Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, has listed several reasons against negotiating with Vladimir Putin in a post on the social network X (formerly Twitter), as reported by the German news website merkur.de.
Despite progress in Ukraine’s defense against the Russian attack, the quick success many anticipated from the Ukrainian major offensive has not materialized. There have been international speculations about whether Ukraine would still negotiate with Russia. These speculations were fueled by an interview of the Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valeriy Zaluzhny in the autumn of 2023 with the British Economist. In it, Zaluzhny stated that the war against Russia had become a stalemate and there would be no breakthrough before winter.
The American think tank Atlantic Council also notes that there are currently no signs that Putin is ready for negotiations. On the contrary: The Russian dictator openly prepares his country for a long war and seems more convinced than ever that time is on his side. Internationally, Putin has undermined his credibility multiple times.
In his post on X, Kuleba emphasizes: “No conclusions can be drawn from this except that no one can seriously use the words ‘Russia’ and ‘negotiations’ in the same phrase.” He describes Putin as a “notorious liar” who promised international leaders a few days before his invasion in February 2022 not to attack Ukraine. Russia’s tactic has remained consistent in the “many wars of the last three decades: kill, seize, lie, and deny.”
Image: kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, Putin with Gorkov at Kremlin August 2016.jpg, via Wikimedia Commons (no changes made)
