Alina Polyakova
Howard, it’s such a pleasure to have the opportunity to sit down with you and thank you so much for accepting our Impact Award. I think there’s no one more deserving for how much you and the foundation have done for Ukraine. So thank you for everything you’re doing.

Howard G. Buffett
Glad to be here.

Alina Polyakova
So, I just wanted to get into a conversation with you, and I wanted to start with some numbers that I don’t know if everybody’s aware of exactly how much you’ve done. Since the full scale invasion, the Foundation has provided more than a billion to Ukrainian resilience and reconstruction. You supplied, it’s incredible. You supplied 450 million meals across Ukraine.

Howard G. Buffett
I ate a lot of those myself. Yes.

Alina Polyakova
And you yourself have visited Ukraine 22 times. Is that right?

Howard G. Buffett
Yes. And I was in Ukraine in 1991 before independence, believe it or not.

Alina Polyakova
Oh, wow, so was I.

Howard G. Buffett
I was looking for you, but —

Alina Polyakova
So I think just, these numbers are just incredible. It’s amazing what you’ve done and the foundation in so many different countries. But, I got the feeling, you know, reading a little about you, listening to some of your previous speeches and interviews that there’s really something special about Ukraine for you, despite all the amazing work you’re doing across the world. So, what is it about Ukraine?

Howard G. Buffett
Well, there’s a lot of things about Ukraine that I love and that I appreciate, but, you know, I read a quote by General, General McChrystal, written about six months ago. And when I read it, I realized that it was exactly why I ended up coming to Ukraine in early 2022 and he said something, I won’t get it exactly right, but something like, you know, in your personal life, you’ll have a test from time to time, and it will test you in terms of whether or not you have the strength and the compassion to do what’s right. To me, when the full scale invasion occurred, it was obvious that this was going to be the biggest event for global impact during my lifetime. I saw it that way immediately, and almost four years later, the truth is I underestimated it, and so I wouldn’t say that when the full scale invasion occurred, I felt an obligation, because that’s not quite the right word, but I can never find the right word to describe it, because I I felt that I had to go to Ukraine, and I actually wasn’t sure how to do it. My friend Shannon, who is here tonight, figured it out and got me on the first trip. So you have to thank her too, but, but once she, you know, once she got me there, then I kept going back, but, but, but the point is that I saw it as something where, if our foundation didn’t step up, do it fast and do it big, that I felt that I would regret that the rest of my life, and that’s what took me to Ukraine.

Alina Polyakova
So, staying with the theme of Ukraine being a special place for you now, especially and you visited so many times, you met so many amazing people there. You know, I heard that you’re not one that usually celebrates birthdays, and I’ve also heard that you recently changed that, and you actually celebrated your last two birthdays in Ukraine, and you’re going to celebrate your next birthday in Ukraine too. Is that right? I get all this intel, right?

Howard G. Buffett
That’s correct. And, you know, my wife says now, and she’ll say it again in December, she’ll say, Why are you going to Ukraine for your birthday? And you know, the fact is, Ukraine just has better ice cream cake. So, I mean, I have more for I have more friends in Ukraine today than I do at home, so where else am I going to go?

Alina Polyakova
So you took my question right out of my mouth. Actually, I was going to say, you know, what makes Ukraine so great that you want to celebrate your birthdays there? Is it just the ice cream cake?

Howard G. Buffett
Well, I, the first year just happened, and then the second year I felt like, you know, we should do this again. And this time, you know, now it’s become kind of a tradition, and the list gets bigger and bigger, and, you know, it’s hard to celebrate anything with what’s happening in Ukraine, but what I’ve learned, and I’ve learned this with my friends on the front line, and I, you know, it’s important to show up. It’s important that people see you, that they know that you’re thinking about them, that you care about them. And, so, in a way, my birthday party has become a refuge for two or three hours to forget about the war and just be friends.

Alina Polyakova
I think that that is a very good reason to celebrate your birthday in Ukraine. So I wanted to ask you about maybe a slightly, you know, more difficult topic, which is that you’ve been to the front lines quite, quite a bit as well during your trips, and you really witnessed, I think, firsthand, the brutality and the atrocities committed in this war. You’ve invested a lot of the Foundation’s work in things like building prosthetics, demining, children’s welfare, humanitarian relief, the list, the list goes on. But you know, just reading as to all the amazing things the Foundation has done. I wanted to ask, you know, how do you decide, out of all the many needs in Ukraine, which issues to tackle or causes to back when there’s just so many?

Howard G. Buffett
The First Lady tells me what to do. That’s a bit of a joke, because —

Alina Polyakova
She’s someone to listen to, I think.

Howard G. Buffett
Oh yeah, no, but it’s actually, there’s a lot of truth to it, but it’s a joke we have together because it’s just when she does ask me to do something. I can’t say no to her. So, I joke that I have two people in my life I can’t say no to: my wife and the First Lady. But anyway, but the First Lady’s actually cost me a lot more money, but, but, you know, the truth is, if you looked at everywhere else we’ve worked in the world, you’d see more continuity, and you would see more of a strategy, I think, you know, whether it’s Columbia or Congo or, you know, wherever it is, and because we worked in a lot of conflict and post conflict areas, but we’ve never worked where there’s a real war and it’s different. And I would say I’ve had to learn to listen better. I’ve had to make adjustments in my mindset, in my thinking. And we do things in Ukraine that we wouldn’t do anywhere else. We’ve built a major bridge. I mean, we don’t go build bridges anywhere. But, you know, it was a need for that at the time, and we did it. We, the first time I met the First Lady. I went in with this idea about, like, I want to talk to her about school feeding for kids. And so we went in and I listened to her, and she actually wanted to talk about school feeding for kids, and her idea was much better than mine, and so we built, so far, we’re on our third facility that is like a hub for feeding, a feeding hub for schools, like 50, 60 schools. We would never do that anywhere else. So I can give you a long list of things, but the fact is that we’ve tried to respond to what the greatest need is. We’ve tried to respond to the people that we trust and have impact doing it. And the one thing, when I say people that we trust, you know, the one thing I’ve learned, Ukraine has taught me a lot of things, but one thing it taught me for certain, is during a war, you don’t have the luxury of trying to take the time to figure things out, and so you don’t have the luxury of building relationships. You have to learn very quickly who you can trust, who you can believe. And, so, I have probably made more great friends in Ukraine in the last few years than I’ve ever made in this country. And it’s because war accelerates everything, and you don’t know what’s around the corner. And I used to say to some of my friends, I’d say, Well, I’ll see you when I come back. And they would say, I hope so. It has a complete different meaning in war. And so it’s really, Ukraine has been an amazing teacher to me, the Ukrainian people.

Alina Polyakova
So I just want to stay with that topic. A little bit, and you’ve already mentioned the many friends you made in Ukraine over the years. Is there a story of an individual that you met that really stands out to you as a particular inspiration, or an explanation for why, despite all the painful losses that Ukraine is experiencing, that the Ukrainians still keep on fighting. Is there someone that stands out in mind?

Howard G. Buffett
Well, there’s, there’s a lot of people that I think are inspiring. I mean, immediately, you just have to say all of the men and women that are on the front line fighting. I mean, the courage and the tenacity of those people who are there, those individuals who are there, are really amazing. But I would start a little broader and then come down a little more narrow, you know, excuse me. I have seen an amazing amount of bravery from the women in Ukraine. And, I could start with the First Lady. She didn’t want to be where she is, she doesn’t want to be in these circumstances, but she stepped up on a global stage and has taken a leadership role that’s amazing. The Prime Minister, you know, she has the toughest job in the world, alongside with a few other leaders in Ukraine, but the innovation and the commitment, the sacrifice of, you know, many Ukrainians, but particularly the women are, I think it’s a real inspiration, because they have put aside their family, their children, their career, because they know that if they don’t do what they need to do now, that that country, their country, Ukraine, will not survive, so they have to do it. And I think, unfortunately, the world is not watching as closely as they need to be watching, because we could learn so much from the Ukrainian people. And I’ll take it down then to a more specific, you know, event or experience I had, I think in, it’d be two years ago, or over two years ago, and I walked into Superhumans for the first time, and there’s Dennis. He’s missing his two legs, his left arm, and he’s sitting in a wheelchair, and we start talking. He doesn’t speak a lot of English and through a translator, and immediately connected with him and, you know, big hug. And I thought, if I was sitting in that chair like Dennis, what would be my mindset? What would I be thinking about? What would I be, would I be feeling bad for myself? Would I be angry? And you know what Dennis asked me? He said, Will you help me do one thing? I want to be able to sit down with all of the other men and women that come in through here, through Superhumans, and know how to professionally advise them, to be basically a psychologist, to be able to help them get through some of the worst, darkest moments of their life. And I said, of course, we can do that, and that’s an inspiration. I mean, this guy is sitting there, he got blown up at Bakhmut, and he wants to help other people. That’s what he wants to do, and that’s what he’s doing today. Today, he is really amazing. I got there a few trips ago, and Olga says, Dennis is going to take you the last two miles down to Superhumans. And I go, what is she talking about? We pull up, and here’s Dennis on a three-wheeled scooter. I go, I’m not getting on that thing with him. I mean, you know, and I didn’t have much choice, so I got on, it scared the hell out of me on, you know, two miles of terror. But we got there, and, I mean, to see people that have gone through so much pain and suffering, and watch their friends die, and just come back stronger than ever. And it’s really an amazing thing to see.

Alina Polyakova
That’s an amazing story. That’s a beautiful story. Thank you so much for sharing that. And I actually think I’ve seen pictures of Dennis that someone shared with me, of you together and with his prosthetics now, and there’s so much happiness that was radiating from him in that picture. So I’m glad you talked a little bit about him. You know, I just have one last question for you, and it has more to do with in the bigger picture around food security, which I know is so near and dear to your heart, and we, a few years ago, also honored the World Central Kitchen, which did so much in Ukraine to deliver food across, across the country. You know, I find it interesting that even though Ukraine is known as the breadbasket of Europe, and you referenced that yourself, we don’t really talk about the effects on global food security anymore. That is a huge consequence of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Why do you think that is?

Howard G. Buffett
Well, you know, look, the honest truth is, most people today don’t think about farming and they don’t think they don’t think about agriculture because they take it for granted. Now that may not be true in countries, in some countries in Africa, or some countries in Central America or something, but here in the United States, we do that in Europe, it’s pretty much taken for granted. You know, one of the biggest challenges will be demining agricultural fields, and we have been very engaged in that. And I think that that is something that is one of the most important things we can do in terms of contributing to the economy in the future. But you know, it’s, I’ll tell you a quick short story. So people won’t pay much attention to agriculture unless you’re another farmer, because I’ve had a lot of farmers in this country that were angry about, you know, Ukraine exports, even during the war. When, when the Black Sea agreement was signed and enacted, and also now they’re shipping out grain. And I’m thinking, if, for me, farmer or not farmer, it would be pretty hard for me to be mad at anybody who’s in a country that is getting bombarded on a regular basis. But anyway, you know, that’s how they felt. So I was in Rwanda at a, we have a big project in Rwanda, and these are all small, very small-scale farmers, half-acre or less, and I’m sitting there talking to a few of them, and I said, How are things going? He says, this was a couple years ago, and he says, Things are great. And I said, Why, why are they great? And he said, Oh, corn price has never been higher. I said, Well, why are they higher? He said, Ukraine. I’m sitting in Rwanda with these small farmers. And that’s the impact of what happened in Ukraine, was the fact that it rippled all the way through down into some little area in Africa. And that was that, the impact of what Russia did and is doing to Ukraine agriculture will continue to be, be felt for a long time. You just don’t, you know, you don’t hear about it. But there’s a lot of things you don’t hear about that are happening in Ukraine, and that is one of the biggest challenges, is that people were never given the opportunity to understand why our engagement was so important. You know, I’ve lived through, I’ll say one thing here, and I don’t want to be political, but I, especially in Washington, DC, right? But, you know, I’ve lived through a number of conflicts. Through, I had an A-1 draft notice when I was in high school. That’s how old I am, for Vietnam, and they signed armistice in 73 when I graduated, I, you know, there’s Desert Storm, there’s Afghanistan, Iraq, and always the president of the United States went on TV and explained to the American people the importance of what the United States was engaging in, the consequences if we didn’t engage, and that didn’t happen. So, this country has never had an explanation at the level that it needs to have of why we have to be in Ukraine. And this war is our war, and so the more we can do, all of us here, to make sure the American public understands the significance of this war and the consequences of this war is so important, and that’s why I appreciate the award tonight. Our staff deserves all the credit, not me. But you know, this is not going to end well unless this country and European countries act faster and stand up and become braver and show more courage, and that is what we have to do.

Alina Polyakova
Howard, I think that’s the, thank you for saying that, and couldn’t agree with you more. And I think this is the right note to end this conversation on. Thank you for sharing all these amazing stories, and you obviously have such a deep personal connection to not the, not just the country, but the Ukrainian people. And as a Ukrainian woman, thank you for all the praise, as many Ukrainian women here will probably say the same thing, but thank you so much.

Howard G. Buffett
Thank you.

Alina Polyakova
Thank you, Howard.