Ambassador William B. Taylor joins Vail Symposium for an update on the latest in Ukraine

The 2022 invasion of Russia into Ukraine continues to impact not only those two countries but also the world. At least 42,000 people have been killed—8,000 of those civilians—and approximately 14 million have been displaced. On Wednesday, March 1 at Vail Interfaith Chapel, Ambassador William B. Taylor joins the Vail Symposium Ambassador to speak to the most recent developments on the ground and discuss what to look for moving into the spring.

“Just over one year ago, Russia invaded the sovereign nation of Ukraine,” Vail Symposium executive director James Kenly said. “We are grateful that former US Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor is offering his expertise and insights to our community this week. In recognition of the anniversary of the war, we will gather for an update and an opportunity to ask questions to a uniquely qualified expert.”

After the Ukrainians drove back the Russians so definitively last fall, the winter has been a grinding slugfest in which the Russians are bombarding Ukraine’s cities in hopes of collapsing Ukraine’s defenses and Ukrainian soldiers at the front are making the Russians pay a steep price for little gain. Attention these past months has focused on military material Ukraine’s allies will provide, how many Ukrainian soldiers can be trained and how fast. The Ukrainians hope to seize that initiative with new army formations and break through Russian lines to push the Russians out of their country in the coming months.

Americans, Europeans and others understand that the stakes in this conflict are very high and go far beyond Ukraine. The Ukrainians have become the front-line combatants not only for their own independence, but for security in Europe and the United States, and for the principles of the U.N. Charter, which the world has been trying for 80 years to make the frame for international relations. Ukrainians are critical defenders of a world shaped by law rather than by the rule of armed power. So quite simply, three goals coincide: Ukrainians’ freedom, Europe’s security from wars of aggrandizement, and the world’s ability to strengthen a rule of law and prevent the capricious, mass slaughter of innocents. Advancing each of them means ensuring that Russia’s seizure of Ukraine is reversed and that the Russians are pushed out of Ukraine.

Join Taylor as he shares his insight into the war in Ukraine—the past, the present and the future.

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About the speaker:

Ambassador William B. Taylor is vice president, Russia and Europe at the U.S. Institute of Peace. In 2019, he served as chargé d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Kyiv. During the Arab Spring, he oversaw U.S. assistance and support to Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria. He served as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009.