On 12 November 2015, Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) President Eugene Czolij delivered remarks during a panel entitled “Security Challenges Facing the West” at the National Conference “Leading America: Foreign Policy Challenges and the 2016 Elections” of the World Affairs Councils of America in Washington, DC.
The moderator of the panel was Editor in Chief of POLITICO John Harris and the other panelists were Ambassador of the Delegation of the European Union to the United States David O’Sullivan, Managing Director of the Center for Transatlantic Relations of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies Ambassador András Simonyi, and Assistant Secretary for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance of the U.S. Department of State Frank Rose.
The World Affairs Councils of America is the largest non-partisan, non-profit grassroots network dedicated to educating and engaging the American public on critical global issues. It is a confederation of nearly 100 independent councils from Alaska to Puerto Rico with over 500,000 members. The Chairman of the World Affairs Councils of America National Board is the first U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Roman Popadiuk.
The UWC President stated that, at this time, the biggest security challenge facing the West is how to deal with the authoritarian and lawless regime of the President of the Russian Federation with its imperialist ambitions and persistent violations of its international commitments.
Eugene Czolij added that if the international community does not now effectively help Ukraine defend its territorial integrity and stop Russian aggression at its borders by increasing economic sanctions against the Russian Federation, blocking its access to the SWIFT banking transaction system and providing Ukraine with military assistance, the Russian President will be emboldened to challenge paragraph 5 of the NATO Treaty by attacking a NATO member country that could trigger the Third World War.
