.

That was the second piece of the story.

There was also Ukraine has to promise never, ever, ever to join NATO and has to put that in its constitution.

Again, pretty controversial.

Don't know whether that could be done.

And that Western powers, European powers would promise never to put troops on Ukrainian soil.

And all this also creates another problem, which is if this war were to end even right now, you know, if there were to be a ceasefire on current lines, which is something the Ukrainians have accepted.

In order for the peace to be real, in order for it to last longer than six months or a year or two years, there has to be some reason for Ukrainians to believe that the war isn't going to just start up again next week.

So there has to be a guarantee.

There have to be troops.

There has to be NATO or something like NATO.

There has to be something that will prevent Ukrainians from fleeing the country once the borders are opened.

There has to be something that gives people the belief that they can invest in Ukraine, that they can rebuild Ukraine.

There has to be something that makes it a viable country.

A lot of people often compare Ukraine to South Korea, which is another country that was divided and part of it was occupied.

And nevertheless, South Korea remained a viable state and it went on to become a very rich country, very successful country, kind of culturally successful in lots of ways.

And people have said maybe that's a model for Ukraine.