Dmytro Kuleba discusses Ukraine’s strategic position in the war with Russia, and evaluates how the incoming Donald Trump administration might influence Ukraine’s international relations and policies.
This meeting is part of the Council Special Initiative on Securing Ukraine’s Future and is part of the Wachenheim Program on Peace and Security. The program is made possible by the generous support of the Sue and Edgar Wachenheim Foundation.
DOBRIANSKY: Well, good evening everyone. And welcome to the Council on Foreign Relations conversation with Ukraine’s former foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba. This session, by the way—I’ll say it several times—is on the record. I’ll say it again a little bit later.
I’m Paula Dobriansky. I’m vice chair of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. I’m also a member of CFR. And if I could say very proudly, I’m glad to be here. I used to be the former head of the Washington office of Council on Foreign Relations. (Laughs, applause.) Thank you. I will be presiding over tonight’s discussion.
And just to make sure everyone’s clear, we are joined by CFR members and guests who are here in the Washington office. And then we also have those who will be joining by Zoom virtually. And as I mentioned, our meeting is on the record. I’ll go for about thirty minutes with my questions, and then afterwards, we’re going to open it up for those here, and then also on Zoom.
Up front, I wanted to mention a few specific things about the former foreign minister’s background. I know you have access to his bio, but let me say a few interesting tidbits just in case you missed.
First, the fact is, you were the youngest foreign minister in Ukraine’s history, and you held that post from 2020 to 2024. You were also deputy prime minister for European and Euro Atlantic integration. And I wanted to mention that because I think you were also committed in that position, and you’re still very committed to Ukraine’s position in the European community and its integration.
You have a law degree. You have Ph.D. What was interesting, he was a Foreign Service officer for some sixteen years, 2003 to 2019. You’ve written a number of books. You’re an author. The one that was, to me, most intriguing is the one on disinformation, by the way. And you’re even tweeting on that, on disinformation these days, and now you are a senior fellow at Harvard University’s JFK, the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
So we are really delighted to have you here this evening for this conversation, and we have a lot to discuss. So welcome.
I want to begin with a quote and a program that you were on a number of years back. So in September of 2022 you appeared on Late Night with Stephen Colbert, and you were talking about the Ukrainian people. You know, there’s a lot of information on Stephen Colbert. OK. So you are on Stephen Colbert, and you were talking about the Ukrainian people, and saying that Ukrainian people, this was a quote, “know how to win, and we will.” What is the situation in Ukraine right now? Let’s begin off with that, and how would you describe it? And welcome.
KULEBA: Well, first, thank you for your kind introduction. You were very generous to me, and you can call me Dmytro. You don’t have to say former foreign minister and all this stuff.
Two years ago, and now I’m still where I am, because since the beginning of the large scale invasion, I have adopted a quote by Dwight Eisenhower as my slogan, which is, “Pessimists do not win wars.” So if you’re a pessimist, you know you have to sit quietly and follow war on the screen. If you are in the middle of the fight, then you have to be, of course, reasonable, but optimist. So we can still win. We will.
The trick, of course, what the word “victory” implies for all of us, because the situation we are having in—is everyone is talking about victory, but very few dare to go into details on what the word victory actually means. So this is a very sensitive—
DOBRIANSKY: Do you want to do that?
KULEBA: This is a very sensitive conversation. You’re lucky to have me as a free man, unconstrained by the speaking points written by other people and handed over to the foreign minister ahead of every meeting and public appearance. We have to know—you know, one thing is what you see about Ukraine in the news. But if you zoom out and you look at Ukraine through its history and you know it, you can notice two stunning facts.
The first one is that this generation of Ukrainians is the first time in thousands years of history of Ukraine that survived the Russian invasion. Every time before that the Russian invasion would immediately lead to taking over our capital and to our governments moving in exile, or in a bloodshed of anyone who had resisted Russian rule. So I’m saying thousand years because the first case was in the thirteenth century when the prince of Moscow, Yuri Dolgorukiy, pillaged Kyiv and took away and basically undermined the status of Kyiv as the political capital of Rus. So be it seventeenth century, be it eighteenth century, be it early twentieth century, we always failed.
And this is the first time that the Ukrainian state survived, and we are talking, and I don’t see the risk of the collapse of the Ukrainian statehood. So which is, of course, if you look at it from that perspective, a huge victory for a nation that had fought for its independence and for its right to have its own state and identity.
And second, with all the difficulties we are facing, we are today, as a country, as a nation, in the strongest position ever. We lack what we never had in previous years. We have partners. I’m an adapt of Winston Churchill’s words that there is nothing worse than partners, except of not having them at all. I just want to be set the record straight on this.
We have the state. We have the army. We have civil society. We have very strong identity. We know how to fight, and when we have everything that we need to fight, and when neither we nor our partners follow the half solution kind of approach, we win. We always win when we have everything that we need to fight.
So I will stick to my words, which were a big hit in September 2022. And the context back then was completely different. We were throwing Russians back from one region after another. Everyone wasn’t anticipating the counteroffensive. I mean completely different context. But I still want to say to everyone who entertains the defeatism towards Ukraine, guys, you were wrong ahead of the invasion when you were saying that Ukraine will not survive the invasion, and you are wrong now again if you believe that Ukraine cannot win this war.
DOBRIANSKY: Let me go to my next question.
But I did want to recognize Oksana Markarova, who is Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, who is here this evening with us, and delighted that you could be here. Thank you.
If you had the opportunity on your visit to go down to mar a Lago and either on this visit to meet with President Trump, what would you say to him in terms of the course that the United States should be taking? What would be your priorities, and if it’s not now, let’s say if it’s when he becomes president, what would you say to him?
KULEBA: Well, the first thing I would say to him would be how great his place is. I think it would be an important icebreaker.
And the second thing I would say would be that Ukraine can be his success story, and he can fix it.
But any plan—and the third thing, if he would still be talking to me by then, the third thing would be that you cannot have a solution at the expense of Ukraine, because that will turn tables and will throw you in a completely different direction.
DOBRIANSKY: Well, let’s go there. What are the global consequences if the West, the United States, falters in its policy and takes a wrong course, as you would define it vis-à-vis Ukraine?
KULEBA: Well, I’m of course aware of one of the famous or popular arguments in the United States that supporting Ukraine is too expensive. This card was played actively during the election year. We heard it many times, and still, as foreign minister, I was fighting that argument back. I know that Oksana is working hard in Washington with both sides of the aisle on this and other issues.
But we have to understand one thing, whatever the price of supporting Ukraine today is, the price of fixing the world if Ukraine falls, will be much higher. And why is that is going to happen? For a simple reason, because if Putin wins, the lesson that everyone in the world will learn is the following. If you want to impose your will by force in another country, if you want to subjugate another country by force, you will suffer. It will be difficult, but in the end, you succeed and everyone else will try to follow in his footprints. And then you will see conflicts in Asia, Africa, South America emerging, and they will have to be fixed.
Second, of course, the message will be clear, if Putin wins, that the West is incapable of helping its friends. And whatever some politicians or experts think about the affiliation of Ukraine with the West, in The West, because I still run into people who suggest that Ukraine should be the bridge between the West and the East and all these crappy, crappy concepts. But for the rest of the world, this is the War of the West, because there is a country that is Western, which is Ukraine, and Ukraine is part of the West.
They do not come to this conclusion because the West said this is our war. They came to this conclusion because they see Ukraine as part of the West. So if Ukraine loses, the message is out like the West cannot help its own friends, and this will be huge discouragement for nations in Asia living around the perimeter of what China calls its strategic national interests, to nations in in Africa, and again elsewhere. So in a nutshell, the consequences will be more worse.
And unprecedented exposure of the weakness of the West, which will lead to the decline, to the continue to the—I was going to say, continued, but no, I won’t—which will lead to the decline of the West.
DOBRIANSKY: Let me—I want to discuss the peace plan that’s being contemplated in a peace plan. But let me first just continue on the train of thought that you were just articulating—China—and about what China’s actions would be. You as foreign minister did meet a number of times with your counterpart and tried to work that space on behalf of Ukraine. Could you articulate a bit about that? You know, it seemed that there was no give there from Beijing on really helping Ukraine, even on the children. I think there was some discussion about those abducted and brought into Russia, and there was a Chinese envoy. Could you say a word about that?
But secondly, the Japanese Prime Minister, former prime minister, Kishida, came to Washington and spoke before our Congress, and he well and clearly articulated the connectivity between what will happen in the Indo-Pacific with a clear-cut focus on China and China’s intentions, not just only with the islands, South China Sea islands, but also with Taiwan. And he gave this—and its connectivity to Ukraine and the fate of Ukraine.
So on the first, say a bit about your own discussions with the Chinese, if you can, and then also digging a little bit deeper about that point about China and the ramifications here, especially with regard to China.
KULEBA: Yeah, any answer in China depends on how far does your outlook go. You know, if you speak in terms of today and tomorrow, you can break up with China. You can be very tough on China. If you think in terms of decades and hundreds of years, as Chinese, by the way, usually like to do, then you have to be more cautious and you have to realize that when the war ends, China will still be there.
Of course, Ukraine’s relations with China will not be the same for as they were, like ten years ago, for a very simple reason, and I already mentioned it, because Ukraine is part of the West. We don’t have any big infrastructural projects with China. We don’t have any big IT projects with China. So basically, we are a clean slate in that sense. But China has a partner who turns to be the biggest enemy of Ukraine ever, and we have to take that into our calculation.
Second on what Prime Minister Abe said—no, Kishida—so what Prime Minister Kishida said, of course, he’s a very, very knowledgeable man, very wise man, and the point, let me translate his political point into a human one, into human language, in human language. So I’ll be a ChatGPT for tonight.
In my view, what he tried to say, that here in Washington is that if you believe that you can afford losing in Ukraine without repercussions in Taiwan and other parts of the region, you are wrong. And this is the point that I also want to make to decision-makers in Washington, because, OK, I’ve been making it. I continue to make it because you think that if anyone thinks that you can afford losing in Ukraine, but it will be completely different story with Taiwan, and in Taiwan, you will definitely win, it’s a big miscalculation. Of course, the goal there should be avoiding a military conflict, right, while we already have a military conflict here in Ukraine. But knowing this war, and the capabilities, and the decision-making processes of the West from the inside—and I wish I knew less about that—of course, I see that, you know, everyone needs to shake up on—if we—and win in Ukraine, if we are talking about strategic stability at a global scale.
And the last question, of course, is Ukraine and China. I tell you just one quick story that I think will connect all the dots and elements. So we had a very long round of negotiations in China with Minister Wang Yi who is impeccable diplomat, very professional. And in that meeting he reiterated, he mentioned several times that China respects territorial integrity of Ukraine, which to those who follow the process, is different from what the famous Chinese-Brazilian document says, because it literally kind of ignores the issue of the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
And you know, diplomacy is like Vegas. You know, what happens in the negotiating room stays in the negotiating room. But when we wrapped up our meeting, and the Chinese official, Chinese Ministry, Xinhua, the official news agency, issued a release about our conversation, it read that I supported Beijing policy towards Taiwan, which of course, I didn’t do because supporting One China principle is different from supporting policy on Taiwan. So I did support one China principle, but I did not utter a word about supporting specific policies.
So I see the release, I see what is happening. I know what is happening. I kind of wrote a book about it, as you rightly mentioned. So I immediately gave an interview to a Ukrainian journalist, and said to her that Wang Yi expressed support—supported Ukraine’s territorial integrity in a meeting. So we ended up in a draw.
But none of these were supposed to happen, actually. But diplomacy is different these days. Diplomacy has changed. So this is just, you know, a picture of where China is, of what they want to achieve, and how they’re pursuing their goals.
DOBRIANSKY: Let’s go to the issue of a peace plan. There has been quite a bit of discussion and speculation as to what would be the basis of it. Some—we’ve seen the issue of no entry into NATO. You know, the term is undefined, whether that’s years, decades, or what. We know what the Russians had asked for. The Russians asked for no NATO and that you codify it in your constitution and say no NATO—you know, no NATO, never.
Territory, cessation of territory. President Zelensky has put forward a peace plan, which has, I believe, ten specific items. Could you comment on what you see as the most viable of all of these?
KULEBA: The most viable will be the outcome of negotiations. I don’t have any doubts that President Zelensky will adamantly support Ukraine’s strategic interests, and he will not give up on anything that he believes will be unacceptable for the country. So from the from the perspective of our partners—which is an aphorism for the United States and others—but let’s look at it from the perspective of Washington as we understand it, for Washington, Berlin, Paris are the capitals.
So basically, when it comes to talking to Russia, there are only three big issues on the table. The first one is territory. The second one is money. Money are broken down in sanctions and frozen assets. And the third one is NATO. I don’t see any other like big thing for Putin to be willing to talk about.
Of course, addressing consequences of the war is a much bigger problem. And if you want, like a perfect picture of how peace plan should work, you read President Zelensky’s peace formula, ten points, like everything is covered. But when it boils down to the conversation with Moscow, there are only three things that can be of interest to them. And I think now some mistakes have to be avoided before I read President Trump’s comment today that he’s willing to put this war to an end, but he’s still working on the kind of a concept of how this is going to happen.
So if I may humbly suggest, I would really recommend his team to focus on avoiding three mistakes. First, you know, you have to start the conversation with the reflection by asking yourself a question, why should Putin accept it? Because today he believes that—Putin believes that the West will falter, that he will get it all, and he just needs to keep fighting. He faces enormous difficulties. I mean, he is not as strong as he pretends to be. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be bringing North Korean troops, North Korean ammunition. What happened in Syria is a clear manifestation that he doesn’t have enough of force resources to fight multiple wars. So he’s weak.
But he still can—he still believes that he can win in Ukraine. So do not focus on the question, how can I persuade Ukraine to accept something. The first question to answer is, why should Putin accept this, or how to persuade Putin to accept this?
The second one is on NATO. NATO may seem as the cheapest concession to make in the eyes of the West, but it has the highest price in terms of long-term strategy. So I understand that people will be tempted to put NATO on the table. But the wise strategy, sensible strategy, in my view, would actually be not to allow Putin to put NATO on the table. NATO is non-negotiable with Putin. And this, by the way, has been very consistent policy of the of the alliance, that NATO membership for Ukraine is a relationship, is an issue for allies in Ukraine to discuss. The moment you put NATO on the table, you lose it, because you may get a ceasefire, but you will not get the end of the war. This is the problem.
And but I understand, of course, that it’s easy for someone from the outside to draw a line on the map of another country, giving away someone else’s territory. Nothing has been easier in world’s diplomacy. And we went through this experience, we in Ukraine, following the First World War, Africans can tell you tons of stories about how borders, they were drawn by the West.
Money, I think businesspeople will always find a solution of money. But NATO is the thing that decision-makers will feel tempted to negotiate, but that will lead only to one consequences. It may lead to a ceasefire that will end in another, even larger war. And this thinking two steps ahead is fundamentally important here.
And finally, I know I will probably go against some highly respectable thinkers and practitioners in the realm of diplomacy, but Ukraine’s membership in NATO is not a red line for Putin. It’s an excuse. So all current analysis during the Biden administration—and it seems that Trump administration is leaning that direction as well—that NATO membership for Ukraine is a red line, like existential red line. No, it’s an excuse for Putin.
And one of the evidence in favor of that statement is Finland’s accession to NATO. Finland is already at the gates of—NATO is already at the gates of St Petersburg, a city Putin comes from, but we heard nothing except furious statement from Moscow about the membership.
So let’s leave Cold War cliches and Putin sympathizer cliche and Russia sympathizers cliche aside, and think of the current situation in real terms, if we want to restore long lasting peace, and not just tick the box that, you know, they’re not shooting at each other. We will presume shooting at each other within very short period of time, if non-strategic solutions aren’t found.
DOBRIANSKY: Let me ask one more question of you, and then I’m going to go to the room first, and then we’ll also check and see if we have some questions from colleagues on the Zoom.
Russia. Because you mentioned very clearly about Russia’s position, let me combine this question. You know, it’s been raised over and over about escalation and as kind of a red line of worrying about, well, if we take this action or that action, it might provoke an escalation. Comment on escalation. Comment on also where Putin has used and mentioned use of nuclear weapons, if you would.
And finally, you did tweet about you said that you were right, that you said a week ago that Putin was going to throw Syria under the—or Assad, rather, under the bus. So if you take those three and just summing up where you see Putin and Russia in these spaces.
KULEBA: Putin faces a dilemma. Well, most people tend to analyze Putin in purely kind of rational terms of what his interests are and what his resources are like realist approach to foreign policy, which is good, which is right. I would just add one element to the discussion, which is called history book.
So whatever Putin is doing now, the only thing that he really cares about is what will be written about him in history books. I mean, he will run Russia until the end of his life. I don’t know how many years he still has in pocket.
He achieved many things throughout his career, we have to admit it, both domestically and internationally. But there is one place on the map on Earth in his mind where he continuously failed. He despises that place. He does not even recognize it exists. He does not even believe it’s worth attention of anyone else. He wants it to be considered entirely his backyard. But he always failed in Ukraine, and this war is taking place to a large extent because he exhaust his peaceful ways to subjugate Ukraine, because they all fail. So if he doesn’t subjugate Ukraine, he will be the first Russian tsar ever who failed to do so—like ever, ever, I’m not exaggerating, since 1654 when Ukraine signed a bilateral NATO with Moscow—it was not an intubation of Ukraine the Dutchy of Moscow; it was a pure military alliance. Since Peter the Great, who drowned Ukraine’s struggle to escape Russian rule in bloodshed following the Battle at Poltava. We were not lucky; we bet on the young and promising leader, Charles the 12th. But Putin—and by the way, by all accounts he had to win, but he lost, so—and we lost with him.
Following Russian czars in the nineteenth century who were opposing cultural Ukrainian Renaissance, and they effectively banned Ukrainian language, realizing that they see the burst of a nation with an identity, Lenin Stalin—well, the only guy who lost Ukraine was Gorbachev, but I don’t think Putin even considers him seriously.
So that’s a big thing for him, and this is what he’s fighting for. It’s not about Ukraine and NATO. It’s about whether he controls Ukraine or he doesn’t control Ukraine. Which brings me to the non-escalation and NATO issues, because these are how stakes—
DOBRIANSKY: Escalation, nuclear.
KULEBA: Escalation, yeah. So no foreign policy concept harmed Ukraine more and led us to where we are than the non-escalation policy. And the most stunning thing about it is that, first, in the course of the two-and-a-half years, every conversation on providing us with weapons or imposing tougher sanctions started with a no because partners believed it would be too confrontational into his (caliphate ?). Even until recently, the long strikes and the ATACMS, we heard the same thing. And now in the last weeks of 2024 we see all the decisions being made, all the dispatches being delivered, delivered to Ukraine. So it’s all possible.
And I want you to understand that this is what makes people in Ukraine feels so bad, that while people sitting in offices across the world carefully consider the argument of escalation, Ukrainians die and lose territories. But even more depressively, the moment these decisions, which were considered to be escalatory, are taken and implemented, if we are lucky that they’re implemented in full, which is also an issue, kind of Putin doesn’t really do, I mean, anything.
But from a perspective of a Ukrainian living in Kyiv or elsewhere, I can tell you, I can make it very even simpler, which is don’t see where else he can escalate. You know, we live in a daily nightmare. We’re being bombed, cut off, blacked out. Our soldiers sustain hundreds of attacks per day on the front line. So Ukrainians like look around and say, but what are you afraid of? What else he can do? We are in a very bad situation already.
Which finally, sorry, takes us to nukes. So my question to everyone considering the nuke argument is like, so what? So what is your strategy? So you say we should not do anything that will lead Putin to using nuclear weapons do. So what? I mean you then you shouldn’t have taken all the decisions that you took and allow Ukraine to die because you’re not ready to go that far. And you have to be very honest, from the very beginning, we are afraid of nuclear strike. This is why we’re not going to do anything for you. We just watch you die slowly, then we will make solemn speeches never again and continue with our lives.
So if we are serious about defeating the evil, the nuke argument should not be the one that holds us back from taking decisions needed to defeat the evil. You need to make these decisions in a way to be efficient.
And the conversation, whether he is going to do it or he’s not going to do it, to my mind, is absolutely meaningless. It’s like Cold War time, entertainment, intellectual entertainment. Because at essence, what is at the core of this discussion is, are we going to help Ukraine to survive or not—the surviving, which is similar to winning.
DOBRIANSKY: All right? Well, thank you.
Let’s go for questions. And I already saw a question back there. We’ll come up here to you in a moment. But I think there was a question. Jane Harman, did you have your hand up? You were waving to me?
Q: That was because I was saying hello to you.
DOBRIANSKY: OK, I’m sorry.
OK, then Anders has a question here. OK, Anders, and if you don’t mind.
Sorry. Thank you, Jane.
If you don’t mind introducing yourself.
Q: Anders Åslund, Georgetown University.
Thank you very much for an excellent presentation. I wanted to follow up on what happens now in Syria. How do you think that will impact the war in Ukraine with regard to Ukraine, Russia and Iran, and possibly other factors? Thank you.
DOBRIANSKY: Thank you for the question.
Dmytro.
KULEBA: Well, it depends on whether Putin will be able to negotiate continued operation in Latakia and Khmeimim, in the port and the air base. So if he is pushed out of Syria entirely, I believe he will redeploy these planes, jets, bombers to Ukraine, which will not be dramatic change for our particular situation.
But I see an opportunity for the West now, because since Russia has rooted itself in Africa, and the weakness and the incapability of Russia to fight at different fronts simultaneously has been exposed in Syria, I think the time has come to seriously think of undermining Putin’s positions in Sahel region primarily.
So I would look at it from the perspective of here is the momentum. You know, where else can we squeeze him out of to make his life more complicated? But I don’t expect, I wouldn’t expect any strengthening of—any reinforcements being sent to Ukraine to fight against us, as one commentator suggested, for only one reason, because the forces in Syria are not critical in terms of the changing the balance on the front line in Ukraine.
Iran is licking its wounds, to the best of my knowledge. And it’s not that we had any particularly good relationship with them, to say the least. But most importantly, Syria has exposed the weakness of Putin. He’s not capable of fighting simultaneous wars, which is an important counter argument to those who argue that you cannot defeat Putin because he’s so strong. He isn’t. He is strong. We should respect the enemy, but he’s not as strong as he pretends.
I’m not touching upon what is going to happen in Syria internally; that will be a completely different mess to handle. But I look at it from the from the perspective of Ukraine’s interests, and I think what happened, it serves Ukraine’s interests when it comes to exposing Putin’s weakness.
DOBRIANSKY: I’m going to take one more here in person, and then we’re going to go to one of our colleagues on Zoom.
Please.
Q: Yes. Mr. Foreign Minister, PK Semler, Capitol Intelligence, CI Ukraine.
One of the good news that is not being—you know, it’s not getting much coverage, is the investment, foreign investment appetite to invest in Ukraine has skyrocketed after the elections. We’re seeing KKR and Blackstone competing for deals, and one of the things that’s sort of lacking in the government, but also what you said here is one thing that makes investment in Ukraine, other than the dynamic of the companies, is you’re going to be joining the European Union. That’s not an if, it’s when.
So can you tell us more about how are you going to get the European Union? Because that gives stability for investments. Companies like MHP are now looking at buying chicken farms in Africa. So has this been very effective on the private sector? And I think that’s something that people forget when they talk about Ukraine, is Ukraine is dynamic. It has great companies, world-class, that are competitive to anything in Europe or the U.S.
DOBRIANSKY: OK, thank you.
KULEBA: Ukraine will be a member of the EU, which will finalize the transformation of Ukraine from the inside in terms of the economic reforms and rule of law. The biggest issue we will be facing will be availability of human resources, and this is already one of the reasons why big Ukrainian companies are seeking strategic investments abroad.
Otherwise, I think again, if JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and others begin to think of Ukraine in terms of its belonging to the Western segment of global economy, I think it’s a good sign, and let them move on with that.
I’m slightly concerned that over the last two-and-a-half years I heard many inspirational speeches, and so the same amount of inspirational presentations about the recovery of Ukraine. The question that I still have is, where is the money? You know? Because you know, my point to them, was always to all businesses, was the same, if you are serious about being stakeholders in Ukraine’s recovery, you have to start business development now. You don’t have to wait for the war to end to begin that. If you start business development now, finding partners, feasibilities, structuring funds, bankability, then you will be ready for the moment when the war ends.
And of course, I think it’s good that markets indicate optimism. It’s always a good thing. But I want to see more practical work on structuring future investments and contracts in Ukraine.
But all of this is going to happen with—I don’t know when Ukraine will become a member of the EU. That’s another thing. But even without legally kind of hoisting the flag of Ukraine in Brussels, Ukraine will be transformed and will become—and business environment in Ukraine will be as comprehendible for a U.S. banker as business environment in Germany, France, or Belgium. I think this is the goal. The membership will come.
By the way, coming back to what we—what we discussed, what we previously discussed, Russia was adamantly against Ukraine’s membership in the EU like, ten, fifteen years ago—like adamantly, red line, no. And now they do not even oppose that. So, yeah. But business has to get specific.
DOBRIANSKY: Let’s go virtual.
MODERATOR: We’ll take the next question from Krishen Sud.
Q: Yes. Hi. I’m a—this is Krishen Sud. I’m a member of the CFR.
I just wanted to ask a question on what resources Ukraine has right now to fight the war. I think President Zelensky yesterday said that approximately 40,000 Ukrainian troops had or Ukrainian armed services people had been killed in the war. Perhaps there were 200(,000), 300,000 who’ve been wounded. So can you give us some sense as to how many troops are fighting at this point in time and what the capacity is within Ukraine to continue the war?
KULEBA: Ukraine’s army today is, I think, 1 million people or so. We are capable of fighting the war. Those who build their calculation on the exhaustion of Ukraine to fight the war miscalculate for a very simple reason, because for us, this is a war for our existence. So we will not stop because we got tired or exhausted ourselves.
With my estimate is that with the current dispatches of assistance undertaken by the Biden administration plus assistance that will be coming from the European Union in the coming months will allow Ukraine’s war effort to sustain for months to come. Because what is coming out of America these days is huge in volumes. It will take time to digest it, which, of course, will give space for the Trump administration to seek solution without the need of urgently dispatching more assistance to Ukraine, which—so this is where we are.
So anyone who believes that that this is a war of attrition, and you know, one side will get exhausted, we’ll not be able to sustain the war effort, is wrong. The truth is that neither Ukraine nor Russia can sustain the war effort without assistance. This is the thing. The problem is that Ukraine is facing—and I’m sorry if I sound too blunt—but we are in a situation today when Russia has a friend who is sending its troops to die for Russia in Ukraine, in the war against Ukraine, while Ukrainian friends still discuss how many weapons they can send to Ukraine. We are not even talking—I want to be crystal clear—we are not talking about asking for troops on the ground in Ukraine.
So the truth is that, yeah, Russia needs foreign assistance to fight the war against Ukraine. Which puts in question again the argument about the undefeatable Russia.
And Ukraine needs partners to fight the war against Russia. This is where we stand. It doesn’t matter how many times politicians in the West say that, you know, it’s not the West fighting Russia. It’s seen completely differently. It’s Iran, North Korea, and Russia fighting against Ukraine, the United States and other part, European Union, and you name the rest of the list.
DOBRIANSKY: All right.
Let’s go right here. We have the mic, and if you’ll introduce yourself.
Q: Thank you. Jill Dougherty from Georgetown University. Thank you very much, Paula.
And Mr. Kuleba, thank you.
I wanted to get into some of the proposed solutions, but first I wanted to ask just for the record, incoming President Trump says, of course, famously, that he will solve it, maybe even before he becomes president. But do you believe that within a little more than a month, Ukraine could actually be at the negotiating table with Russia?
And on the territorial issue, if I understand President Zelensky correctly, he says that the territory—Donbas, Crimea—would be put off for a while to be negotiated sometime in the future. And I guess the question on that is, doesn’t that mean that essentially, Ukraine is giving up those areas, because can you realistically expect that Russia will truly negotiate over Donbas in Crimea?
Thank you.
DOBRIANSKY: Thank you, Jill.
KULEBA: This is a very important question, and I know that Paula has to leave sharp at half past seven.
DOBRIANSKY: But no, please I want you to answer the question.
KULEBA: I’m sorry if we want to be able to pick up other questions, because this one is fundamentally important.
DOBRIANSKY: Take the time, answering it. It’s an important question—questions.
KULEBA: First, I wholeheartedly wish that President Trump ends this war before even he enters the Oval Office. But again, the question is not how to make Ukraine sit at the table. The question is how to make Putin sit at the table. What we’re seeing now is a very smart strategy exercise by President Zelensky, who is signaling constructiveness and readiness to engage with President Trump. And it’s good that they met in Paris, although briefly. It’s good that they met in New York, like in September. This is all important. These are all important, you know, personal touches and communications that are taking place.
But my assumption, my understanding—and I can be wrong on everything I said, by the way—but my assumption is that both Moscow and Kyiv believe that fast, quick solution is possible only at their expense. So I don’t think they will be, like, really interested in quick solution, because quick solutions means quick concessions, and the consequences may not be properly of that, may not be properly calculated.
Second on territory. You see, we are in a completely different reality compared to 2014. What you just said kind of resembles the rhetoric of the narrative of 2014/2022. Like, we have a peace process, we are talking, and we will fix it later.
Problem is that Crimea and other territories of Ukraine back in 2014 were not part of the same narrative. There were no negotiations on the return of Crimea, never. The only negotiations we—so there was nothing you could postpone in terms of, you know, and then we will negotiate it. Crimea was excluded from negotiating process. The only negotiating process that we had was called Minsk and Normandy, which are like parents and fathers and children and a child.
And in Minsk, Russia accepted the fact that those territories in Donbas and Luhansk were legally Ukrainian, and this is what made the whole Minsk Process possible, because the starting point in Moscow was, OK, these territories are Ukrainian, but you have to talk to these guys and make a settlement with them, change your constitution, the law, and the legislation and so forth and so on. This is what made the conversation possible, because Russia accepted the fact that those territories were legally Ukrainians—Ukrainian, and we had to settle with the Russians’ call them rebels, which was effectively Russia itself.
Today, we are in a completely different reality, because Putin has integrated occupied territories into his legal field, into his constitution. Today, if you want to start a diplomatic process on Crimea, you have to start, in Russia’s view, from the assumption that this is a Russian territory. So now we are seasoned diplomats that need to draft a peace plan point on territory that will—but that should accommodate, you know, concerns of both sides. What are you going to write in it? One is saying, it’s mine, it’s in my constitution, and the other saying, no, it’s in my constitution. None of them can afford any gray zone on this. None of them can afford any—(inaudible)—vague language. Because you see my point completely.
So you can say that we will seek diplomatic solutions. It’s an important message, and it should be respected. But the moment someone tries to put it on the paper, one side will have. I just don’t see how it can be, you know, drafted.
In the end, it’s some people sitting down and they have to put it on the paper, and that paper has to be signed. And I really struggle to imagine how the point on territory will be formulated, knowing that both sides claim that these are legally theirs. We claim it rightfully so. They are misclaiming it. But this is the reality.
So there will be a big thing about finding even the right language on how to describe this reality. And without finding the right language, you cannot sign it. You cannot turn it into a legal deal. And this is why, when we speak about this—when we speak about—you know, you used to be negotiating Donbas. Why cannot you also begin to negotiate Donbas and Zaporizhzhia and other parts for exactly this reason? Because legal recognitions were completely different. Putin had no issue with recognizing that those were Ukrainian territories back then. He now does.
DOBRIANSKY: That was a very, I think, important question.
We only have three minutes. Just so you know, it’s not about my flight, but it is about the Council on Foreign Relations has rules. They close and end right on top.
KULEBA: Sorry, I didn’t want to—
DOBRIANSKY: No, no, but we have three minutes. And I’m going to ask you, if I may, in closing, actually a lighter question, and that is, you just became senior fellow at the Belfer Center, the Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center. Could you just share with us what are your plans in terms of what you want to focus on? I mean, I know we expect you to do some focus on Ukraine, but is that all? You were foreign minister, and you dealt with a very broad portfolio.
KULEBA: Well, first, I’m honored and grateful to Belfer Center for agreeing to have me, for having me on board, and agreeing for me to be a non-resident fellow, because I will continue living in Ukraine. And all the new arrangements for my new life that I’m making, they start with one sentence. I have to continue living in Ukraine.
And now, let’s talk about the rest. So they accommodated my request, which I’m extremely grateful for. I will try to reflect on all the issues—at Harvard, I will try to reflect on all the issues that we discussed here, but in a more systemic and comprehensive nature.
And I learned by accident they will be having a program on artificial intelligence and governance. I’m very excited about it, because I think I started some reforms and transformations in the ministry, in the Foreign Ministry related to the introduction of AI. So I hope they will have mercy on me and also allow me to contribute to that reflection, because I really want—I really have—I have to be humble. I think I could be helpful.
DOBRIANSKY: Well, yeah, I was going to say you don’t have to be humble.
But let me say, as a senior fellow there at the Belfer Center, we’re really just delighted that you’re joining. It’s a big deal for the Kennedy School.
Tonight, what a tour de raison. You’ve really covered, really, quite a space and in very clear terms. And so for that, the Council on Foreign Relations is just really delighted to have had you here this night.
Please join me in thanking the former foreign minister. (Applause.)
(END)
This is an uncorrected transcript.
