00:00my guest today on 12 minutes with is the former ukrainian foreign minister dmitry kuleba sir
00:15thank you so much for joining us on euronews it's my pleasure now you were part of president
00:22selensky's inner circle until last year you know him what do you think will be going through his
00:29mind this week as he's being pressured to quickly sign a peace seal by the u.s he will be saying to
00:36himself we have to hold the line uh he would consider uh any major concession as a beginning
00:45of a catastrophe for for the country so um he will continue to engage constructively with president
00:53trump uh he will continue to actively involve european leaders in this engagement um and he
01:02will also continue to rally europeans uh to be faster and more efficient in the implementations
01:10of decisions they took themselves on rearming europe uh on providing uh financial assistance to ukraine
01:18etc you say that any concession would be a catastrophe yet we now know from leaked
01:24conversations that the starting point for these talks was a kremlin wish list essentially a russia
01:31drafted plan given all of this can ukraine trust the americans as negotiators as mediators in this
01:40process not really but we do not have another america so you have to engage with them uh on the
01:47understanding that you cannot rely on them entirely but there are so many issues where america is
01:56irreplaceable that you cannot just say we don't want to do to have any to do any business with you
02:03because you speak to the russian stuff and and you put and you table their ideas as your own ideas
02:08that just not how it works but strategic decoupling is obvious and the sooner circles in europe will
02:16realize that engagement with america can only be of tactical value um the better it will be for
02:26everyone so you say that if this all falls apart if a peace deal doesn't come from this push do you
02:32think that europe is alone in supporting ukraine i think it already fell apart i believe that
02:39that's uh after the aggressive and erratic handling of this 28 points plan uh by by washington
02:47resistance by ukraine and europe and finally the whitkov leaks i don't think it this 28 or 19 or whatever
02:58uh points plan uh can survive all of this but uh there will definitely be something new uh and you uh no one can admit failure
03:08so we will see uh this effort evolving in another effort the problem is that um it won't be much
03:18different it may be framed differently there may be like 15 or 30 or 35 points but the content will be
03:25the same and the question is what do we have to do to change the substance of the proposal
03:30now we have seen some more concrete ideas come to light in this whole process this week maybe we can
03:38take a little bit of a closer look at them because one of them is this idea of capping the ukrainian
03:43army originally 800 000 um now there's different figures being bandied about but essentially wouldn't
03:49this leave ukraine vulnerable to future russian attacks can ukraine accept it any way any kind of
03:57limitations on its armed forces i believe it would be a grave mistake first this limitation if you
04:05establish a cap on the army of 800 000 people it's like still a lot but it's a message a clear message
04:15that a foreign power restricts your sovereignty and secondly it's a clear message that a foreign power
04:25humiliates your uh um your army your nation um and this is just not not it cannot be accepted so
04:35uh in my view even uh the idea that is floating is that is that like let's set up a cap at the
04:42highest possible number which still be enough let's just satisfy the russians i mean if we proceed from
04:48the perspective of just satisfying uh the russians we will get nowhere we will we will pave the road to
04:54hell with good intentions of satisfying the russians and capping the army is uh the most uh prominent
05:01example of that effort because we have seen in recent months western allies shifting from their
05:08position of or we will send a force a peacekeeping force to ukraine and saying no the best security
05:15guarantee for ukraine is a strong strong ukrainian armed forces but do you think in all of this they
05:22should be moving back to the concept of nato membership does that need to be on the table
05:28and what do you make of this concept first floated by the italian prime minister that ukraine could get
05:34some kind of article 5 style guarantees without being a full-fledged member of nato is that something
05:42you would support isn't it embarrassing that almost four years into the war european leaders are still
05:48jumping from one topic uh to another from sending peacekeeping forces to ukraine to reassurance forces
05:54to ukraine to strengthening ukrainian army to offering something like uh uh article 5 or offering membership
06:04you know with this space of decision making and conceptual understanding of where europe is heading
06:10there are no good times for europe ahead so um we we really have to get the coalition of the willing
06:18for the for the time being i'm sorry i i appreciate every effort that is being made to support ukraine
06:24but when it comes to these big issues coalition of the willing is more about branding and framing
06:29than actually offering answers to the most vital questions i want to come back to the question of
06:37brussels's role here now we hear here in brussels that there's currently a lot of resistance still
06:43to this idea of giving ukraine this reparations loan that would be based on russia's immobilized
06:50state assets in europe there's no breakthrough at the moment it's belgium but also other countries
06:57really not feeling that this is something that they can do that the legal risks are too high
07:01um do you think that europe needs to just steam ahead with this plan or could this infuriate
07:08president trump who also seems to have um ideas about having his own slice of those russian assets
07:14uh the choice is very simple uh since europe believes that the support to ukraine should continue
07:21not only for the sake of ukraine but also for the sake of europe for its own national for its own
07:28security interest then you have to find hundreds of billions of euros these hundreds of billions of
07:35europe of euros exist only in two places in your pocket and in russian frozen assets so now you have
07:43to make your choice do you want to overcome the resistance of belgium and maybe someone else
07:51in order to pay for the war with russian money or you want to take this money out of your own pocket
07:59in my view the answer is obvious it's been a a challenging time for ukraine domestically as well
08:06recently i want to ask you and they're facing the continued veto of hungarian prime minister
08:11victor orban when it comes to ukraine's accession to the eu and while this has been heating up there has
08:16also been this big sprawling investigation by the two anti-corruption bodies into corruption that has
08:22touched the heart of government um has president selensky responded in the right way um to address
08:29this issue well he ordered uh um two ministers implicated in this case uh to be knocked out of
08:37the government but um the ukrainian society does not find this decision sufficient uh the mood in ukraine
08:47is that more needs to be done in order to clean up uh the the way the country is governed uh and this
08:57is the biggest challenge the president the president is is facing now um otherwise everyone understands
09:04that we are at war and we have to be we have to be very responsible in the actions we take
09:10uh but again uh war is not an excuse to do whatever authorities believe they are entitled to do
09:18how concerned are you that if these talks fall apart if trump retreats once again how concerned are you
09:27about the situation on the front line and the next year of war for the ukrainians
09:32if things do not change in ukraine in the and in the european union in november 2026 we can do another
09:43interview and we will be discussing a situation when ukrainian a russian army would further advance
09:52deeper into the heartland of ukraine ukrainian economy would be further destroyed uh european union would
10:00still be discussing uh the frozen issues frozen assets issue and most most dramatically the same
10:11subs the same 28 point points plan would be on the table so if we really need to change things
10:18we need to change ourselves and this applies mainly to us in ukraine and to you in the european union
10:27but what do you mean by that mr coleba how can ukraine and the eu change what do they need to do right
10:33now to improve the situation and to make sure that ukraine gets the support it needs
10:39ukraine has to change uh the way it is uh governed uh i'm not talking about elections there will be no
10:48elections uh as long as the ceasefire is not is not concluded but uh governance should improve uh secondly
10:57trust between uh the society and the government should be restored uh europe has to do three things
11:05finally start implementing the rearm europe program at the pace that matches the challenge
11:15uh unfree uh use uh solve the problem of russian frozen assets and unblock the process of ukraine's
11:24accession to the european union do these things and then together ukraine and europe and and the rest of
11:31europe should uh um should keep uh keep president trump from uh uh making any decisions that would uh stop the
11:43program of selling american weapons uh to european nations through nato for ukraine and sharing
11:51intelligence mr coleba thank you so much for your time thank you
11:55thank you
Comments