Wearing a military jacket, Vitali Klitschko sat in a dimly lit room, his desk scattered with papers, the flags of Ukraine and Kyiv hanging behind him. His face careworn but strong, his hair a close-cropped salt-and-pepper, the mayor of Kyiv’s powerful hands were clasped tightly. Once those hands had helped the Ukrainian boxer-turned-politician punch his way to heavyweight championships. Now, they were trying to help hold up a nation.

“What the Russians are doing here is genocide,” Klitschko declared emphatically on an April 5 podcast hosted by Gemline (asi/56070) CEO Jonathan Isaacson. “It’s genocide against the Ukrainian people.”

Vitali Klitschko, Mayor of Kyiv

Klitschko went on to detail horrors he’s witnessed amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainian boys with their hands tied behind their backs, shot in the head, execution-style. Destroyed cars with white flags signaling peace, but no bodies to be found, just blood and children’s toys among the remnants. Bombed-out apartment buildings and rocket-destroyed supermarkets. And the bodies in Bucha, a city near Kyiv where Klitschko said Russian troops murdered hundreds of civilians in cold blood.

“Russia’s main weapon is propaganda – they say Bucha was fake,” Klitschko said. “Bucha is not fake. It’s hard reality.”

Today we painstakingly checked videos frame by frame, matched images from different sources and angles and spoke to forensic pathologists with expertise in war crimes to debunk Russian claims the killings in Bucha were a ‘hoax’ or ‘faked’ https://t.co/RXTWLefY4v

— Rachel Schraer (@rachelschraer) April 4, 2022

Klitschko’s insights were among the many heartrending moments during the “Understanding the War in Ukraine” webinar, which Isaacson organized for the promotional products industry and members of the Young Presidents Organization, a global leadership community of which he is a part.

Nearly 1,000 people registered for the webinar to hear accounts from Klitschko, Ukrainian business leaders Dmytro Shymkiv and Olena Malynska, and Poland-based American promo products entrepreneur John Lynch. Eurasian expert Rawi E. Abdelal, who is the Joseph C. Wilson Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School in the business, government and international economy unit, was also a panelist.

“It’s incumbent on us to bear witness to what is happening in Ukraine,” said Isaacson, whose firm is one of the Top 40 largest suppliers in the North American promotional products industry.  

As the executive chairman of Darnitsa, Ukraine’s biggest pharmaceutical company, Shymkiv is one of the nation’s most prominent and important businesspeople. He described how the night before the war began, he was in a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other leaders. Most felt the probability of invasion was low. Come 5 o’clock the next morning, however, Shymkiv woke up to a full-scale Russian invasion. Acting swiftly, he helped get his wife and children packed, kissed them goodbye for perhaps the last time, and sent them to safety.

Shymkiv remained. He, along with hundreds of brave employees, are keeping the Kyiv factory running around the clock to get essential pharmaceuticals shipped throughout Ukraine. He’s also helped on security and defense initiatives and worked with aid volunteers on humanitarian relief efforts. And he’s seen tragedy.

“The stories of butchery you’re hearing are real,” said Shymkiv, who is reportedly a Russian target for killing. “It’s not a horror movie. It’s the reality we’re living in.”

Shymkiv is worried Russian President Vladimir Putin will authorize the widespread use of chemical and even nuclear weapons. “The annihilation of our nation is on the agenda,” he said. “Any means to annihilation will be used.”

Ukraine is using about 50,000 investigators from 5 different law enforcement agencies to investigate war crimes, conducting interviews and documenting evidence to use in war crimes prosecutions against Putin and the military force he sent to invade Ukrainehttps://t.co/xolxWEnqOL

— Alfons López Tena 🦇 (@alfonslopeztena) April 5, 2022

Malynska is the CEO of Women Political Leaders and an experienced financial industry C-suiter, having held top executive positions in Ukrainian banks and international banks operating in Ukraine. She’s currently a refugee from her homeland, staying outside the warzone in Europe with her children. Her husband, however, has remained in Ukraine. They talk a couple times a day, and he’s held up his phone so she could see Russian strikes streaming in, she shared.

“I was very angry with him [at first] because he had the chance to leave and travel to be safe,” Malynska admitted. “He didn’t use it. He’s not going to do it.”

She understands why he made that decision, though. “We have two sons,” she said. “He wants to be proud when he looks them in the eyes and answers their question, “What did you do during this time?’”

It’s a heroic stance many Ukrainians are making. Klitschko described how ordinary people are taking up arms en masse to defend their country. As one example, he spoke of being approached by a man whose apartment had been destroyed in a rocket strike.

Said Klitschko: “He told me, ‘Mr. Mayor, I don’t want to leave. This is my hometown. I spent my whole life in Kyiv. Please give me weapons. I want to fight. I want to defend my city.’”

“People,” Klitschko continued, “who had peaceful professions, right now they have a weapon in hand. They are ready to defend their country, their city. Do you feel the difference? Russian soldiers die for money. Our soldiers die to defend our families, defend our children, defend our homes, defend our city and the future of our country. The spirt, the will, is the main point.”

Abdelal provided geopolitical insights into the war. Among them: Putin is not, as some might contend, a madman acting irrationally.

The invasion “was a long time in the coming,” said Abdelal. Putin is “a ruthless, reckless gambler. A kind of ruthless gangster who gambles with different odds. There is a logic to what he’s doing. It’s a horrific logic, but logic nonetheless.” Klitschko and others contend that strategy is centered on rebuilding the Soviet Union’s “empire.”

Abdelal said it could help Ukraine’s leverage in negotiating with Russia if the U.S. and European Union granted Zelenskyy authority to remove or reduce sanctions imposed by Western nations. “The West needs to make it clear negotiations are with Zelenskyy and that the path to peace is through Kyiv, through Ukraine,” Abdelal said.

Still, noting that Ukraine and Russia are far apart on a potential peace treaty, Abdelal is concerned that the worst is yet to come. “Russia is not going to withdraw,” he said. “The more the war stalemates, the more violent it will be.”