The Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba currently sees no signals from Russia “that it would be ready for the diplomatic route,” as he said in an interview with the “Presse am Sonntag”. He would negotiate with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, but would not shake his hand because his “hands are covered with blood”. There is no alternative to Ukraine joining the EU and NATO, as this is the only way to ensure Europe’s long-term stability.
Waiting for weapons for counter offensive
“My goal is to see Ukrainian officials at every checkpoint on our eastern border,” says Kuleba. Once you’ve got all the weapons “we need for the counteroffensive, we’ll launch them.” They are currently working on “accelerating the deliveries from our partners”, and artillery ammunition in particular is needed. “Because the scale of the war is such that we’ll probably never have enough ammunition until we win.”
The battle for the fiercely contested town of Bakhmut was “devastating,” but pulling out of the Ukrainian army was not the solution, otherwise “the same nightmare would only advance deeper into Ukrainian territory,” emphasizes Kuleba. “We do not claim more than every square meter of our own territory,” says the Ukrainian foreign minister. In any case, his job is to “do everything to ensure that Ukraine arrives at the negotiating table in the strongest possible position and Russia in the weakest possible position.”
Kuleba welcomes arrest warrant
Kuleba welcomes the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Russian President Vladimir Putin because the most important message is that Putin is now “not just a political but also a legal defendant,” “by an established institution.” He does not therefore expect an immediate coup in Russia, but the arrest warrant is “another – very large – drop of dissatisfaction and anxiety in the glass of the Russian elite”.
At the moment, China’s role is more of an observing one, says Kuleba. “China is considering the current state of play before deciding whether to step up efforts or continue.” In any case, there has not yet been a phone call between China’s head of state Xi Jinping and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “Every time we remind our Chinese colleagues about a request for a phone call or a meeting with our heads of state, the answer is that they are working on it.” He has heard the same answer over and over again since February 2022.
Criticism in Schallenberg
However, Kuleba is critical of the statements by Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg (ÖVP), according to which Europe cannot completely decouple itself from Russia because it will not disappear from the map. If you don’t do this, it means “that you cannot detach yourself from a child-stealing war criminal whose actions are similar to those of the Nazi regime, which kidnapped children from occupied territories with the Lebensborn program,” says the Ukrainian foreign minister. Not distancing oneself from this is problematic for Austria. Schallenberg is a friend, but “should have been more precise here,” said Kuleba.
Raiffeisen’s involvement in Russia was a mistake, and he believes the bank will regret it. “Any company, regardless of nationality, should pull out of Russia if it cares about its reputation and doesn’t want to be part of the criminal Putin regime.”
More support required
Kuleba emphasizes that Austria’s neutrality should be respected, but that Austria could “support the Ukrainian army with more non-lethal aid,” but that would require political will. In any case, Austria, like Germany or the Netherlands, was part of a camp “that, before the Russian invasion, propagated the unspoken concept of Ukraine remaining in a gray area between Russia and the EU.” “That’s exactly the strategy that got us to where we are now.”
