Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba invited the West to “ignore” Russia and Putin

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba proposed an “effective strategy” for containing Russia in an article for Foreign Affairs. At the same time, he excludes that Kiev will make unilateral concessions to Moscow on the Donbass issue, as well as the “direct dialogue” with the DPR and LPR, which Kuleba calls “the two regions occupied by Russia” of Ukraine. Kuleba cites the situation with Transnistria as an example and writes that the result of Chisinau’s consent to negotiations with Tiraspol was “three decades of a ‘frozen’ conflict and no settlement.

Kuleba writes that the demand of Russian President Vladimir Putin to provide him with guarantees that Ukraine will not join NATO is a dilemma, but Putin will win in any of the possible scenarios. If the West agrees to these guarantees, Moscow “will be happy to receive a new veto over Ukraine’s foreign policy.” And if he does not agree, writes Kuleba, then Putin will also “be satisfied”: this will give him “a fresh ideological basis for a new invasion of Ukraine.”

Kuleba believes that the best way to respond to “Putin’s ultimatums” is to ignore them and apply the “comprehensive approach” that is already being implemented. He clarifies that the first element of this strategy is to make it clear to the Kremlin that Ukraine is part of the West, a future EU and NATO member, and that Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity cannot be negotiated. The second element is anti-Russian sanctions. The third is the deepening of military-technical cooperation between the West and Ukraine.