Igor Khrestin, the Bradford M. Freeman Managing Director of Global Policy at the George W. Bush Institute, joined a panel at the Texas Tribune Festival to discuss the current situation with the war in Ukraine, U.S. involvement, and why defeating Russia and supporting Ukraine’s victory is worth the fight.
“Much like Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang, regime survival is the main goal of President Putin,” Khrestin said. “And he thought he would strengthen that by invading Ukraine because he thought that would be over quickly, he would be in a much stronger strategic position vis-à-vis NATO and the European Union — and that has played out really poorly for him.”
Panel participants included U.S. Representative Jake Auchincloss (D-Massachusetts); Evelyn Farkas, executive director of the McCain Institute; and Kay Bailey Hutchison, former U.S. ambassador to NATO and former U.S. senator (R-Texas).
