On April 29, 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 fourteenth lecture at the National University of Ostroh Academy. The lecture topic was "The Current Ceasefire and Conflict Resolution Negotiations".
Oksana Mararenko, the Head of the International Relations Department at NaUOA, moderated the meeting.
Ben Hodges shared his assessment of the current ceasefire and the progress of negotiations on conflict resolution.
The most important quotes from the lecture are as follows:
- "I use every opportunity in the states to explain why this is important for America that Ukraine is successful and why we have to stop russia."
- "To get to negotiations, to talk long-term, you have to have a ceasefire so that the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian government could actually trust that russia would live up to whatever that negotiations will be done in good faith. And so, I think, President Zelenskyi is correct to not want to make any agreements unless there's a ceasefire in place."
- "And so the preparation phase is what's happening right now. ... These are not the end of the resolution negotiations, even though my president talks about we're going to get a deal, that's absolutely totally unrealistic. What we are really trying to get to is that ceasefire, so that then you can have realistic negotiations ..."
- "I do believe that he (Trump) is genuine and that he wants to see an end to the killing. The problem is that he has chosen to put all of his pressure on Ukraine and has completely taken the side of the russians ... I'm not sure I understand why he has taken such a pro-kremlin approach here ... which I believe has been doomed from the very beginning because it is based on a faulty appreciation or a lack of appreciation, of the cause of the conflict, the history, the geography, and he doesn't even understand why Ukraine is fighting as it is."
- "The Ukrainian President and the Ukrainian government are correct to hold fast to what they have said by defending Ukraine's sovereignty and striving for an unconditional ceasefire."
