Retired high-ranking American diplomat George Kent set off on a cross-country bike ride across the United States to support Ukraine. His goal is to raise funds to buy three specially outfitted vehicles for Ukrainian units, and to explain to ordinary Americans why it is so important for the United States to back Ukraine.

George Kent served on diplomatic missions to Ukraine twice — from 2004 to 2007 and again from 2015 to 2018. During his second term he was Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. In July 2021 Kent served in Kyiv as Charge d'Affaires. From February 2023 to January 2025, he served as the U.S. Ambassador to Estonia. He is currently an activist with the international NAFO group, which fights Russian propaganda and supports the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In July he set out on a bike ride across America.

The former ambassador plans to cover roughly 7,000 kilometers together with his wife and his 25-year-old son, traveling from the U.S. West Coast to Washington, D.C. The finish is scheduled for early October. Midway through the route, George Kent spoke to Ukrinform about how a bicycle can become a tool of diplomacy, how ordinary Americans currently view the Russia-Ukraine war, and how to make Russia actually pay for the destruction it has caused in Ukraine.

MAKE RUSSIA SMALL AGAIN

- So, how and where did the idea of a bike ride across America in support of the Ukrainian military originate?

- I think it originated, actually, [during my work as ambassador] in Estonia. The cycle across America is something I wanted to do for 35 years, since I was in graduate school. I was what I thought about doing when I retired. So, the end of my Diplomatic Service came earlier this year. And I didn't want to just cycle across the United States - I wanted to have a focus and a purpose, so I explored ways to help Ukraine.

And there's this wonderful group of activists globally known as NAFO, the North Atlantic Fella Organization. And even though they are all over the globe, the coordinating headquarters is actually in Estonia. NAFO has been engaged since February 2022 in countering Russian disinformation, and they have also raised a lot of money to buy equipment for Ukrainian front-line units.

This appealed to me, so that’s what this trip has been about. We’re cycling across America. We’re talking to people every day. We’re wearing Ukrainian cycle jerseys or American flag cycle jerseys. I also have an Estonian jersey. But at night, when we go to restaurants, I’ve got T-shirts from the Ukrainians with messages “Make Russia Pay” with a list of the $300 billion assets frozen and the first $300 billion of damage that Russians did to Ukrainian infrastructure, and "Make Russia Small Again”, with a picture of what Russia’s borders were in 1462. And obviously, if you’re going through parts of the US that have voted for Trump, people see that and get that. It’s a play off of “Make America Great Again,” and that has sparked a lot of conversation.

So whether it’s the bike jerseys we wear during the day, or the T-shirts at night, we’re looking to spark conversations with Americans all across the United States and raise money. And so I think that’s the sort of combination fighting disinformation, telling the truth about what’s going on with Russia’s war in Ukraine, why it’s important to support Ukraine, and then raising money to support Ukrainian frontline units.

CONNECTION WITH UKRAINE

- Before I ask you the following questions about bikeride, could you please say a little about what connects you to Ukraine? As I know, you previously served in Kyiv as a U.S. diplomat, and then you were responsible for Ukraine at the U.S. Department of State, right?

- Yeah, I served. I was in the U.S. Foreign Service for 33 years. I spent over a decade focused on Ukrainian issues, including six years at our Embassy in Kyiv. I arrived a couple of months before the Orange Revolution - we were there from 2004 to 2007. And I was there after the Revolution of Dignity, from 2015 to 2018. And then I came back to Washington, D.C., and was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, the policymaker who focused on Ukraine on a daily basis.

In addition to those, I spent other times working on Rule of Law programs. I was the anticorruption coordinator, and obviously, after the Revolution of Dignity, creating institutions to help Ukraine fight corruption and hold corrupt officials to account. That was critical for the success of Ukraine as a country and a society, not just fighting on the frontline, but also fighting corruption at home, to bring Ukraine into the modern era and enable it to join the European Union. And so I think if I look back at the 33 years that I had as a US diplomat, there's no question that the main focus of my time and effort has been working with US-Ukrainian relations and helping Ukraine succeed.

- I also know that your wife, Velida, has Crimean Tatar roots.

- Yes. And so I think, it’s for her to explain to people, when they see her along the way, and say, Where are you from? First of all, she says, I’m American, but then she says, I’m a Ukrainian American. And then she also goes and says, I’m Crimean Tatar, but Crimea is Ukraine, and that’s our license plate [with the inscription “Krym UA” on it] as we ride across the US with the support car of our bike trip.

DIPLOMACY ON WHEELS

- You, with your wife Velida and son Georgiy, set a goal to cover 4,300 miles (about 6,900 km) in almost three months – that’s a serious challenge. Can this be called a kind of sports diplomacy?

- I’m not sure if it’s sports diplomacy. It is, I think, an interesting, innovative way of public diplomacy on wheels. Whether it’s the Ukrainian embassy here in the United States or the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, part of a diplomat’s job is to get out and talk to people. Typically, we do that in cars or on planes in a big country like the United States, or on trains. Being on a bicycle is different. You don’t travel as far every day, but you also encounter people where they are in ways that you wouldn’t necessarily meet in the normal diplomatic world. I’m stopping off at cafes and convenience stores in farming country and talking to farmers or ranchers.

We spoke at breakfast this morning with cattle ranchers. We’ve had conversations with evangelicals in Eastern Oregon. So I think that’s what has been special about this trip, is that we are talking to people who often know nothing about Ukraine. And I think most of the conversations, not all, but most of them, end with people thanking us for having shared truth. A lot of them have told us they don’t know what to believe, because there is so much misinformation out there that sometimes people just turn off. And so again, reminding them where they can find accurate information is important, and that’s a job I think that all informed Americans need to play in their own communities. It’s obviously also part of the job of the media, and the Ukrainian embassy here in the United States.

AID FOR UKRAINIAN FORCES

- Your goal is to raise funds for two NAFO Truck 2.0 vehicles and one NAFO Drone Bus for Rangers. Could you say a little more about this initiative, the specific vehicles, as well as which Ukrainian units you support and why?

- The key thing is that NAFO is the sort of loosely coordinate organization. They’ve already provided over 750 vehicles since February of 2022, and the current main vehicle that they provide, which is on their website, is what they call the NAFO 2.0 truck. It's in response to talking to Ukrainian frontline units in terms of what’s most useful for them.

So the current main focus is a pickup truck that gets outfitted with special mud tires, special anti-drone radar, and night vision equipment, so the units that receive the vehicles can use them in the terrain that they’re operating in.

Also, the way it works is that Ukrainian units that are interested in getting one of these donated vehicles. Essentially, there’s an interaction with the coordinators. And if there are specific elements that the unit prefers or needs, then the NAFO coordinating team looks to outfit the vehicle.

WE'VE ALREADY RAISED NEARLY $50,000

- Your bike ride is featured on the Help 99 website, where people can make donations to support Ukrainian units and even join you on certain sections of the route. Can you share any interesting stories about the people who rode with you during the bike ride?

- First of all, over two hundred people have donated so far [at the moment of recording this interview, the total amount of donations reached over $48,000].

And in terms of the people who have cycled with us, we started the trip not just with the three core riders - myself, my wife, and my son - but we had an Estonian friend who was at one point working in Kyiv in the NATO office as a detailee from Estonia, and was a national security advisor for President Ilves. She rode for the first 10 days.

I had a grad school friend and a colleague from Seattle who came down and rode the first two days in Colorado. We had two of these people affiliated with a national group, who have donated money and time, who asked to join and ride with us, and that was great.

One named Heidi has lived in the United States for 30 years. She’s originally from Germany. She’s a paramedic, and so she volunteered her Paramedic Services with an NGO, working in frontline areas [in Ukraine] in late 2022. She rode with us for four days and has also given money to other NAFO organizations.

And then there was a guy named Richard, who, my guess is, was in his early 70s, and he had an electronic bike, so he drove for a couple of hours. He must have gotten up at 5:30 in the morning from Boulder to drive down near Breckenridge and ride with us on his e-bike. He also makes monthly donations to Ukraine. His family roots are Galician Jewish, and so they fled Russian pogroms in the late 1800s, but he feels very proud of his support for Ukraine.

In two days, we’re going to cross the Mississippi. And we may have a couple of people coming down from St Louis to join us for the ride across the Mississippi River. One is through this NAFO network, and the other is a friend of mine who served at the US Embassy in Kyiv in the 1990s and is now a university professor and a firm supporter of Ukraine.

- What is the key message of your initiative for the Ukrainians?

- Americans still support Ukraine. You know, on the one hand, governments control governmental resources and policy. But I think what is also important is to understand: a majority of Americans, both Democrats and Republicans, support Ukraine. They want to see Ukraine succeed. They want to see the US give more support to Ukraine, and we see and hear that almost every day on our trip.

Not everybody, but amazing numbers do, and they are supportive of Ukraine. And so I think as a reminder for Ukrainians, they’re not alone, people here admire Ukraine’s resolve. And they understand that it is important, not just for Ukraine’s survival, but also for countries like the United States or Europe.

THE ONLY THING THAT WORKS ON RUSSIA IS PRESSURE

- Finally, I would like to ask about your assessment of the situation in Ukraine as a former diplomat with considerable experience in foreign policy. What scenarios for ending the war in Ukraine do you see now, given current efforts by the West on one hand, and the rapprochement of the so-called axis of evil countries on the other? What must Europe, the United States, and other allies and partners do to force Russia to end its war in Europe?

I don’t think there’s any indication that Putin has any intention of ending the war. He plays for time. He’ll talk to anybody, and if people are stupid enough to agree to his terms, he’ll pocket those concessions and keep fighting. And the biggest, classic example of that are the Minsk agreements on September 2014 and February 2015. There was supposed to be a ceasefire. And three days later, the Russian army continued fighting and took Debaltsevo, and nothing changed.

And over the next several years, there were - I lost track at 44 ceasefire discussions, pseudo-agreements. The numbers vary, but it doesn’t matter - the fighting never ends. So, it doesn’t matter what Russia claims to agree to - it always breaks those agreements. It plays for time. It keeps killing Ukrainians.

The only way this war will end is if enough pressure is put on Putin and Russia to change the calculus. And so what we have seen for 11 years, not just three years, is a series of half measures by Western countries who were in 2014 looking to give Putin an off-ramp, as was an expression used at the time, because there was a misdiagnosis of what the challenge was. Putin wasn’t looking to get an off-ramp or come to an agreement. Putin was looking to continue to attack and dismantle Ukraine. And so we  collectively, the West, have never gone as far as we should have earlier to put maximum pressure.

What’s the maximum pressure? Well, first of all, the frozen $300 billion should be seized and used for the reconstruction of Ukraine now, not just using the interest in escrow, as if Russia has any claim on their assets. They forfeited the assets by violating international law and destroying hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure, as well as taking 20,000 Ukrainian children and kidnapping them, and everything else they have done. The sanctions need to be much deeper and stricter on all the so-called ghost ships and the shadow fleet that is being used for transporting Russian oil, oftentimes being transferred onto other vessels in international waters, and then going back into the European supply, particularly in the Mediterranean.

There is a mechanism called secondary sanctions, which applies to companies, whether they’re Chinese, Indian, European, or American. And those secondary sanctions are oftentimes the ones that really have bite.

We should have put greater pressure on the Russian oil industry, certainly in 2022 if not in 2014 now. The pressure against the Russian oil industry is coming now from the Ukrainian long-range drone campaign to attack and degrade Russian oil and refining infrastructure systematically. But the West can and should have done more.

And then the other part is, of course, resuming maximum support and provision of the air defense interceptors and the weapons that Ukraine needs to succeed.

I think the investment into the Ukrainian defense industry, particularly drones and countermeasures, is a good policy, a wise policy. The Danes have started doing this. Rather than buying weapons, they're investing in production in Ukraine, and so are the Estonians. And there needs to be a lot more of that.

We need to stop worrying about escalation management. It needs to be maximum pressure on Russia because that’s the only way to change Putin’s calculations. He’s chasing his place in Russian history. He’s an old man. He’s going to die sooner rather than later, even though he makes jokes with the Chinese leader Xi about living forever through biotechnology.

And those of us outside Russia who are trying to change his calculus need to understand that he’s not interested in making a deal on our terms. He’s pursuing his place in Russian history. So, only pressure and strength work.

Yaroslav Dovgopol, Washington, D.C.

Photos provided by George Kent