Former U.S. ambassadors Michael McFaul ’86 M.A. ’86 and Steven Pifer ’76 urged continued support of Ukraine with arms and technological assistance to safeguard both Ukrainian sovereignty and global democracy at a Tuesday discussion. 

Moderated by Lila Batcheller ’26, the event was sponsored by the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) as part of Stanford’s annual Democracy Day. 

McFaul and Pifer both asserted that a key motivation for Russia’s ongoing assault on its democratic neighbor is the threat of democracy spreading beyond Ukraine. 

“If Ukrainians can practice democracy, that undermines [Putin’s agenda], and that’s why he’s so threatened by democratic Ukrainians,” said McFaul, former ambassador to Russia and director of FSI. 

The perceived threat of democratic expansion beyond the borders of Ukraine and its implications for Russian domestic politics also motivated Russia’s decision to launch the 2014 invasion on Crimea, according to Pifer, an affiliate of FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. Pifer, former ambassador to Ukraine, said that Ukraine succeeding as a democratic state is “a nightmare to the Kremlin.” 

“That’s the kind of event that’s going to lead Russians to say, ‘Why can’t we have the same political and democratic rights that Ukrainians have?’” he said. 

Pifer charted Ukraine’s democratic progress since the country gained independence in 1991, commending six presidential elections with the incumbent losing three out of four re-election bids — a record that has not materialized “anywhere else in the post-Soviet space.” 

Despite criticizing the centralization of executive power in Ukraine and calling for increased checks and balances, Pifer said that “there’s no real reason to fear [for] democracy in Ukraine,” although it has been “stressed by this war.” Due to the national state of emergency declared in February 2022, Ukraine has postponed its parliamentary and presidential elections, which would have otherwise taken place last spring. 

McFaul emphasized the priority of Ukraine’s survival as an independent state before it focuses on improving its democratic institutions.

“[Ukrainians] are literally fighting for the survival of their country that happens to be democratic, versus a neighbor that is one of the most autocratic countries in the world,” he said. 

Both speakers presented a bleak assessment of Russian autocracy.

“The level of repression inside Russia today I think is actually greater than the last years of the Soviet system,” McFaul said, expressing concern about the jailing of vocal critics such as Alexander Navalny, who died in Russian prison this February.

Both former ambassadors also addressed the importance of an independent Ukraine to U.S. long-term strategic security interests and, more broadly, to the democratic interests of the American people. 

Pifer said, in the case of Ukraine, “our national interests in real political terms align with our democratic values,” he said. “In addition to the values question, we have a real stake in the outcome of the war. It’s not going to be stable and secure here if Russia wins.” 

The ambassadors framed the Kremlin’s efforts to recover historic Russian territory as part of a broader pursuit to consolidate Russian imperialism beyond Ukraine to other post-Soviet states and potentially NATO member states. 

“We underestimate Putin’s ambitions at some risk, particularly [because] I think Putin is capable of gross miscalculation,” said Pifer, referencing anecdotal evidence suggesting the Kremlin had predicted a swift Russian victory in this conflict.  

McFaul asserted that America’s “greatest asset” is not its weapons, but its values.

“If we just give up on our values and say we don’t care about human rights or democracy… we’re going to lose,” he said. “I want my country to be on the side of right and not wrong. This is good versus evil.” 

McFaul also argued that agreeing to a peace deal that gives Russia the territories it has already seized would embolden Putin and potentially other authoritarian leaders, such as China’s President Xi Jinping with respect to Taiwan.

“Putin didn’t stop [with] Georgia in 2008. He didn’t stop after he seized Crimea and started the war in Donbas in 2014,” he said. “Why would anyone assume that he’s just going to stop?” 

McFaul compared the present political moment to the 1930s prior to the outbreak of World War II, noting U.S. isolationism and the perils of the current global democratic recession. 

“Hitler and Stalin both invaded Poland in 1935. Millions of Americans said ‘America first.’ They said, ‘it’s not our problem,’” McFaul said. According to revisionist historians, “if we had been more engaged a decade earlier, we might have been able to prevent what became the largest, most horrific disaster for all countries in the world, including our own,” he said. 

“I think we should learn that lesson,” McFaul warned. “This idea that what happens in Ukraine stays in Ukraine, I don’t believe that. History tells us that it doesn’t look that way either.” 

The panelists urged students in the audience to recognize the power of Democracy Day — and the privileges associated with the democratic freedoms that are not always protected elsewhere in the world. 

“Realize how easy it is for you to fight for democracy in the U.S. compared to Ukraine and other countries,” McFaul said. “[Ukrainians] are not just abstractly fighting for democracy. They are literally fighting for democracy.”

Anna Siamionava ’26, an event attendee who is half-Ukrainian and part of the Stanford-U.S. Russia Forum, stressed the importance of supporting Ukraine in light of those defending democracy on the frontlines.

“I think people start to forget [Ukraine], but it is a war of attrition. It’s one of the most challenging parts of the war when it becomes just an endless war,” she said. “[But we need to] continue to support the country and shift to innovations in policymaking that would also help Ukraine.”