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Fareed Zakaria GPS

Interview With Finland's Prime Minister Sanna Marin; Interview With Greece's Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis; Interview with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy; How the World Can Help Ukraine. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired January 22, 2023 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN ANCHOR: This is GPS, the GLOBAL PUBLIC SQUARE. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria coming to you from Davos, Switzerland.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA (voice-over): Today on the program, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. His nation's fight was part of practically every discussion in Davos this week. And I had a conversation with the man himself about the state of war and the potential for peace.

We'll also bring you my conversations with other world leaders at Davos. First, Sanna Marin, the prime minister of Finland. Her nation shares an 830-mile long border with Russia and is waiting to be granted NATO membership. Then, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the prime minister of Greece. A nation once seen as the sick man of Europe. The current state of Greece's economy may well surprise you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: But first, here's my take. Davos was back with a bang. After a skinny spring version of the event last May, this week the World Economic Forum's annual conference was packed with attendees trying to learn more about the world in 2023.

It's not a bad place to try. Davos is the only truly global conference that I've attended. In one day, you can meet with Chinese officials, American CEOs, Ukrainian human rights activists and Middle Eastern entrepreneurs. In fact, I did.

Every year, some country or trend is surrounded by buzz. This year there were three. The Gulf States, India, and artificial intelligence. Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, flush with oil wealth, were showcasing their formidable ambitions.

India, which might be the most optimistic country in the world right now, had many of its states competing with one another for attention and investment. And AI was the futuristic topic that almost no one really understands, but everyone was discussing. But despite these pockets of energy, mostly this was gloom and doom

Davos. The big geopolitical topic was of course Ukraine, where most see a long, hard costly slog. On the economy, storied companies like Microsoft and Goldman Sachs have announced layoffs, and others write- downs. In the West, people worry about inflation. In many developing countries, they are bracing for debt crises and defaults.

The challenges facing the world are real, but I think the big story is actually much more positive. Despite a series of severe shocks, COVID, the Russia-Ukraine war, global energy and food crises, inflation, the West and its allies from Australia to Singapore are stepping up, cooperating, and forging a new way forward.

The United States is in remarkably good shape. The Federal Reserve appears to be on the right track in tackling inflation. It's possible that the U.S. could avoid a recession all together, or have one that is short and shallow. Biden has signed perhaps the largest long-term investments in the American economy since the era of Lyndon Johnson half a century ago. American technology firms continue to break ground in every field from AI to new RNA drugs.

Europe is the issue on which most people at Davos were pessimistic. But even here, what's striking is that facing enormous challenges, the first full-blown geopolitical crisis on its doorstep in decades, its worst energy crisis ever, it came together and stayed together.

As Matias Mattis points out in an excellent essay in "Foreign Affairs," consider Europe's achievements. Despite the costs of war, high energy prices and the burden of Ukrainian refugees, Europe has remained strongly united on Ukraine. It is weaning itself off Russian energy much faster than anyone predicted. The European central bank, like the Fed, is managing inflation reasonably well.

Populists in Europe like Viktor Orban and Giorgia Meloni have not been able to seize the agenda. If anything, they have had to trim their sails. The one European country that is foundering is Britain. But in a way that actually highlights the cost of Brexit and the virtues of European unity and cooperation.

Meanwhile, the greatest rogue state in the world, Russia, is facing a terrible future, largely isolated.

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It is struggling to sell its natural gas, roughly three quarters of which used to go to Europe, and finds itself cut off from the modern technology it needs to modernize its economy and war machine. Even China has signaled a greater distance between itself and Russia in recent weeks.

There are lots of problems out there, from Ukraine's future to inflation to climate change. But the big story is the unity and resolve of the democratic world. That unity is much stronger than at any point during the Cold War, when major schisms between Europe and the United States were common place. We have wondered for a while what would happen across the globe as

America's role as sole super power ebbed and it lost the capacity or will to be the world's policeman. Many predicted that we would see a return to anarchy or the law of the jungle in which authoritarian states would ensure that might makes right.

But there are encouraging signs that what we are actually witnessing is a new kind of order, built on the unity and cooperation of the world's free nations. It is early days, coalitions of the free are always messy and contentious. Their unity will have to stand. The cooperation will have to grow. But it is possible that we will look back and see that the age of American leadership was slowly replaced by one of democratic leadership.

Go to CNN.com/fareed for a link to my "Washington Post" column this week. And let us get started.

The man who was the talk of Davos was alas not able to be here. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his Ukrainian countrymen and women were on everyone's mind, even more so after the tragic helicopter crash on Wednesday that left more than a dozen dead, including the nation's interior minister.

Here in Europe, the threat of war is more palpable, more real. After all, Ukraine is only about 600 miles from where I stand. Everybody wanted to know what was happening in the war, and whether peace was likely in 2023.

I got the chance to ask him in two different conversations, both at Davos.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Mr. President, let me expend my condolences and I think everybody in this audience's condolences for the terrible tragedy that took place in Ukraine.

In November and December, the world watched with amazement as Ukrainian forces liberated one town and city after another. It seems now as though the war has moved into something that looks more like a stalemate.

Can you tell us what the war looks like to you on the frontlines right now?

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Thank you for the question. You know, Fareed, thank you for your condolences, by the way. I think the war doesn't look -- it has not been good since the beginning and really wintertime, it slows down for known and understandable reasons. Everyone gets tired, the nature, the people, and thanks God, the enemy, too.

How it looks, it looks as follows. Daily I just find it in the east of the country, we are standing strongly, resolutely. I'm thankful to all of our forces, the living ones, the ones that we've unfortunately lost, for their bravery. It's important to know that we are strong, not just in the east of our

country, but it's ready hard but we are also strong inside the nation, inside our state. We are united, we are modernized, because we are motivated. It was not us who started the war, but it is us who will have to end it, end it on our land, having it de-occupied with due respect to our people and our sovereignty, with regard to other parts of our nation.

The south, the north, but we do control the situation and definitely the progress has slowed down a bit for a variety of reasons. And it is not just about us keeping united inside the country, we need to have the whole world united.

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And our joint failures, and because of that, we truly need to continue that support of Ukraine.

ZAKARIA: Mr. President, the accident, the helicopter crash we think was an accident, we hope it was an accident. But it did raise in my mind, and of course, it must have raised in your mind the question of your own safety. Do you feel that there are still ongoing active threats that are increasing? Do you worry about your own security every day?

ZELENSKYY (through translator): No, I'm not worried about that. Just to add, with your permission, you said accident. I'd like to tell you that because of the war experience that I have now, society has now, this is not an accident, because it has been due to war. And the war has many dimensions, not just on the battlefield. There are no accidents at wartime. These are all war results, absolutely. All those steps, everything happening, missiles striking our civilians, our kids being killed in kindergartens, at schools, every intermedial, every death is a result of the war.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Here's more from my other conversation with President Zelenskyy this week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Mr. President, it seems to me that Vladimir Putin has decided that since he cannot defeat the Ukrainian army, he is going to try to break the Ukrainian nation. He's settling in for a long haul, and he is essentially destroying cities, civilian areas, targeting power stations. What do you need, what does Ukraine need to respond to that kind of warfare?

ZELENSKYY (through translator): We have to protect our weaknesses together with -- we have to protect points where the enemy is hitting. Air defense system is our weakness. Compared to other countries maybe this is not a weakness comparatively, but Iranian drones are hitting us. And not even dozens. Now Russia is getting ready to use another package. I don't know how many days or weeks or months they want to prolong this, but we can fight this back, absolutely. We know how much it will take to do it. We know and our partners know

the energy infrastructure of our country and all the places where Russia can hit to get the blackout they're looking forward to. And this is one of the main things when we're talking about energy infrastructure because this is linked to potable water, to electricity, to other utilities. The livelihood of our cities depend on this, and we have to make sure that people stay in the cities, because this is about jobs, about taxes.

We have to protect them economically to make sure that the business is operating in the meantime. And we do need this financial assistance with this as well. We need to financial cushion. We have to move forward in the battlefield, as well. And for that, we need specific type of equipment, artillery systems, and we have to provide for the shells that we lack right now. We are not inventing some kind of deficit which doesn't exist.

And we are not urging to do something urgently out of the blue. This is not the COVID-19 beginning, when everyone was looking for the vaccine. The vaccine against Russian tyranny, against their weapons is available. There is a list of the countries who have it. There is a specific list of what our needs are. If you want to help, do so without a dialogue, just help us.

ZAKARIA: President Zelenskyy, there are people who say when will negotiations for peace begin? What do you say to those people?

ZELENSKYY (through translator): This is not the cinema where you are waiting for a film to start. This is a big tragedy, and I don't really understand right now today who to talk to, who is the circle of people making these decisions?

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I really don't have that information now. I can't understand how can you promise the European leaders one thing, the next day you start a full pledge invasion in the country. I don't really understand clearly who are we dealing with here? So when we are talking about negotiations, peaceful negotiations, I don't quite understand with whom. It's like us talking to you now.

I know, Fareed, who you are, and you know who I am. So there are witnesses who know us, and at least we respect each other and we can talk to each other. And we know and we can for sure achieve things, even if we have different views of certain things. We still can reach the consensus because I know who's sitting in front of me, and I respect that person. We don't have this in the case of these negotiations. I think Russia has to first find someone, and then propose something.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Thanks to President Zelenskyy for his time.

Next on GPS, I moderated a panel with some of the most influential officials gathered here in Davos. Among them, the head of NATO and the American director of National Intelligence. I'll bring you excerpts when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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ZAKARIA: I moderated a panel this week packed with heavy hitters. Avril Haines, the U.S. director of National Intelligence, the secretary-general of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, President Duda of Poland, and the deputy prime ministers of Ukraine and Canada, Yuliia Svyrydenko and Chrystia Freeland.

I started with a question to Miss Haines. I wanted to know the U.S. intelligence community's perspective on where the war is now and where it's headed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AVRIL HAINES, U.S. DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: The way we would say it, it is not a stalemate, but really a grinding conflict at this stage, where quite literally we're talking about hundreds of meters being fought over in the context of the frontlines. But I think from our perspective, both militaries obviously have challenges.

It will be extremely important for Ukraine to receive essentially military assistance and economic assistance moving forward in order for them to be able to continue to manage what they have been heroically doing, and on the Russian side, we see also significant challenges, ammunition, morale, exhaustion, some dysfunction in the leadership, and so on, things that are I think making it more difficult for the Russian military as well.

ZAKARIA: President Duda, it is striking to me how strong the West has been and other parts of the world, as well, in supporting Ukraine. Do you think that the response is strong enough? And more importantly, what everybody worries about is will it stay strong?

ANDRZEJ DUDA, POLISH PRESIDENT: This assistance we've just sent to Ukraine is still not enough. Ukraine needs more of our efforts, needs more our aid, and we should mobilize ourself to help them because the situation is really difficult. And I'm afraid now it is and it will be in a few maybe months, maybe weeks, a crucial moment. Next crucial moments of this war. And this moment will answer for the question, will Ukraine survive or not?

ZAKARIA: Chrystia, do you worry about the staying power of the West?

CHRYSTIA FREELAND, CANADIAN DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: So the short answer is of course. It would be stupid and naive not to. But I think we're going to do it, and I think, you know, of course I worry. I am ultimately extremely confident. And I'm extremely confident first and foremost because of the magnificent, magnificent job Ukraine is doing. And as President Zelenskyy very crucially pointed out, supplying Ukraine with the money it needs to win the war is ultimately in our own self-interest.

So I'm a finance minister, and if you were to say to me, what is the one thing that G7 finance ministers, G7 governments this year could do that's actually in our power, right? We don't control COVID. We don't control global supply chains. We don't control whether there will be immaculate disinflation or not. One thing where we have some real practical levers is we can help Ukraine win clearly, definitively. And if we do that, if that happens this year, you know as well as I do, Fareed, that would be a huge boost to the global economy.

ZAKARIA: Mr. Secretary-General, you heard the president of Ukraine say he would like to be a member of NATO. Will you let him in?

JENS STOLTENBERG, NATO SECRETARY GENERAL: NATO's position remains unchanged, and that is that Ukraine will become a member of NATO. Then, of course, the main focus now is to support Ukraine, to ensure that Ukraine wins the war and prevails as a sovereign, independent, democratic nation in Europe.

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It is extremely important that President Putin doesn't win this war. Partly because it would be a tragedy for Ukrainians. But it would be very dangerous for all of us, because then the message to authoritarian leaders not only to Putin, but also other authoritarian leaders is that when they use brutal force, when they violate international law, they achieve what they want. And that would be a very bad and dangerous lesson. It will make the world more dangerous and more vulnerable.

And that's the reason why if we want a negotiated peace or solution to the war in Ukraine, we need to provide military support to Ukraine. That's the only way. Weapons, they are the way to peace. And that may sound like a paradox, but the only way to have a negotiated agreement is to convince President Putin that he will not win on the battlefield, he has to sit down and negotiate. Nobody knows how this war will end. Most likely it will end around the negotiating table.

What we do know is that what happens around that negotiating table is totally dependent on the strength of the battlefield. And if we want Ukraine to prevail, then they need the military strength.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, my interview with Sanna Marin, the prime minister of Finland, a nation that shares an 800 plus mile with Russia. Her take on the war when we come back.

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ZAKARIA: In November 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Finland with tanks and planes, and about 1 million troops. The Finns were a mighty foe for the Soviets but they were gravely outnumbered and signed a peace treaty after 3 1/2 months of war. It's a history that resonates still with the Finnish people despite the eight interceding decades.

That history and the Russian attack on Ukraine helped inspire Helsinki to apply for NATO membership alongside Sweden. Their accession to membership is currently being held up by Hungary and Turkey. I had the honor of speaking to Finland's prime minister on stage here in Davos.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Sanna Marin, pleasure to have you on.

SANNA MARIN, FINNISH PRIME MINISTER: Thank you so much for having me.

ZAKARIA: Tell me what the world looks like to you right now. You came in as prime minister in a very different environment. You did not imagine Russia would wage war with Ukraine. You were not somebody who was in particularly in favor of Finland becoming a part of NATO. Yet this has become the defining aspect of your prime ministership. Where are you in this journey?

MARIN: Well, I was in Davos three years ago. I think -- not maybe the same date but about three years ago I was in Davos, and then everything was new. I was just appointed as prime minister, and we didn't know what is heading us, and then the pandemic came to the world and we all saw the consequences and have to live with that. After that, the war in Europe, and now Europe is in the middle of an energy crisis because of Putin's war in Ukraine.

The world today is a very different place than it was three years ago. And right now, the war is not only concerning Ukraine but actually the whole world. The rule-based order is being challenged more and more. Authoritarian regimes are taking more stand in the world and the democratic values are challenged. And this is the new reality. The geopolitical reality that we are in, and we have to face that.

ZAKARIA: So, when Finland and Sweden applied for NATO membership it seemed as though it was going to happen very, very quickly. But there has been an obstacle, two nations in particular. Let's talk about Turkey. Do you think Turkey's objections to Finland's membership are going to be overcome?

MARIN: Well, I think that process should have been faster. Finland and Sweden, we both tick all the boxes when it comes to NATO. We are fully prepared to become NATO members, and there shouldn't be any obstacles on the way. Of course, we are still waiting for two countries to ratify.

Hungary has said that they will ratify as soon as their parliamentarian period will start, hopefully very soon. Turkey, that's another matter. And we have discussed and agreed in NATO's member summit about the steps that we will take, and we have been taking those steps. And now we are waiting for Turkey to ratify.

I don't see that there should be any problems, and I have also personally talked with President Erdogan, and he has said what he has said also in public, that Finland isn't -- that there isn't that big of issues with Finland, maybe some with Sweden. But for our perspective, it's very important that Finland and Sweden are going into NATO together, because we are sharing the same security environment. ZAKARIA: When you look at Europe's economic future so the consensus here at Davos seems to be that Europe is going to enter into a recession. Do you agree?

MARIN: That's a possibility. Actually, it looks likely that Europe will face some kind of recession. And we can, of course, also affect countries what kind of recession will that be. Hopefully, a very short one. Hopefully it will go ahead quite fastly.

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I think right now it's also very important to invest in the future to create transition. But not only that also to digitalization, also to new technologies, research and development, and knowledge and know- how, education of our citizens. Because we have to learn from the war not only concerning energy, but also other fields and about the huge crisis that we have faced during these past three years.

First, the pandemic showed us that we are too dependent on certain markets when it comes to medicine and medical supplies. Then the war in Russia -- that war in Ukraine, and the Russian energy showed us, that we are too dependent on energy. We are also, and we have to make sure that we are not that dependent on food or clean water and defense material. We have to make sure that we can produce the defense material that we need.

But not only this, I think the one thing that we are not discussing enough is new technologies. New technologies and the know-how and the knowledge that we will need, because the future crisis, the future wars, the future conflicts will be about new technologies. We are already seeing that in different parts of the world.

We have to make sure that we are investing in these new technologies. We are partners. We need our democratic partners working together, because if we are dependent on authoritarian regimes when it comes to new technologies, then our economies, our societies will be jeopardized.

ZAKARIA: Sanna Marin, a pleasure to have you. Thank you.

ZAKARIA: Thank you so much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, an unlikely story of success out of Greece. How that nation went from the verge of economic collapse to a top economic winner, according to "The Economist." I'll talk to Greece's prime minister when we come back.

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ZAKARIA: In the last four years, Greece turned the tide on its decade long economic crisis, voted out a populist leftist government, and escaped yet more devastation from the COVID pandemic. Indeed, today many consider it an economic success story. How did that happen? Hear from the man who led the charge, Greece's prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Prime Minister Mitsotakis, pleasure to have you on.

KYRIAKOS MITSOTAKIS, GREEK PRIME MINISTER: Thank you, Fareed.

ZAKARIA: So, I want people to remember that Greece was the country that everyone was worried was going to bring Europe down, bring the euro down. It was really seen as a kind of sick man of Europe. And you're in a very different position now. "The Economist" says you are one of the economic winners in their list. What happened?

MITSOTAKIS: Well, I think it is, indeed, a very interesting story of an economic transformation. We came into power in July 2019 and we inherited the country and an economy that was still traumatized, not just as a result of a financial crisis, but also traumatized from our experiment with populism which essentially unnecessarily prolonged the crisis for four additional years.

And in spite of the fact that we had to deal with multiple crises, I think, we have succeeded in turning the country around. And if I look at the image of Greece today and I compare it to three years ago when I was, again, at Davos pitching my story at the time, at the beginning of our term, then I sensed interest but also skepticism.

Now, we have the facts to support the argument that we have, indeed, turned the corner. That Greece is no longer the sick man of Europe and that we are actually leading Europe on numerous fronts when it comes to innovative public policy.

ZAKARIA: Let's talk some of the numbers. Greece's growth rate now, I mean --

MITSOTAKIS: Five point six percent for 2022, 8.4 percent in 2021. I expect a growth closer to two percent than one percent in 2023, and we may even surprise on the upside. But I think equally important, numbers of foreign direct investment, record years '21, record year again 2022, and we did that without compromising our fiscal sustainability priority. So if you look at that two GDP, we have had the fastest decline of the two GDP than any other European country, to the point where no one talks about the Greek debt being an issue.

ZAKARIA: The green transition is also quite impressive. At this point what percentage of Greece's electricity is produced from renewables?

MITSOTAKIS: Close to 50 percent. And our days -- today, for example, is a lovely day back in Greece. Sunny, windy without -- not too hot, not too cold. So, we do have many requirements. And close to 90 percent of the electricity during the day will be produced by renewables. And there were days in October where, for hours, we produced 100 percent of our electricity from renewables.

ZAKARIA: So, when you look at -- you know, to me, what's interesting about the Greek case is you have a center-right government, pro-market but as you say responsible on green issues, also on protecting the vulnerable. Is there a model here for how to stave off populism? Because I look at it, and it does seem even though Biden's government is center-left, there are similarities here.

MITSOTAKIS: I think the main cleavages today are not so much between the center-right and the center-left, but between those who believe in policy, pragmatism and, you know, a well-functioning democracies and those who promise the moon while at the same time undermining democratic institutions. In our case, you're right. I'm a center-right politician but many of the policies that we've pursued could be labeled as rather progressive.

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And I would be making a case that the next phase of the Greek growth cannot be funded by debt, that's what we did when the country went bankrupt in the first place, but also needs to focus on innovation, on the green transition, on the digital transition, but also needs to be fair. So what we have done, and I think we have done successfully, was to make sure that all the support we have provided our citizens and our businesses was always and is always being tested.

So we resist the temptation to horizontally cut, for example, VAT (ph) or excise taxes. But we do recycle, for example, windfall profits from our two main refineries. So, we take 600 million and we recycle them into a voucher to help vulnerable households with the supermarket purchases.

So, I would argue that there is a template, yes, for a progressive approach, whether you label it, you know, in our case it comes from the center-right, because we passionately believe in the power of innovation, and the strength of the private economy. But the old cleavages, you know, right versus left in my mind are no longer as relevant as a distinction between a more authoritarian populists and more pragmatic progressive democrats. I think this is the real dividing line today in many western democracies.

ZAKARIA: You have been a successful businessman. You and I -- I think fair to say a successful politician. Which was harder?

MITSOTAKIS: There's no comparison. I mean, politics is extremely complicated. It's -- especially in times of crisis. We had to -- we had to go through very sort of difficult challenges, you know, because if you -- in our case, it was not just COVID and Ukraine, we also had migration and Turkey. So, we had the whole -- the whole package.

But at the same time, it's a tremendously rewarding job, when you see, you know, real results, when you improve people's lives. At the end of the day when you look back at your record, when you make your case to the people to be re-elected, if you feel good with yourself about the fact that you have tried very hard, you have done your best, you have given it your best, you acknowledge your mistakes, because mistakes were made, you sleep well at night, and that's very, very important when you have to run a campaign.

ZAKARIA: Prime Minister, pleasure to have you.

MITSOTAKIS: Thank you, Fareed. Thank you very much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, I'll take you to a little piece of Ukraine in Davos. A powerful exhibit that could change the way you see this war.

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ZAKARIA: And now for the last look. You might think there could be no place more remote from war-torn Ukraine than the rarified Davos. But I want to highlight one notable effort to bridge that gap. The Victor Pinchuk Foundation teamed up with the office of the president of Ukraine to put on a series of moving exhibits and lectures at Ukraine House here in Davos, that highlights the human toll of the war. The project is called, Ukraine Is You.

Bjorn Geldhof, the artistic director of the Pinchuk Art Center in Kyiv, told us that the title is a plea to the global community to support the country, materially and otherwise. The power of the plea is achieved through its organizer's refusal to look away from the horrors of the war.

I want to warn you that some of the images you are about to see are graphic. This one is a photo featured in the exhibit of a man mourning next to the body of a woman hit during a barrage of shelling in Kharkiv in July. The blue of his shirt and the yellow of her dress, Geldhof says, are like a dismembered Ukrainian flag.

Some of the exhibit is dedicated to stories we know, like the alleged war crimes in Bucha. But much of it would be unfamiliar to viewers. For example, you may have seen sweeping images of the damage to apartment complexes in cities like Mariupol. But have you seen Saltivka, a neighborhood in Kharkiv?

Before the shelling began in February, it housed about half a million people. Now, a tiny fraction of them live here. A resident told the BBC it's like Chernobyl. And you may have heard of Ukrainians in captivity, in makeshift Russian prisons, inside occupied territory. But it's another experience all together to see what looks like blood on the walls of this detention center in Kherson.

Here, occupants reported being beaten and interrogated, according to Geldhof. They were forced to memorize the Russian national anthem and Russian poetry that was written on the walls. And they were forced to recite them on command.

Ukraine has used more than just a plea for a certain kind of tank or missile defense system. It's an effort to document and therefore to remember. And it brought to mind a conversation I had earlier this week with a very inspiring woman, Oleksandra Matviichuk. She is the Ukrainian human rights lawyer who, last year, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of her organization, the Center for Civil Liberties. It's a group that's been working to shore up democracy in Ukraine for the past 15 years.

Since Russia invaded Crimea in 2014 Matviichuk has interviewed hundreds of survivors and documented Russian violence in the country. She has heard accounts of rape, of torture, of people being compelled by their captors to write with their own blood.

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And despite all that she has seen and heard, despite the Russian invasion itself, she's not without optimism for the future.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OLEKSANDRA MATVIICHUK, UKRAINIAN HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER: We'll be able to say to our generation, to the next generation that, OK, it was a period of temporal law disorder, when nothing work, when even human rights lawyer like me when I'm asked, what Ukraine needs, answer it. Provide Ukraine with weapons. But we fix it. And we hold Russian war criminals accountable because rule of law is essential. And justice is possible even so with delay in time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAKARIA: Bearing witness and bringing justice, all in the midst of this terrible war. Thanks as always to the World Economic Forum for the opportunity to moderate the conversations you heard today. And finally, thank you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week.

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