Missed Opportunities and Hard Lessons: Former Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor on Western Support for Ukraine

Abstract

Ambassador William Taylor is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. He previously served as the United States ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009 and the chargé d’affaires from 2019 to 2020 in Kyiv. During his first tour in Kyiv, the Ukrainian government was in the process of building closer ties to NATO and the EU, allowing Ambassador Taylor to strengthen Ukrainian-American relations. Prior to his time in Kyiv, Ambassador Taylor coordinated U.S. government assistance in the former Soviet Union from 1992 to 2002, in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2003, and in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 as director of the Iraq Reconstruction Office. He then served as the U.S. government’s representative to the Mideast Quartet in Jerusalem from 2005 to 2006. During the Arab Spring, Ambassador Taylor returned to reconstruction work and directed assistance to the Middle East as special coordinator for Middle East Transitions at the U.S. Department of State. In 2015, he became executive vice president, Europe and Russia, at the U.S. Institute of Peace.