I'm John Batchel with my good friend Mary Kessel, whose experience as State Department,

helps me understand the process of when you see these large headlines about envoys going to

such and such a capital to have critical conversations, how the apparatus responds and anticipates and moves at state.

The conversation that was most featured over these last days, the Secretary of State,

Mr. Rubio, traveled to Florida to meet with representatives of Ukraine to discuss the peace

plan, or I'm not sure how to characterize it, a document, perhaps,

to be chiseled out or arrangements to be considered that would end the killing and

massacres that we hear in Ukraine and move towards a solution. The Secretary of State did

attend that, Mary. That necessarily gives it great weight.

Ukraine, however, is not transparent to me. It is always something I'm told to remember that this

was considered the most corrupt government in all of Europe prior to 22 in the attack of Russia.

I believe they've shed most of that reputation, but I'm not clear.

How does state approach an ostensible ally who has shadows in the room?

There's corruption throughout the post-Soviet states.

I don't say that to in any way excuse it. It has touched the

U.S. political system via Hunter Biden, who sat on a Ukrainian board with no experience or

expertise and was paid a boatload of money to do so so that the Ukrainians could curry favor with President

Biden. You know, I think that you approach it through the eyes of U.S. strategic interests.

Why do we care about Ukraine? Well, we care about it because it is strategically where it is located.

It's basically a buffer state between an aggressive Russia and a peaceful democratic

western, eastern, in Western Europe.

We care about it because it's a major agricultural producer that is the key source of food for places like Lebanon,

...