The Axe Files, featuring David Axelrod, is a podcast distributed by CNN and produced at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. The author works for the podcast.

Chicago (CNN) Russia's interference in the U.S. election was but the latest and most audacious episode in Moscow's ongoing effort to destroy liberal democracy and the Trans-Atlantic partnership, says a top Ukrainian leader.

"The information attacks, the propaganda, the cyberattacks ... We've lived through all the things they tested first in Ukraine," Natalie Jaresko, the country's former finance minister told David Axelrod on The Axe Files podcast, a joint production of CNN and the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics.

"It's shocking that they would take the risk of doing that in the United States. And now it appears -- I've seen reports -- Germany, France and elsewhere. "

Jaresko, who was born and raised in the the suburbs of Chicago by Ukranian-American parents, says Russia's goal is to boost nationalist candidates who will turn away from global alliances.

"It surprised me only because I didn't expect that it could be possible in the United States," she said. "But this is about the Kremlin wanting to destroy the Transatlantic Partnership, wanting to destroy... the liberal post-World War II international order, which is based on democracy, human rights, territorial integrity, sovereignty of nations."

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