In short
Episode Notes: The Rest Is Politics - Leading
Episode Title
157. Ukraine, Diplomacy, and the Future of Europe (Dmytro Kuleba)
Podcast Overview
- Hosts: Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart
- Guest: Dmytro Kuleba, former Foreign Minister of Ukraine (2022-2024)
- Focus: Discussion on Ukraine's position in the ongoing war with Russia, the intricacies of diplomacy with Europe and the USA, and reflections on leadership and legacy.
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Key Topics Discussed
Dmytro Kuleba's Background
- Early Life in the Soviet Union:
- Grew up in a time marked by scarcity and political repression, yet witnessed the awakening during Gorbachev’s reforms (perestroika and glasnost).
- Family history tied to Ukraine's struggle for identity and the impacts of Soviet policies.
- Family History:
- Grandparents faced oppression during collectivization and Stalin's famine (Holodomor).
- His father's experience as a political counselor in Afghanistan highlights the complexities of Soviet-era service.
Resilience of the Ukrainian People
- Kuleba emphasizes the historical struggles of Ukrainians, reinforcing their resilience through multiple tragedies.
- Reflects on the national identity formed through centuries of adversity.
Perspectives on Vladimir Putin
- Understanding Putin:
- Kuleba offers insights into Putin’s ambitions, suggesting he desires to be remembered alongside historical figures like Peter the Great.
- Discusses how Putin's imperial ideologies drive his aggressive foreign policies.
Ukraine’s Diplomatic Relations
- Engagement with Global Leaders:
- Differences noted between working with leaders such as Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, and Joe Biden.
- Highlights unexpected support from countries like the Netherlands and Denmark during the invasion, contrasting with historical reluctance.
- Expectations from Allies:
- Kuleba discusses the necessity for strong support from allies and the disappointment felt when not receiving adequate assistance.
The War Context
- Anticipation of Invasion:
- Kuleba recalls the moments leading up to the Russian invasion, stressing the lack of belief from international analysts in Ukraine's capacity to resist.
- Current State of Affairs:
- The ongoing nature of the war and the implications of drone warfare are discussed, highlighting the change in modern warfare.
Leadership and Legacy
- Zelensky’s Leadership:
- Kuleba reflects on Zelensky’s ability to communicate and rally support, drawing comparisons with Putin’s historical ambitions.
- Discusses the challenges Zelensky faces regarding his legacy given the complexities of the conflict.
Future of Ukraine
- Optimism for EU/NATO Membership:
- Kuleba expresses hope for Ukraine's integration into European structures but acknowledges the need for strategic patience.
- Vision for Victory:
- Kuleba foresees Ukraine surviving as a nation and strengthening its European identity, emphasizing that resilience and hope are critical for the future.
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Key Takeaways
- Cultural and Historical Influences: Kuleba's insights reveal how Ukraine's past shapes its current identity and resolve against Russian aggression.
- Diplomatic Relations: The dynamic between Ukraine and its allies is crucial, with Kuleba stressing the need for understanding and support.
- Perception of War: The conversation emphasizes the shifting nature of warfare, particularly with advancements in technology like drone usage.
- Leadership Reflection: The discussion around leadership highlights the importance of communication and the burden of legacy in wartime.
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Conclusion Dmytro Kuleba’s conversation offers an invaluable perspective on Ukraine’s current struggles, the complexities of international relations, and the enduring spirit of its people amidst ongoing conflict. The episode serves as a poignant reminder of the human cost of war and the intricate web of diplomacy that surrounds such global crises.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
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2:37welcome to the rest is policy leading with me alistair campbell and with me rory stewart and today we are very lucky to have with us from kiev dimitro kuleba who was for critical years until very recently the foreign minister of ukraine had a very interesting career growing up which we'll hear more about his early time in the foreign ministry, his parents, his experience as a young person going through the breakup of the Soviet Union. And of course, we're talking to him right at this moment where things are very critical on the Ukrainian frontline. So, Dimitri, thank you so much for joining us.
3:14It's my pleasure. Can I maybe kick off on a point there that Rory related to is that you grew up in the old Soviet Union. Of course, for a lot of people where Rory and I come from, they now see Putin identifying himself in the way that he does and this sense that he's trying to rebuild what he sees as a sort of greater Russia. What was it like growing up in that country? And what are your feelings towards it now? Well, Soviet Union, I captured Soviet Union in the last years of its existence. So I do not actually recall the years of Soviet prosperity and building communists which would make everyone happy.
3:58I was growing up in a country with empty shelves in stores with no freedom of speech but at the same time with this sense of awakening because Gorbachev launched what your viewers may recall or may learn now as perestroika, which is one of the few Russian words that made it into English political vocabulary. The other one was glasnost. Glasnost, yes, yes, exactly. So, yeah, but I was born in a family of a civil servant and a teacher of Ukrainian language and literature. So I was raised in like loyalty to the country that we live in, but with strong connection to my Ukrainian identity. That pretty much shaped my understanding of the world and the country that we lived in.
4:51I remember vividly one thing I studied. I happened to study both in Kiev and in Moscow, where my father was sent to study to receive his second education in 1990. And in a school in Kiev, teachers would never talk really about the grandeur of the Soviet Union. But in a school in Moscow, the main thing we were taught was that Soviet Union is a great country and the whole world is afraid of us. And this difference in mentalities was quite clear to me, even as a child. Dimitri, just to develop a little bit more, can you give us a glimpse of the story of your grandparents and your parents? And of course, for me, as somebody who spent many years in Afghanistan.
5:37I'd be interested also in that part of the Soviet story and your father's encounter with that. So who were your grandparents? What was their experience of the war? Where did they come from? And what was the formation of the Kuleba family? So my family comes from central Ukraine, which is closer to Russia, historically. And this is why My Russian colleagues, of course, in the years predating the invasion, when we were still engaged with each other and had some shots of vodka from occasionally, they were always wondering, like, why am I not pro -Russian if I'm from central Ukraine, which was eastern to them?
6:23They could never grasp it, that in their view, only Ukrainians from Western Ukraine would have any hard feelings towards Russia. But I, by definition, was supposed to be pro-Russian and Russia-leaning. This explains one of the greatest misunderstandings and misreadings of Ukraine in the eyes of the Russians. All my grandparents come from the countryside. They were basically peasants. My father comes from a tiny village from the Poltava region, which is considered to be one of the cradles of Ukrainian culture. And we suffered from communists, of course, because my great-grandfather was another word you may remember from history is kulak.
7:14So he was considered to be a wealthy farmer. He wasn't really. He was like a mid-sized farmer back then. but he was ordered to join Kolkhoz, the collective farm, and he refused. So he was sent to Siberia. And he had four children and two smallest ones, which they were two and three years old. They were separated from their parents and siblings by the Czechists. I'm sorry for spoiling the show with all this vocabulary, but I guess your viewers might be curious. So these were the infamous predecessors of KGB, the secret police. So they were separated and left in the village to be grown as communists, while the rest of the family was deported to Siberia.
8:11And one of these children were my grandmother, who started the family. So the memory of this always lived with us, although we never really talked about it in the family. And my mother comes from a similar background. Listening to that, we have a sense of Ukraine at the moment, Ukrainian people as being extraordinarily resilient. First of all, is that true? Do you feel that you're a very resilient people? And do you think it's related to that sense of the struggles that your predecessors went through? Well, if you look at Ukraine's history, We spent only in the 20th century, right? So we fought for our independence when the Russian empire fell apart.
8:57We were not lucky to secure it and ended up as part of the Soviet Union. But Ukraine was literally drowned in blood as a punishment. Then there was this process of collectivization when the backbone of Ukrainian society, which were farmers and the carriers of this national identity, they were killed and deported massively. And then in the 30s, we went through the famine called Holodomor. It was an artificial famine organized by Joseph Stalin to suppress the very idea that Ukraine can be anything else but Russia. Add up the Russian civil war, which took away millions of lives, the repressions against Ukrainian intelligentsia, against our writers and poets to cleanse our cultural scene.
9:50Then there was the Second World War. I don't have to tell you. We were actually, so Russia likes to present itself as the main victim of the Second World War. but it was actually Ukraine who was crossed in full twice. First eastwards by the Germans and retreating Red Army and then westwards by the retreating German Army and advancing Soviet Army which of course took a great toll of our nation. And then there was a process called Russification after the Second World War. So if you look at the map of the world and you try to identify a nation that went through similar types of challenges in the first half of the 20th century, I believe it will be fair to say that by all accounts, we were not supposed to survive as a nation.
10:43Why would we did? So I think, yeah, we are pretty much resilient and our history taught us to survive under any circumstances. Dimitri, final, just on the parents, bring us back to your father. And again, as I say, this Afghan chapter, his experience was as a young man, growing up in the Soviet Union, working as a public official in the context of the Soviet Union, and then how it changed for him after independence. So in the Soviet Union back then, if you wanted to make a career, you had to do, and you were coming from a very simple family, you had to do two things. First, you had to switch to Russian.
11:23It was impossible to be a part of the high society, high Soviet society while speaking Ukrainian. You had to, with the language, you had to actively manifest loyalty to the cause of Moscow and the Soviet Union. And secondly, you had to embark on the missions the Soviet Union was undertaking abroad, the most risky one, to win a chance for a better job and a better life. So in that way, my father went to Afghanistan as a political counselor. So he was not a part of the Soviet army. His job was different. Once the Soviet army would clean the Kishlak, the village in Afghanistan of Mojahedins, or a tribe in Afghanistan would align with the government forces instead of opposition, then people like my father would come to the place and would tell them and now we're going to help you to build a school to teach you collective farming and to help you understand how to build socialism so he spent a year on tour in Afghanistan which yeah I must say opened upon his return to Kiev opened doors for him and that's how he got a chance to study in the very influential institution called Moscow's Soviet Academy of Foreign Trade.
12:57Just one simple thing, to get into it, to get a seat in that academy, you had to be nominated by the Central Bureau of the Communist Party. So that was a really big deal back then. So for him, it was about really climbing up the ladder of the Soviet society. The war experience, he saw the war, he put his risk at life. So he definitely came, he did not come back broken, but he did come back traumatized. He was never willing to speak too much about it. But he was not ideologically involved in it. It was a job to bring better life, to provide better life to his family. Dimitri, I'm very interested in language.
13:45What are the key differences between Russian and Ukrainian? What is it in the Ukrainian language that you see as being particularly Ukrainian that you're desperate to cling on to? And give us some examples, maybe even some sentences. Well, if that makes any sense to British viewers, I would say Ukrainian and Russian are like German and Dutch. Okay. Yeah. So phonetically, it may sound similar, but vocabulary is pretty much different. if you speak the proper Ukrainian, not the Russified Ukrainian, because in the Soviet times, there was a very coherent policy and consistent policy of the Soviet Union to strike out authentic Ukrainian words and replace them with Russian words that phonetically sound spelled as Ukrainian.
14:38But now the trend has reversed and we are kind of restoring the original sound and nature of our language. And an example? For example, the difference is even in months, in the names of the months. In Russian, October, right, which sounds very English, it's Oktyabr. Oktyabr. Oktyabr, yeah. But in Ukrainian, it's actually Zhoftein. And the root of this word comes from yellow, because is yellow. So is when everything gets yellow, which kind of makes sense, right? So in Ukrainian, please sounds in Russian. In Russian, it sounds. So this kind of sounds different, I guess, right? Help us to understand a little bit about Vladimir Putin.
15:39Was his age similar to your father's age? What was his route? What was his experience of the collapse of the Soviet Union? What kind of background did he come from? Do you think we can understand Putin by understanding a little bit of his professional life before the collapse of the Soviet Union? Tell us a little bit about him and his development. Well, my father never had anything to do with KGB. I believe it's a life-defining experience. Moreover, although we didn't speak much about this family tragedy because my grandmother was simply afraid of talking about it, even in the liberal years of Gorbachev.
16:15We all knew, including my father, what the communists did and how different the life of my father could have been if his grandfather was still alive in Ukraine as a mid-sized farmer. because my father started from the very bottom of society. Like he was coming from an extremely poor rural family. And my grandmother, although she was raised, as I told you, in a communist society, but in her early years, she was always, sorry to say it, branded as the daughter of the enemy of the state. So this experience, it was passed on from one generation to another, but you had to choose, you had to build your own life.
17:10So, Dimitri, tell us a little bit about Vladimir Putin, his personality, his character, his development. Who is this man? And what maybe do British or internationalists not understand about how this man developed the historical context of his development? Well, President Putin is, of course, very different from my father. But I think what defines him politically and his personality is that first, he comes from St. Petersburg and Leningrad, which is a mixture of imperial and Soviet thinking. St. Petersburg was the city built by Peter the Great, and who moved to the capital from Moscow to St. Petersburg in order to start a new chapter in Russian history, which was the imperial chapter.
18:00And this city was the backbone of imperial thinking. And at the same time, after the communist revolution, the city was renamed into Leningrad after Lenin, obviously, and the city was the cradle of, as it was called, the cradle of Bolshevik communist revolution. Then they moved the capital to Moscow, but nevertheless, Leningrad kept this name of the cradle of communism, of communist revolution. So if you put these two factors together, imperial and Soviet thinking in one pot, you get quite spicy, quite burning, burning dish. So this is the first thing you have to know about him. And second, I will jump from the past to today.
18:48I believe people abroad, people in England and in the UK and other parts of the world are making a mistake when they try to understand and read Putin only through the prism of his dream to restore the Soviet Union and the grandeur of the Russian Empire. I mean, because it's only part of the truth. It's not whole truth. I think the second missing part is very important and defining. He is already thinking of what will be written about him in history books. So there is a lot of ambition in him to personally do something so great that will take him, that will put him in the same line with Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and other Joseph Stalin and other Russian rulers.
19:40whom he considers as the great ones, which pushes him towards making things which may look outrageous to all of us, like invading other countries. But he's not invading them only because he wants to restore the Soviet Union. He's doing that because he wants to accomplish what his great predecessors did. So he wants to be known through history as Vladimir the Great. He sees himself in that lineage. Yes, yes. I think there is a famous monument to Peter the Great in St. Petersburg is erected during the reign of Catherine the Great. So Peter was Peter I, Catherine was Catherine II. And the words on the inscription on the monument is very simple.
20:24To Peter I from Catherine II. And I guess he dreams of adding up his line, supported by Vladimir III. This is more or less the lineup that he imagines himself in. And to do that, you need to do something of historical and historic magnitude. And he's constantly looking for such big things that are still available to him. But of course, they were operating in very, very different eras where their ability to sort of control the narrative about themselves was probably easier. Now, I know Putin controls the narrative about himself internally very easily because he's got complete control. But history requires a global view.
21:08And I just wonder what your assessment would be of how, we'll come obviously on, we'll come onto how the Ukraine war might end. But today, what's your sense of how Vladimir Putin is seen by history? Well, the common mistake is to think of someone else within the framework that is common to us, but not to that person. So Putin sees things differently from the way you and I see them. For example, he believes that the winner gets it all. He believes that the winner is going to write the rules. He doesn't care what we think of him today because he believes that once he wins, he will erase what we think of him from the memory and impose his narrative.
21:59And you may say, but this is not going to happen. We have loads of internet content and the truth about the Russian invasion. But he knows very well from the Russian history and from his own recent successes. It doesn't take too much to re-educate generations and to replace one content with another and to suppress access to unfavorable content if you defeat your enemy. And he clearly believes that the West is declining, that Europe is doomed, and even the Anglo-Saxons, whom he hates so openly and sincerely, are doomed to fail. Because he, with the support of China and the rest of the world, as they say, the global majority, are going to set their narrative once the West is defeated.
22:51So he just sees these things differently. Dmitry, to come back to you then, you became the Ukrainian foreign minister in 2020. And you were right there as the foreign minister at the moment at which Putin invaded Ukraine, tried to march on Kiev, and you remained as the foreign minister through those critical years. Let's start, please, first with that moment. Try to bring a lie for us. How did you find out about this moment? Were you anticipating it? Did you feel that the world wasn't paying enough attention? Were you saying this is going to happen and nobody's paying attention? Were you surprised by how it unfolded?
23:28Were you shocked? Tell us about that invasion. Well, I represent a nation that unfortunately always has to pay with its own blood to be noticed and recognized. So I had no illusions that no one was going to come to our help until we would prove to them that we were actually able to kick back and to survive the attack. And that was one of the starting assumptions in what I was doing. Of course, I was rallying the world. We were holding negotiations on the supply of weapons. We were talking about sanctions. We were delivering powerful speeches. And our diplomacy was extremely, extremely active back then.
24:21But I also knew that to deserve the right to be supported, we have to survive the attack. and no one believed that we would. I mean, literally, there was not a single analyst in any capital, including in London, who would come and say, yeah, Ukraine is doomed. The reason for that was the famous saying that a small Soviet army cannot defend itself against a big Soviet army. In this case, you know, a small Ukrainian against a big Russian. Being conscious of all of this, you have to make a choice of how you are going to behave, What will be your line of behavior when everyone is telling you that you are doomed?
25:02And because of my background, because of my history, because the history of our country, I made the decision that whatever happens, I will be fighting. And then let's let history judge us. There was this episode when Secretary Blinken was visiting Ukraine in January 2022. We had a one-on-one conversation talking about the threat of invasion, what would be the reaction. And in the end, I told him, Tony, I want you to tell to tell you one thing. My predecessors throughout Ukraine's history who dared to stand up against Russia ended up either dead or writing their memoirs in exile. And I promise to you here speaking one on one that I will write my memoirs in Kiev.
25:49So that was the promise basically that I gave to myself that I shared with him. and he was impressed with my audacity, right? But yeah, that was my attitude. So when it started, I just jumped into the ocean of fight. I knew how to swim, but yeah, I was not at all convinced that we would have enough of strength to actually survive this storm. Dimitro, which countries around the world surprised you both in terms of their support, but also I wonder whether anywhere they surprised you through a lack of support or a lack of understanding of what was at stake? Well, my biggest surprise were the Netherlands.
26:38For years, the Dutch were not of a particularly high opinion of Ukraine and Ukrainians reputationally, and also because of Ukraine's aspirations to join the European Union. It is a commonplace that the Netherlands are not big fans of any enlargement of the EU. So there was nothing that would allow us to imagine the resolve and commitment the Netherlands have demonstrated in the immediate aftermath to invasion. And also because they took the lead, quite unprecedentedly, by the way, in pushing the Germans towards a more active stance and towards action. As you know, it's the other way around all the time in the EU.
27:26Everyone is sitting and waiting to hear what Berlin and Paris are going to say. But this time it was different and it was the Netherlands who actually did a great job in steering Germany in the right direction. Yeah, I can also mention Denmark. Denmark could have literally kind of sat quietly and followed the others, but they decided to take the lead. Remarkably, all Nordic bloc did extraordinarily well. Well, maybe because the blood of Vikings that Ukrainians and them are carrying through centuries since early medieval times finally reminded them of our brotherhood. And Dimitri, from your brotherhood with the ancient Vikings, tell us a little bit about Britain, France, the United States and their different roles.
28:23What was the personality of those three countries? What did they do well? What did they do less well? Since your Queen Elizabeth turned down the offer of Moscow Prince Ivan de Terrible to get married in the Baltics and in the Nordic Sea, Britain has been an enemy of Moscow, with the exception probably of the First and Second World Wars. But they hate you. They blame you for everything. By definition, you are our friends because you are not friends with Russia. But to be honest with you, and I know that Boris Johnson is a figure in British politics that prompts very different reactions. But in terms of personalities, the first year of the invasion, unquestionably, it was the year of Boris Johnson.
29:15and he was the man who stand up to the challenge of the time, among other things, trying to address his domestic issues while being proactive on the international arena. But he was the leader, and I have to admit it because he really was. He was the man who was rallying the Americans and the Europeans and his government because there was no unanimity in your own government. on how far the support of Ukraine should go. So British policy in the first year of the invasion had the face, the voice, and the haircut of Boris Johnson. Yeah, that would be the best way to describe it. And we appreciate the leadership, the political leadership of Britain in that very first year.
30:10For Paris and Berlin, the situation was completely different. They were friends with Russia for years, for centuries. Moscow made its biggest bet on them in consolidating support in Europe. And I'm sorry to say it in corrupting European elites to make Europe loyal to Russia. So they had to undergo a complete transition, a U-turn. And of course, in Ukraine and other places, there was enormous criticism directed at them for being too slow and indecisive. But I have to admit, you know, 200 years of your foreign policy are based on the doctrine that you have to be friends with Russia. You cannot change that in a blink of an eye.
30:57It takes time. So eventually they changed. And we saw the leadership of both France and Germany. But it started with Britain. Britain set the threshold among big powers, or great powers, I would rather say. And the US? Well, what many don't understand about the US foreign policy is that the biggest fear of every US president is a nuclear war between superpowers. And this risk defines pretty much of their thinking. And when it comes to Joe Biden, a politician shaped in the Cold War era, of course, yeah, that was a big, big part of his thinking. So paradoxically, Joseph Biden was the best president of the United States Ukraine could count on in 2022.
31:54Because all of his predecessors didn't care much about us. And in fact, as vice president, to President Obama, to the best of my knowledge, he disagreed with the reluctance of Barack Obama to provide Ukraine with any meaningful support. So he was also traumatized by this experience and he wanted to be different. So he tried to be different. He did his best. Unfortunately, it was not enough to meet up the challenge posed by the invasion. and this is why we are where we are. Of course, the United States were number one on many fronts, but in a number of consequential cases, their decisions were triggered by actions of other players, including the United Kingdom, not by the American leadership itself.
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32:48Okay, Dimitro, Rory, quick break and then back for more.
33:05Thank you.
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35:23By the end of 2024, it became very important in the US election, this whole question around Ukraine. And a narrative developed, and sometimes you heard people like J.D. Vance with this narrative, which was that America is wasting an enormous amount of money on Ukraine. This is none of our business. This is the European business. Anyway, Russia's going to win. All we're doing is prolonging the conflict and killing lives on both sides. And that arguments seem to have quite a lot of appeal politically. And the Trump administration was able to get a lot of support around this. Why do you think that happened?
35:57Why do you think it was possible for American politicians at the end of 2024 to take a position which frankly was a reverse of the Biden position, seemed to be quite a pro-Russian position? Well, because in every country, a voter hates to know that money that were supposed to be spent on him or her are being spent on someone else. That's, I think, more or less kind of common practice everywhere. So playing with the money argument is the easiest way to call white, black and vice versa. And this is what J.D. Vance did. But let's look back retrospectively at the last 10 months since the inauguration of President Trump.
36:45J.D. Vance was wrong on all accounts. America is still in play in a different way, but in play. Trump is not abandoning Ukraine. And I would bet he has no real political choice of doing that. And thirdly, this American messaging forced the Europeans to finally realize that they have to take care of themselves and they have to invest seriously in their own security, which is good for Ukraine as well. So the anti-Ukrainian argument was very much anti-Biden argument for J.D. Vance. But after the initial crisis between Zelensky and Trump in the Oval Office, which everyone witnessed, relationship has been normalized.
37:35So things are more complicated than just an argument that we are spending too much on the war that no one cares about. Dimitri, you mentioned President Zelensky there. He's obviously become a huge global figure. He's one of the best known political leaders in the world right now. What do you see as the strengths that he brings to the jobs? And also, Rory asked you about maybe things that a British public wouldn't necessarily know about Putin. But can I ask the same question in relation to Zelensky? The things about Zelensky that we don't know, don't see, is he a more complicated person than maybe the very simple sense that we have of him?
38:12Well, Zelensky is clearly a person of historic scale. All of these guys are very complicated. And you focus on one side, you overlook the other. His biggest skill, of course, and talent was what he had been always good at, communication and capturing attention of the people because that's what he did for a living for decades and became a real star. So he captivated the attention of people in Ukraine first and won the elections. and then he captivated the attention of the whole world in the beginning of the invasion. Although it's inappropriate to compare them, but strangely enough, today Zelensky is facing the same challenge as President Putin because he also has to define what his legacy will be.
39:12An overwhelming victory of Ukraine and defeated Russia doesn't seem to be one of them. So he has to look for kind of the big win, the big achievement. And he's looking around, trying to identify. Because if you are so big, if you did great in the beginning of the war, but every story, every real story needs a high end, right? So this is where I was brave and then we won. But this war is probably not going to end in black and white colors. and therefore he's facing a problem of legacy. Dimitri, can I develop that a little bit? Tell us a little bit about Ukrainian politics. I'm not saying it's going to end in a ceasefire.
39:58Maybe even that's not the right way to think. But just imagine hypothetically there was going to be a ceasefire. What would it take to sell that, to communicate that to the Ukrainian people? How difficult would it be? What politics is involved in trying to convince Ukrainians to accept a ceasefire? Oh, listen, Rory, we are in the moment in history when a ceasefire would be accepted by almost everyone in Ukraine. I cannot imagine a serious voice speaking against a ceasefire under these circumstances. Having said this, what Ukrainians are not going to accept the following things. legal recognition of the loss of the territories currently occupied by Russia.
40:47This is a no-goer. This is not going to happen. And secondly, they will not accept if as part of the deal, of the peace deal, Ukraine will be anchored back in the Russian world. So what does it mean in practice? In the eyes of the people, that is associated with the membership in the European Union and NATO. We seem to be very far away from membership in NATO at this point, although things may change. But Ukrainians are craving a hard, not reassurance, but a very hard evidence that all the blood that we spilled shielded us from remaining in the Russian world. The problem with the West is that up until 2022, that was exactly the place Ukraine was designated by London, Paris, Berlin, Washington, and other key capitals.
41:46Like, Ukraine will be a part of the Russian world, friendly to the West. That was the role we were given. Keeping Ukraine in that role one way or another will not be accepted and tolerated by the people of Ukraine. Everything else, there is plenty of room to talk. But, Dimitri, the problem with that is you painted a picture of these two historic figures thinking about legacy, thinking about how this all ends for them and their place in history. What you just described doesn't fit remotely with Vladimir the Great's image of himself. So that says this war just grinds on and on and on. That's exactly what is happening.
42:26is happening. Yeah, this is actually the reason why this war grinds on and on and I'm afraid will continue to grind on. Today, frankly, I do not see how we can even come to a ceasefire. Because in foreign politics, and both of you have vast political and government experience, so in politics, in foreign policy, you make someone change the position either by forcing that side to change, imposing your will on them if you have enough of strength and power, or by changing the motivation of that other side, right? And none of these elements are in place today. So if we look at Russia, there is no force that can compel him to accept the end of the war, the ceasefire, or the end of the war.
43:21He feels pretty comfortable. nor there is any diplomacy that allows to change his motivation in the war and to refocus his strategic goals in the conflict. And this is why we are at war. And this is why every night and every day we have this missile and drone attacks on Kiev and other cities. We are actually in a bad moment in the war in the sense that the disillusionment with Trump's effort has become apparent to everyone. And now everyone is like looking around. So where is our wonder weapon, wonder solution that can stop this? And we don't see any. What did you make, Dimitro, of the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska?
44:11What did you as a Ukrainian feel? watching that, seeing the buildup, seeing the event itself. And from our perspective, I think very little happening as a result. Well, nothing happened as a result. But they both needed that meeting. Trump wanted to shake off the pressure coming from part of his inner circle demanding tougher action on Russia. So he had to go into a meeting, walk out and say, okay, no action so far, Everything is on hold because we've just had an excellent conversation and there is more room for diplomacy here. And that's exactly what happened. And Putin learned from his intelligence and operatives from in the West that the pressure on Trump, the pressure coming from anti-Russian circle on Trump has pushed Trump to the edge.
45:08So he needed to help him relieve that pressure. and also take the opportunity of this meeting to project the strengths, the dream that he was always kind of aspiring for when two great countries sit together and decide on the destiny of third countries. This is what Putin wants. Putin, US president, whatever his name is, fixing the world. This is what Putin got from the meeting in Alaska. Dimitri, security guarantees. I was talking this morning to Shashank Joshi, the economist correspondent, who was reminding me that you'd been very involved in thinking about security guarantees, the Istanbul process and all this kind of thing.
45:51I wondered, what did you learn from that? What was your conclusion from that? What is your conclusion about security guarantees for Ukraine? I highly respect the economist and Joshi. He's a great writer. I read his column regularly with the war room. But I have to say, I was never particularly heavily involved in security guarantees, because I never believed this was real. I mean, it's helpful. Don't get me wrong, but it's a helpful conversation. But strictly speaking, security guarantee is a promise of one country to fight on behalf of another country if that country, the second country is under attack, right?
46:37We are not talking about that. This is not a security guarantee. What is at the table is security assistance, which means we will send more weapons to you. We will help you to fight, but we will not be fighting shoulder to shoulder with you. And in that sense, I think that labeling conversation as a security guarantee discussion is misleading because people get the wrong notion of what we're actually talking about. The truth is that we are talking about increased military assistance to Ukraine to the extent that it will be able to defend itself. Is that real? It is, but it depends on primarily on one key factor, that you will yourself have enough of weapons to send them to Ukraine while also being able to defend yourself.
47:27Dimitri, am I hearing a slight contradiction though in what you're saying about international support? On the one hand, you're saying Trump has not deserted you since taking over from Biden, despite the pressure that he gets politically. On the other hand, you're saying that Ukraine is facing up to disappointment and disillusionment. How do those things sit together? No, no, no. We are disillusioned and disappointed with the failure of an energetic, although mercurial effort of President Trump to bring a ceasefire, to reach a ceasefire in Ukraine. And do you think he's given up? Has he given up?
48:04Yeah, I don't think, I wouldn't expect any more energetic diplomacy from his side in the coming months. But he will sit and wait for the opportunity. I mean, you cannot, you see, You cannot make Russia agree to a ceasefire without imposing serious stiff pressure on Russia. And we saw Trump speaking against Putin. What we haven't seen yet is Trump acting against Putin. This is the problem. And people are not buying anymore into what President Trump is saying because they want to see the action. While at the same time, the fact that he did not abandon Ukraine, that cooperation is still going on, intelligence sharing and discussions on what kind of weapons can be supplied, and the empowerment of NATO to be the supplier of American weapons to Ukraine.
49:04All of this is, of course, is good news. Dimitri, a sort of small sidebar apology to my friend Shashank for dragging him into the conversation. Can you bring us back to your personal experience? Your son has been on the front line. Last time we spoke, when I saw you in the States, you were talking about an amazing moment when a famous Ukrainian soldier who was a great media star came to visit you in your house. you talked about the experience of going to bunkers when drones and strikes are overhead. Can you try to bring alive for listeners the human experience, the daily human experience of being a citizen or a father in Ukraine?
49:41Yeah, so my son, to be completely honest and clear, my son is not on the front line. He goes to the university, but he's taking military training as part of his education and preparation for real life. But yeah, of course, we live in a world where Every day someone dies. He recently lost a very good friend. His best friend was actually a lady. She was killed in combat on the front line. And yeah, I spent two weeks trying to kind of bring him back to life after this devastating experience. yeah in a nutshell living through the war teaches you several things first you have to accept death and destruction as your daily routine it really becomes a routine you cannot come to terms with it you cannot ignore it but you have to learn how to live with it You wake up in the morning and the first news you read is how many cities were attacked, how much was destroyed, how many people were killed.
50:57Emotionally, it's interesting because there is no amount of death and suffering that can deprive you of emotion. You cannot get used to it. But it just becomes a routine, lie of your life, death and destruction. The second thing, it doesn't matter how tough your night is. Sometimes they're quite terrifying here in Kiev. You have to wake up in the morning. You have to pull yourself together. You have to walk your dogs. You have to drink your coffee. And you have to go to work. You have to live a life. Because you learn that you have no right to allow Putin to kill you without mentally killing you, without physically getting to you.
51:52And third, it doesn't matter how bad things are, you really become an optimist. Because you look for, you know, you have hopes. And optimism is what takes you forward, is what allows you to move on, the hope that things will be better tomorrow than they are today. These are the three things which are absolutely essential to surviving the war. Dimitri, why are you no longer in the government? And what do you do now? You're obviously incredibly articulate and very passionate and knowledgeable and a terrific communicator. But I just wondered why you left and what role you're playing now. Well, I hold a very simple view on that.
52:39The president gave me the job. I shook his hand and I thanked him for entrusting this enormously important mission with me. So when the president wanted me out of the job I shook his hand and I thanked him for the opportunity to serve my country at such times and I left. That's very simple. You cannot accept a job with words of gratitude and quit your job cursing your former boss because he wants, because he wanted someone else to do it. Do we have to wait for the memoirs? Well, if you speak to people in Ukraine, they will tell you more about me quit leaving the government. But I think it will be fair to stop to stop here, which takes me to the second part of your question.
53:27Yeah, I am working on a book. It's not a memoir, but it's a book about the war. And Harvard University, where I'm affiliated as senior fellow, has offered me intellectual environment, I quote. It's the best offer I ever received. We would like to offer you intellectual environment to write a book. And the environment is exceptional. I'm proud to be a part of this community. I also teach a course of wartime diplomacy in Paris at Sciences Po. But I used to go there every month during the spring semester for two days and teach my course. And then I would return back, go back to Kiev. And as every former official, you know, I think every decent former official should do three things.
54:18Teach, speak, and make money. I spent 20 years in serving the country. It's time to serve. Time has come to serve my family and myself. So that's what I'm more or less trying to do. Dimitri, final one for me. Give us a sense, if you can, and it's maybe an unfair question to you. Give us a little bit of a sense of what it's like at the front line, and in particular, what drone warfare is like. How is the modern war on the front line different from the wars that we've seen before or could imagine before? The biggest change is that in the old war, your survival depended a lot on your personal skills and your understanding of the combat.
55:07In drone war, your survival is largely a matter of luck. They see everything. They strike instantly. getting closer entering the kill zone means guaranteed death that comes from just from nowhere in a second and to some extent the drone warfare is immobilizing armies because you just can't move if you have equal drone power on both sides surveillance with similar surveillance and striking capacity the moment your tank tries to move on it gets destroyed the moment the moment your unit tries to advance it gets destroyed so the lesson number one in a drone warfare the moment you lost a square meter of your land it becomes extremely difficult to say the least to take it back because once all this drone infrastructure is in place, it's impossible to move on without dismantling this infrastructure first, which is extremely difficult, of course.
56:21And secondly, drones are extremely cheap. Drones make waging wars cheap. And that's what you're going to see in the coming Putin may not be able to send 200 ,000 people, soldiers to attack a country, an EU and NATO country, nor will he be able to send his Navy to launch an attack. But sending hundreds of drones almost every day, it's not a big deal. So the price of war is going down and therefore politicians feel more adventurous in testing waters of war. And this is why I'm afraid there will be more wars in the world. We will see more wars in the world in the coming years. Raul, I'm determined not to end on that note.
57:15So my final question, Dimitro, is this. Do you see any possibility of Ukraine being a member of the European Union or NATO in your lifetime? And secondly, just a nice easy one to round it off. How is this all going to end? We're going to win. And what does that mean? What does that mean? What does win mean? We're going to survive as a nation. And we will continue our development as a European nation. The Russian world will be on our eastern border, but not beyond that. And Ukraine will become a member of the European Union. At a certain point, it will also become a member of NATO under one condition, that both these communities survive the mess we are living through.
58:06Very good. Was that optimistic enough? That was more optimistic than the answer before, for sure. Yeah, that's true. When the war started, I read the words of Dwight Eisenhower, who once said, pessimists never won a war. so it doesn't matter how bad things are you really have to be an optimist you have to keep looking for solutions for the way out because if you do not believe you can win it then you are doomed and I do not belong to the generation of Ukrainians who want to join their predecessors historical predecessors ancestors in losing to Russia well thank you for your history and thank you for your language as well and it's been lovely to talk to you.
58:53Thank you very much indeed. Thank you, Dimitro. And take great care in Kiev and thank you for joining us today. Likewise. It was my great pleasure. Thank you for this conversation. Bye-bye. Thank you. Bye.
59:05Oh, he was great. I thought that was, yeah, impressive and moving. It's great that he sort of managing to, he describes kind of what sounds like living hell and then manages to keep a sense of humor, sense of optimism, sense of hope. I don't know whether he was slightly overdoing this. It was so, we will win. Yeah. And he was great. Thank you for fixing that. I think that fundamental observation that pessimists don't win a war is a really important one. And of course, it's a difficult thing for a policymaker because soldiers need to be constitutionally optimistic. And of course, I found in Iraq and Afghanistan that could be problematic because it means that, understandably, colonels and generals are always telling you, just give me another six months, give me some more troops, we'll manage to do this.
59:48but equally the reverse has to be true and i guess if you're fighting for national survival it's completely different to an intervention in someone else's country yeah the choice just isn't there i was very uh struck by him i mean clearly listeners don't need to read very far beneath the lines to pick up that there clearly is some issue with zlensky and with his departure from office which he's not leaning into well i think you see you said that if we spoke to other people in Ukraine they might give us a deeper understanding I think it was to do with a something of a political and personality clash with one of Zelensky's key people yeah and you you often say Australian politics is brutal I think Ukrainian politics is an entirely different league I mean we've got Zalushky the the ex-general is now our ambassador here in the United Kingdom and he's you know it's extraordinary I mean and you got that also when he said Zelensky's a great man, but like all great men, there are two sides to him.
1:00:48There's a lot of controversy going on. It's not just that the entire establishment, I guess, including Dimitri, have decided they don't want to hold elections. And that's caused a big problem in terms of people like Vance saying it's an authoritarian state. But there's also this question of the legacy. What is it that Zelensky is building to? What kind of state, what kind of society? Let's say, by some miracle, a ceasefire has achieved. What is the future Ukraine? I mean, I also loved his sort of frank everydayness. You know, the fact that he was happy to say, no, to be fair, you know, my son is not a soldier on the front line.
1:01:24And, you know, to be clear about the fact that he's in Kiev and it's not pleasant in Kiev. I mean, we're talking at a time when Russia has just taken out 60 % of Ukraine's gas production, where there are continual strikes on Kiev itself. But he's right. He has to get up, he's got to walk the dog, he's got to have a cup of coffee, and then he's got to deal with the fact that his son's best friend has just been killed. I also thought he was, he showed the remarkable, we showed remarkable skills of diplomacy in keeping our mouths shut while he delivered a peon of praise to Boris Johnson. It's very, very good for us.
1:02:01It's good for us. I sort of felt he was waiting for us to leap in and say, you know, I was, I held my wrist very tightly and I said, just let him speak, let him speak. No, it's very good for us. No, it's important, To be fair, we were not fair to Boris Johnson over Ukraine. We tended to emphasize on the number of times he used it as a distraction from his domestic troubles. And I think Dimitrov is absolutely honest. I mean, Ukraine feels, Zelensky feels, that Johnson played a critical role. And I feel this when we interviewed Ben Wallace, we picked up on this, that Ben Wallace was almost the only section of state who was able to really operate with kind of unqualified support from Johnson.
1:02:44Johnson would really get in behind him and reinforce what happened. Yeah. No, I think that was genuine. He also alluded to the fact that he sort of hinted that he felt that sometimes Johnson was making these visits to Ukraine every time there was a domestic problem. But no, fair play. That was straight down the line. As was the thing he said about the Netherlands, which was very interesting. Yeah. That was fascinating, wasn't it? These sort of unsung heroes. Netherlands that hadn't I mean I think in the back of the memory you remember Russia shot down a plane in 2014 with a lot of Dutch citizens on it there were Dutch corpses scattered across the field and the Dutch government barely responded they were very very weak in their response in 2014 but the next time around astonishingly as he say they really seem to have led pushed Germany etc anyway let's hope he keeps going and keeps going strong and I hope he's right that whatever winning means that that's where it ends.
1:03:37Thank you, Alistair. Have a great day. See you soon. Bye-bye.
1:03:45Alistair Campbell here from The Rest is Politics. Now, we've just released a series on one of the most controversial and consequential people of the past 50 years, Rupert Murdoch. I think you can argue that he is the most consequential figure of the second half of the 20th century. He holds power longer than anyone else in our time. And it's meaningful power. It's phenomenal power. Power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages. This is where he becomes not just a newspaper owner, he becomes a major newsmaker. Fuck Dacre Publish. There is always a premium on bringing him gossip.
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What is the current position of Ukraine in the Ukraine-Russia war? How delicate is diplomacy with Europe and with the US for the Ukrainian government? What are the differences between working with world leaders such as Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, and Joe Biden?
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