As Congress considers whether to send more aid to Ukraine, that country's prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, is visiting the U.S., and making the case for why further funding matters.
Shmyhal has been traveling around the nation meeting with members of Congress and officials in the Biden administration.
He says that the $60 billion aid package is critical to Ukraine's war effort.
In an in-person interview with NPR's Andrew Limbong on All Things Considered, Shmyhal talked about how that aid would make a difference on the front lines, and the state of the war in general.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Interview Highlights
Andrew Limbong: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said recently that without aid, Ukraine doesn't have a chance of winning. And I'm curious if you can tell me how so?
Prime Minister Shmyhal: We need more ammunition. I visited the front line four weeks ago and asked the guys how are they. They have one artillery shell per day, per 20 kilometers of the frontline. Russians have dozens or even hundreds of artillery shells per day on the same line of the front.
Russians are absolutely learning the lessons and they improve their weaponry. They make huge progress during this war. So we need weapons and we will [do] our job, not just deter them, but push them out of our territory. I should mentioned that we [liberated] 50% of occupied territories during these two years of full scale war. We liberated the Black Sea. So now the Russian fleet is hiding somewhere on the east of the Black Sea. So these examples demonstrate that if we have support of United States --when we have support of our partners--we may push Russians out of our land.
Limbong: On the note of equipment, the Pentagon's office of the Inspector General issued a report earlier this year, and it said that there are nearly 40,000 weapons that were provided to Ukraine but have not been accounted for. If you do get more support and more weapons, will there be any improvement on how those weapons are accounted for and tracked so we know where they are.
Shmyhal: According to my information, all that the United States supplied to Ukraine is absolutely clearly accounted [for] and we cooperate with inspectors general from Defense [department], from Department of State, from USAID.
I personally have met them two times and we have regular communication with inspectors general and they never communicate about any problems with accountability and transparency of using United States equipment or weaponry. So it's crucially important for us to be accountable and to be transparent for using of equipment of our partners. So because the United States is the biggest partner, the biggest supplier of military support, we pay special attention to questions of accountability.
Limbong: So you've never heard from any of our people from us that like they've been like, "hey, we don't know where these guys [the weapons] are?"
Shmyhal: No, no. Sometimes they told us about this.
But we shouldn't forget that we are that; we all are on the influence of Russian propaganda, Russian disinformation, Russian cyberattacks. They play a role in the sense of disinformation [in] all of our societies, Ukrainian and Western societies and United States society. And especially, [they] implement these messages that 'Ukrainians are using weaponry not in proper ways,' 'they are selling this weaponry' and so on. So because of this, we cooperate with our partners very closely and we are very accountable for this, to destroy this propaganda and this lie from the Russian side.
Limbong: Ukraine has actually taken a lot of drastic steps to combat corruption within the country. I was wondering if you could lay out some of those steps and explain what has been done and what you think needs to be done further.
Shmyhal: We pay huge attention to implementation of reforms and during these two years of war, we've made huge progress. And I should say that we implement all needed legislation and create all needed anti-corruption infrastructure. So we created an anti-corruption National Bureau and National Agency for Prevention of Corruption, National Anti-Corruption Court and Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor. So all the needed infrastructure is created. It works perfectly. As a demonstrated result, unfortunately for me — they demonstrated some cases when high level, top level officials are caught on corruption.
But it means that this infrastructure will bring results. So [we're making] our next steps, we improving this infrastructure, we improving our legislation. We implement all the directives of the European Union because now we [are making] absolutely big steps towards EU and now we are opening a negotiation process. And it means that this is the last step before EU membership.
So I hope that it will take not more than two years to go through the negotiation process and we will be the fastest country in sense of [obtaining] EU membership. We will be ready, we will do our homework and I believe that in two years we will give the ball on the side of European partners to take a political decision about membership of Ukraine in the EU.
From other side, we have very good information from a group of countries against corruption, so named GRECO, which named progress of Ukraine in the sphere of fighting corruption as a "remarkable." Plus, Transparency International said the same, that we made huge steps toward fighting corruption. And the last one, we implemented digitalization because computers do not take bribes, it's impossible to corrupt a computer. And more than 130 state and public services now are absolutely digitalized without any human factor. So this is a crucial factor [in preventing] corruption. And I think that we will continue very actively to implement all of these steps to make corruption impossible in our country.
Limbong: Fighting corruption can be a double edged sword, I think. Like when you say when you catch someone committing corruption and you say, here's this person, on the world stage, people say "they're catching a lot of people of corruption, they must have a lot of corruption!"
Whereas on your side, you're like, "We're getting all of this corruption out of here." How do you combat the perception of corruption while fighting corruption itself?
Shmyhal: Thank you so much for this question, actually. This is something that we try to explain to our society through our partners. When we catch corruption, it doesn't mean that we have so much corruption. It means that our system, that our anti-corruption system, works.
So the human factor is presented all around the world, unfortunately. But the main issue is to demonstrate that on the high political level, there is no corruption, that there is no systematic corruption.
So all of these issues are not presented in Ukraine, so this is crucial and actually we demonstrate that we are absolutely clear and open for this reforms and we will implement it step by step.
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Transcript
ANDREW LIMBONG, HOST:
In the lead-up to that aid package passing the House, Ukraine's prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, was in the U.S. He was meeting with members of Congress and officials in the Biden administration to make the case for more about Ukraine, which he says is critical for their war effort. The prime minister took time to visit our D.C. studios, and I asked him what he'd tell Americans who were skeptical of sending more aid to Ukraine.
DENYS SHMYHAL: If we just imagined that Ukraine lost this war, then it will mean that world global order is destroyed, and all of us on this planet will be under threat, that many kind of aggressions will emerge all around the planet. In the end of the day, it could lead to the Third World War. So we all should understand if we will lost this war, it will mean that Putin will have a signal that he may go into a head for the next steps for the Baltic countries, for the Poland.
Plus, it will be a good example for all the rest dictators and regimes that unprovoked illegal aggression will not be punished, and we will see another conflict. And in the end of the day, it will hurt United States in future for this situation, which we now have on the European continent with a full-scale war in Ukraine.
LIMBONG: President Zelenskyy recently signed new laws that will allow the conscription of many more men, especially younger ones. Talk me through the thinking of this because Ukrainian soldiers are greatly outnumbered. Russia has more than three times the population of Ukraine. Are more bodies on the battleground really the answer here?
SHMYHAL: So now there is no problem with human power on the frontline from Ukrainian side. We have enough. We organize rotations to give the guys possibility to rest a little bit, to this one who spent too long time on the battlefields. So now we need to continue mobilization of the human power, and actually, this new draft law, which is signed by president, answered these questions - how to make this process more open, more transparent. This is important signal to our partners that Ukrainian society is not exhausted. We are not disappointed. We continue our fight for our land, our families, our homes.
LIMBONG: The Pentagon's Office of the Inspector General issued a report earlier this year, and it said that there are nearly 40,000 weapons that were provided to Ukraine but have not been accounted for. Will there be any improvement on how those weapons are accounted for and tracked so we know where they are?
SHMYHAL: According to my information, all what United States supplied to Ukraine is absolutely, clearly accounted. And we cooperate with inspectors generals from Ministry of Defense, from Department of State, from USAID. I personally have met them two times, and we have regular communication with inspector generals, and they never communicate about any problems with accountability and transparency of using of United States equipment or weaponry. So we pay special attention to questions of accountability.
LIMBONG: So you've never heard that. Like, they've been like, hey, we don't know where these guys are.
SHMYHAL: No, no.
LIMBONG: Oh, interesting.
SHMYHAL: Sometimes, they told about this, but we shouldn't forget that we are under influence of Russian propaganda, Russian disinformation. And they especially implement these messages that Ukrainians are using weaponry not in proper way. They are selling this weaponry and so on and so on. And so because of this, we cooperate with our partners very closely, and we are very accountable for this, to destroy this propaganda and this lie from the Russian side.
LIMBONG: This next question is actually related. Ukraine has actually taken a lot of drastic steps to combat corruption within the country. I was wondering if you could lay out some of those steps to listeners and explain what you think - what has been done and what you think needs to be done further.
SHMYHAL: Thank you. We pay huge attention to implementation of reforms, and during these two years of war, we make huge progress. And I should say that we implement all needed legislation and create all needed anti-corruptional (ph) infrastructure. So we create an anti-corruptional national bureau, a national agency for prevention of corruption, national anti-corruptional court and special anti-corruptional prosecutors. So all the needed infrastructure is created. It works perfectly. They demonstrate results. Unfortunately for me, but they demonstrate some cases when high-level officials are gauged on the corruption. But it means that this infrastructure will bring results.
LIMBONG: Fighting corruption can be a double-edged sword, I think. Like, when you catch someone committing corruption, and you say, here's this person, I think, you know, on the world stage, people say, oh, they're catching a lot of people of corruption. They must have a lot of corruption. Whereas on your side, you're like, we're getting all of this corruption out of here. How do you combat the perception of corruption while fighting corruption itself?
SHMYHAL: Thank you so much for this question. Actually, this is something what we try to explain to our society, to our partners when we catch corruption at people, so it doesn't mean that we have so much corruption. It means that our system works. So human factor is presented all around the world, unfortunately, unfortunately.
LIMBONG: What should Americans know about life in Ukraine right now?
SHMYHAL: Life's now is different. Some part of Ukraine economically now is OK, despite the nightly and daily air raids, despite the dying people. We work hard, but part of Ukraine is occupied. Part of Ukraine is under fire, and this is different life. So in some part of Ukraine, people are suffering so much. On the other part of Ukraine, people are internally displaced persons. Many of them have post-traumatic syndrome. Someone told me that it is impossible to repeat such kind of war like Second World War, but now we have war on the territory of European continent, and we should stop this. We should win this war to let Russians and all the potential dictators and aggressor understand that it's not correct to break global security order.
LIMBONG: Denys Shmyhal is the prime minister of Ukraine. He joined me here in our Washington, D.C., studios. Prime Minister, thank you so much.
SHMYHAL: Thank you so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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