He thought it was very dangerous that Ukraine, since its independence, has had bipartisan support from both Democrats and Republicans all these years, and that to start kind of getting into U.S. politics, into U.S. domestic politics was a dangerous place for Ukraine to be.
Yovanovitch recounts a conversation with a Ukrainian official expressing concerns about Ukraine's involvement in U.S. domestic politics.
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I couldn't believe it. I mean, again, shock. Appalled. Devastated. That the president of the United States would take any ambassador like that to a foreign head of state. And it was me. I mean, I couldn't believe it.
But then Zelenskyy was elected president. I think Putin thought that he could manipulate Zelenskyy. He was sorely disappointed there.
I think that he, frankly, didn't really think that much about Ukraine, but he thought a lot about Russia as a great power. And he sort of accepted, I think, Putin's view of Ukraine is not really being a real country.
Honestly, I never imagined such a whole scale invasion. When I was ambassador in Ukraine, I thought that keeping a low level war going in the east destabilizing Ukraine in that way with cyberattacks, assassinations, disinformation…