This interview was originally published by Russia Matters, a Harvard Kennedy School project, under the headline "Dmytro Kuleba Says Pressuring Russia, Supporting Ukraine, Only Viable Strategy"; it was conducted on Dec. 6 by RM editor Ivan Arreguín-Toft.1
IAT: You mentioned to the Financial Times that both Putin and Zelenskyy see the incoming Trump presidency as an opportunity. Do you have any ideas on how you think Ukraine could take advantage of that opportunity? And how should Zelenskyy appeal to Trump? If you were advising him now, knowing what you may know about Trump and his psychology, his perspective and his history, what should Ukraine ask for?
DK: So, the situation that Ukraine is in today is the result of the strategy that has remained more or less intact since the beginning of the invasion. The strategy exercised by the United States, by Europeans and by Ukrainians… If you sit in the office in Kyiv, you clearly come to the conclusion that something has to change. Then you break it down in three columns and you say this is what needs to be changed in the U.S., this is what needs to be changed in Europe and this is what I have to change in Ukraine. But how do you change if the political leadership in the United States is committed to the strategy as it stands?
So, then you begin to see any alternative as an opportunity for change. You start telling yourself that you are talented and skilled enough to mitigate risks or to turn risks into opportunities. If things continue like this, there is no positive trajectory for you. How do you change trajectory with the new people who are looking for new solutions?
So this is where the idea of seeing President Trump as an opportunity comes from. Kyiv is absolutely aware of the risks associated with President Trump, but it believes that it can turn risks into opportunities, knowing how Trump operated during his first presidency. But what is clear is that the strategy has to be changed.
Now, Kyiv will, of course, continue to ask for military assistance. Kyiv will insist on NATO membership for Ukraine, and Kyiv will insist on stronger pressure on Russia, primarily in the area of fossil fuels. And if you carefully analyze how President Trump thinks and what kind of decisions he can adopt, you actually see that there is room for maneuver on each and every point. I don't want to draw a rosy picture here, but this is just how people think about President Trump.
IAT: I have been listening to and reading the news this week and thinking about the ferment in France and Germany, two of Europe's largest economies and also two of NATO’s biggest military contingents, and wondering if Ukraine might worry that it’s trying to join a sinking ship?
DK: No, but we can put it much broader. Let's look at the West as a whole and ask ourselves the same question. Isn't Ukraine trying to reconnect with the West and realizing that it is a sinking ship? I'm talking in terms of decades, of course, but this intellectual question also has the right to exist.
I want to make clear that Ukraine is part of the West, and the West recognizing Ukraine as part of it is one of the key elements of any sustainable peace solution. Ukraine cannot be left in the middle, as a bridge, as a gray zone, whatever you call it. Because 30 years of in-between policy is one of the biggest reasons why we are talking about the war today. This is what led to the war — the non-recognition of Ukraine as part of the West. Now, whether this ship is going to sink together with us on board, that's another story.
IAT: I think you've said that on the current trajectory … Ukraine may lose Donbas entirely in 2024. What can Ukraine and its allies do to change that trajectory?
DK: Well, first, I didn't say we were going to lose Donbas. I said that if things do not change, we will lose the war, which does not imply that this is an inevitable scenario. Ukraine can still win the war. And what needs to change, put simply, [is that] we have to make no half decisions… The problem with the current strategy is not that it is flawed by definition. The problem is that it has never been implemented in full. The strategy — put pressure on Russia, support Ukraine — is the only viable strategy. Not because I'm Ukrainian, but because Russia is an aggressive country that tries to rewrite rules and destroy — it basically pursues two goals. First, to destroy Ukrainian statehood; and second, to expose the weakness of the West to the whole world.
Because whatever people, commentators, pundits or intellectuals see from the West, or think of this war from the West, for Russia and the whole world, this is the biggest test for the West to prove whether it has the capacity and the will to support its friends globally. My question is very simple, if the West is incapable or unwilling to win the war in Ukraine, then what is the war it will be capable and willing to win? And this is a much bigger question than many people would intuitively assume. What Putin tries to achieve, what he wants, is for the whole world to see that the West is gone. And then allies of the West in Asia, in Africa, will have to make their choice, knowing that there is no one out there who will help them. Then there will be only one way forward, to bow their heads to China.
This is what is essentially happening. The strategy to put pressure on Russia and support Ukraine is good, but when your measures of supporting Ukraine are essentially half measures, if not one-third measures, and the same goes for measures taken to put pressure on Russia, then do not get surprised that the strategy doesn't seem to be working. So the problem is not in the strategy, the problem is in the way it's being implemented.
As I said, the ideal Ukrainian suggestion would be to just get things done. Seriously address the issue of Russian oil revenues, which, by the way, matches, I think, the interest of President Trump and his vision for the global market of fossil fuels. Impose real tough sanctions on Russia, which, by the way, President Trump was doing quite effectively during his first presidency. Support Ukraine, you know, send all the weapons on time, in sufficient quantities, without restrictions. None of these criteria has been met in the course of two and a half years of the war. So I'm sorry to say, but today Russia has a friend who is ready to send its troops to die for Russia, and that friend is North Korea. While Ukraine does not have friends who are ready at least to send all the weapons Ukraine needs. We're not even talking about sending troops, but even sending weapons becomes an issue.
So when you clear the picture from all the nice speeches and solemn promises of “never again,” “principles” or “rules-based order,” when you clear the picture from all of that fog, what you see is a simple reality. Russia, North Korea, Iran, and China are more of an effective alliance in a war effort than Ukraine and its Western friends. This is the issue that needs to be addressed, because if we don't, then the title of your [online project] … will unfortunately have to be amended, because it will read “Only Russia Matters.”
IAT: Of all the peace proposals that have been made in the West, especially recently, are there any that you think are acceptable for Ukraine and also realistic? And if so, which?
DK: What kind of proposals are we talking about? Show me at least one — this is already my answer — show me at least one real proposal on the table. We read the papers. We read leaks. We read speculations. We read assumptions. There is not a single proposal that could be seriously analyzed.
IAT: Well, we have Keith Kellogg, the new envoy that Trump has proposed for Ukraine. He floated a peace proposal, I think, back in April, which effectively reduced to pointing a gun at Russia and saying “if you don't accept this peace, we'll arm Ukraine with everything it needs to really hurt you,” and pointing a gun at Ukraine and saying “you have to accept the status quo, but not permanently, and we'll give you security guarantees.” But what security guarantees would Ukraine consider sufficient when the West has already, as you said, advanced only half measures?
DK: No, Russia doesn’t want to negotiate. There are only three issues that can compel Russia to negotiate. The first is money, the second is land and the third is NATO. There are no more big issues to talk about from the Russian perspective.
The most tempting issue from the Western perspective is to bargain Ukrainian lands. It's always easy to give away something that does not belong to you. So, drawing another line on the map. We've seen it throughout history many times. Western decision makers will be very tempted to draw these lines in accordance with the mood they wake up with in the morning.
The issue of [Russia’s frozen assets], it's also kind of possible to resolve because this also doesn’t belong to you. This is something that you have frozen for good reason, legally. Again, this is dealing with someone else's asset. The option here is we can keep it and benefit from it. We say, “if you misbehave, we will take it away from you and spend it on Ukraine,” which is also a leverage. Or you can get it back if you behave.
So, the most difficult issue for the West will, of course, be the NATO issue. This is the only matter about which its own interest and its own security are directly concerned. Again, it's much easier to make concessions or to force others into concessions on matters which are not your vital interest. NATO is the only vital interest on the table.
The problem with NATO will be the following: If our goal is just to establish a ceasefire, that's one thing. But if our goal is to prevent another war from happening, this is a completely other thing. A Western thinker will be tempted to think that he can give away Ukraine’s insistence on NATO membership for the sake of establishing peace.
IAT: It's not really peace.
DK: But the same person will have to face a grim reality that the only way to prevent the next war is to bring Ukraine into NATO.
Moreover, and this is very counterintuitive: The only way to contain Ukrainian revanchism in the future will be by keeping Ukraine in NATO. Because the next generation of Ukrainian politicians will be forced to focus on the recovery of the country after the war. But the generation after will be focused on one thing: revenge. The only way to stop Ukraine from waging a war on Russia to recover what it had lost will be to talk to them in Brussels and say: “Guys… you are exposing… all of us to the threat [of another war in Europe]. So you just sit quietly and enjoy your life as a member of the EU and NATO.”
I leave to proponents of security guarantees [apart from] NATO membership the time they’ll need to explore the alternatives. I will be happy to be wrong, but I'm pretty confident that after endless drafting and brainstorming exercises, they will end up with pretty much the same stuff as we already have. Yeah. And that led to nowhere. I mean, that led to where we are.
So, security guarantees [below the threshold of NATO membership] can neither ensure a ceasefire nor prevent a second war. But every politician and thinker has to go through [this logical] evolution on his or her own… I wouldn't say that what Gen. Kellogg wrote in his paper will be exactly the plan, the peace plan. The peace plan must take into account real developments on the ground… He's a very smart man and he really gets to the point. Except that I think the new American administration has to answer three questions.
First, how do we convince Putin to accept it [a peace plan]? It won't be just as easy as pointing the gun. Second, how do we ensure that war does not come back? A ceasefire will not be sufficient either for Ukraine’s nor Europe’s security. And third, what will be the price for America if Ukraine falls?
These are the three. And if these people sit down and find answers to these three questions, they will have, I would guess, a seriously modified plan from the one they may be entertaining today.
Footnotes
- Russia Matters edited the interview for clarity. The interviewer thanks RM student associate Dasha Zhukauskaite, a master's degree candidate at the Davis Center's REECA Program, for transcribing the interview; he also thanks the RM staff and Belfer Center associate Evan Sankey for contributing interview questions.
Opinions expressed herein are solely those of the speakers.
Russia Matters Project, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
