On November 18, Mr Ben Hodges, retired Lieutenant General of the US Army, ex-commander of the US Army in Europe and Doctoris Honoris of Ostroh Academy, delivered the fifteenth lecture at the National University of Ostroh Academy. The lecture topic was 'From Defence to Renewal: The Future of Ukraine's Security and Global Role."
Oksana Mararenko, the Head of the International Relations Department at the NaUOA, moderated the meeting.
Ben Hodges shared his thoughts on Ukraine's strategic challenges and future opportunities.
We present the most important quotes from the lecture:
- "I think it is very clear that on the ground, here we are almost more than 11 years of the war since, and almost at 4 years of the large-scale invasion, the narrative of the inevitability of a russian victory has been shattered. I think Ukrainian people, armed forces, and leaders have destroyed that myth. I think the reason for that is that the russians still only control about 20% of Ukraine. Over a million casualties, the Black Sea Fleet, almost nowhere to be seen, and really it seems like that russia is only able to attack innocent civilian targets and innocent people in their apartments."
- "I think Ukraine has adopted exactly the right strategy for fighting against russia. The attack on russia's oil and gas infrastructure is incredible. The success that you have had, developing the capabilities such as Flamingo and other systems and also special operations forces, to be able to reach so deep into russia that you can destroy their oil and gas infrastructure. You have found their vulnerability because if they cannot export oil and gas to China and India and other customers, then I don't know that they'll be able to continue paying for the war beyond next year. russia cannot prevent this.
- If you look back in history, russia's strength was always its size, and it could absorb whether it was Napoleon or the Germans or whoever was invading. It was such a large country, and now that seems to be a problem because they cannot protect all of the infrastructure.
- I think, hopefully, what will happen is that not only will Ukraine continue to develop its own defence industry, but that Europe and the United States will provide, directly or indirectly, more capability to assist in attacking russia's oil and gas infrastructure."
- “China sees this war as a guarantee of their access to cheap russian oil and gas, but they also keep the West tied up. And for now, China will probably continue to provide aid to russia until they can no longer get the oil and gas it needs from Russia."
- "Ukraine has superior will, your soldiers are very adaptive, and you have figured out how to not only survive, but to be effective despite Russia's enormous advantages and numbers of drones and troops. I think this has been impressive."
- "It feels like you're about 10 or 15 years ahead of most of the rest of Europe when it comes to technological capabilities. I think that's been a part of Ukraine for a long time, going back to the Soviet times, when Ukraine was the heart of the defence industry of the Soviet Union. And you still have this technological advantage."
- "What do you need to do is to make sure that you are so strong that russia does not attack again, and obviously continuing to grow the professional capabilities of the military, air, land and sea, air and missile defense, maintaining a high level of readiness in the society, capturing what you've already developed, but to maintain that on into post-war. Ukraine was not ready in 2014, and it was not ready in 2022. The idea is to make yourself indigestible so that the Russians say, "We're never, we're not going to make that mistake again."
- "Ukraine has been such an important country ... because of where you sit on the Black Sea, the mineral wealth that you have and of course the enormous agricultural potential that you have there. These are not nice to have. These are also important as they represent to the rest of the world who and what you are."
- "I hope that the government and others will continue to support sports, education, and culture, as your rector, Eduard Balashov, did in the UK last week, speaking about Ostroh and Ukrainian culture to the British."
"It is a privilege to once again have the chance to speak with the students from Ostroh, and I also am proud to have an honorary degree from Ostroh. I feel like I have a personal connection because of that, but also really because of the students that I have met over the past couple of years virtually, and hard questions and very thoughtful way that you are approaching this, and so I have great respect for you."
