19.10.2026

Negotiations to end the war are again facing a major contradiction: Kyiv is looking for a way to stop the fighting without losing territory and security guarantees, while Moscow continues to demand the entire Donbas. Washington is trying to find a formula for an agreement, but the mere presence of contacts does not mean that the Kremlin is ready to abandon its maximalist demands. Can the US force Russia to make concessions, or will the next round of consultations end without concrete results? And can the negotiations really move into the real plane by the end of 2027, or will this require serious exhaustion of one of the parties?

An equally difficult question is whether lasting peace is possible while Vladimir Putin remains in power. Former MI6 chief John Sowers suggests that talks could begin next year, but even a weakening of the Russian leader or a change of power in Moscow will not guarantee that Russia will abandon its aggressive policies.

China plays a special role in this process. Beijing has leverage over the Kremlin, maintains large-scale trade with Russia, and remains an important source of goods and technologies that help it wage war. At the same time, China is the largest single supplier of goods to Ukraine. But is Xi Jinping interested in ending a war that is exhausting Russia, forcing Europe to spend more on defense, and diverting US resources? Why has Beijing not yet used its capabilities to force Putin to stop fighting? And can China become a party to a grand deal that will truly bring peace closer, or is its main goal to preserve its own geopolitical advantages no matter how long the war lasts?

Dmytro Kuleba, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine for 2020-2024, shared his thoughts on these and other issues in an exclusive interview with OBOZ.UA.

– Is the process of trilateral peace talks turning into an imitation of diplomacy that creates the appearance of seeking peace, but does not bring the end of the war any closer? To what extent are such meetings necessary in the current circumstances, and are there grounds to expect a real result from them, rather than another declaration of agreements that have no effect on the situation on the front and the Russian shelling?

– Negotiations are always better than no negotiations. But the question is who to talk to and what to talk about? And most importantly, what expectations do we place on them. I understand that our hearts are torn, we cling to any hint that all this might end. But these negotiations will not have a fundamental impact on the course of the war. The participants in the meeting will come out and say again: we agreed to exchange prisoners. Okay? Okay. Great. But will this reduce the number of shellings? Absolutely not.

If after the trilateral talks the only thing that was agreed upon was a prisoner exchange, then it means that the meeting failed. Could they have agreed to a prisoner exchange without the pretentious meetings in the trilateral format? They could. The Russians agreed to the exchange simply to simulate the effectiveness of the negotiations, as if the diplomatic process brings concrete results. They need to show the Americans that Moscow can be negotiated with and that it is supposedly ready to compromise. But the prisoner exchange in itself does not indicate Russia’s readiness to end the war. Moscow can agree to individual steps that do not require strategic concessions from it, and at the same time continue hostilities, shelling, and insist on conditions unacceptable to Ukraine. Therefore, it is important to distinguish between a specific humanitarian outcome that matters to people and real progress in negotiations to end the war.

– That is, perhaps the main political result of these meetings is that the Russians can declare to the whole world that we are talking about “peace “.

– Yes. They agreed to a prisoner exchange, and Trump will say: “Well, you see, there is a result, let’s continue.” This is a game aimed at avoiding a tightening of policy towards Putin. Therefore, we need to talk, we need to maintain contacts. But will these negotiations cease fire? No, they will not.

– Is exhaustion of the parties the only factor that can lead to real negotiations and a ceasefire? Are there others?

Today, it is not just a war of attrition. It is a war of will. The one who has the stronger will wins. If you have the will, you find resources, you find the strength to do something. If your will breaks, you stop looking for resources, you stop adapting to reality.

Putin is deeply convinced that his will will be stronger than both Ukraine’s and its friends’ will in this war. He has the resources. The question is whether he will have enough will to spend this resource to achieve a specific goal. That is why he directs all his policy towards breaking our will, and not just depriving us of resources. He expects that we will get tired, lose faith in the possibility of victory, and give up the fight ourselves. For him, this is fundamental: he wants to defeat us not only on the battlefield, but also psychologically.

– This is one of the main factors in the current attacks on Ukrainian cities – to break Ukrainians?

– That’s right. Strikes on residential areas, energy facilities, transport and civil infrastructure should not only cause physical destruction. The Kremlin expects that constant danger, power outages, problems with heat and water, and threats to people’s lives will gradually exhaust society. Russia is trying to make everyday life in Ukraine as difficult as possible, increase war fatigue, and convince Ukrainians that continuing resistance is too expensive. Moscow expects that the consequences of the attacks will affect not only people, but also the functioning of the economy, state institutions, and life support systems. In this way, the Kremlin is trying to force Ukraine to make concessions by exhausting the country from within.

– Is real peace impossible while Putin is in power, or does even his removal guarantee an end to the war? It is tempting to believe that it is enough to wait for the moment when economic problems, military losses, or conflict within the Russian elite lead to a change of power. But is this a guaranteed scenario?

– Putin is a guarantee of war. We can talk about different dynamics of war. It can be like now. It can be like in 2015. Theoretically, it can also be like in the period from 2016 to 2022. We need to understand one simple thing: Putin can no longer exist outside of war. He spent five years rebuilding Russia and eventually rebuilt it for war. This is his historical achievement, if we talk about how he himself sees his role. This is the whole essence of his mission on earth in his own vision. And now this mission is unfolding before our eyes. We must realize this:

There is also a positive point. As of today, I do not see in the Russian leadership, except for Putin himself, people who are so obsessively fixated on the destruction of Ukraine. Of course, they do not like us, but there is just one fundamental difference. Putin is specifically set on subjugating Ukraine. Others would like to treat us in approximately the same way that Putin now treats Europe: to pull, tease, create problems. But let the Ukrainians live. They simply want us to obey Russia and fear it. And Putin has a specific goal – to subjugate Ukraine. Through blood and destruction.

– So, are there still certain signs of “life ” after Putin?

– Yes, absolutely. Life, in principle, exists even after death, if you believe in Christianity and Jesus Christ. But here the difference is in another way. You see, Western politicians are afraid of what will happen after Putin. In the West, an unspoken consensus has actually formed: a bad, weak empire is better than an empire that is falling apart. Because the collapse can lead to uncontrolled consequences.

– To an uncontrolled situation?

– Yes. And they are dead set on this position. They will be able to change it only if Putin attacks them. If we talk about the end of Russia as an imperial project, and not about the disappearance of Russia in general, then it is the attack on European countries that can finally turn the West away from this policy. Russia will continue to exist in some form. But as long as Western politicians believe that a bad and dangerous empire is still better than chaos and uncontrollability, they will try to preserve the current system.

– The Russians themselves have been actively spreading this idea for many years: they say that if Putin is gone, chaos will begin and some ruler will come who is much more terrible than Putin.

– Absolutely. They play on this fear. They say, chemical weapons will spread, nuclear weapons will spread. But, man, all this is spreading under Putin! You want to explain to people: “We are afraid that chemical weapons will spread after Putin”? But all this is spreading under Putin. So what’s the difference? Explain your logic to me.

– How likely is a physical attack by Russia on NATO countries in the near future? Will hybrid operations simply continue and intensify, without reaching an open military phase?

– Look, for two years now I have been explaining to various people abroad that Russia will attack them. Two years ago they looked at me as a Ukrainian who had lost touch with reality a little. They treated me with respect because they respect me, but they thought something like this: “It’s clear, Dmytro, you are traumatized, you can understand.” Today, no one looks at me like that. Now they ask: “And how do you think it will happen? When do you think it can happen?” I don’t know when exactly it will happen. But the logic of events and the development of the Russian military machine lead to the fact that it will eventually spill out beyond the borders of Ukraine.

– In principle, before the full-scale invasion in 2022, the logic of events was approximately the same.

– Yes. If we compare conditionally, Putin and Europe today are approximately where Putin and Ukraine were in the period from 2018 to 2022. He already understands where he is going, but he is still trying to solve the issue in some alternative ways. But there are patterns that do not disappear anywhere. The problem is that people imagine war like this: Russian divisions cross the border, a large-scale invasion begins. No. A war can start with five drones flying to you. And European leaders will have to decide what to do with it.

Recently, publications have already appeared in the European press about the need to prepare for strikes by drones launched from ships. Two years ago, I told them, including on the air, that one morning they would wake up and the news would report that five unknown drones had hit targets on the territory of a European country. The Russians would say, “It’s not us.” And your intelligence would say, “It’s them.” And what next? What will you do?

– Here’s the main question: what next? Let’s say five drones actually arrive…

– Then there are two possible options: either immediate recognition of the fact of war, or delayed. If the government comes out and declares: “Russian drones have flown to us. This is an act of war. From today we are at war with Russia,” then everything is clear. You have a new reality in which you need to act. And if the government starts saying: “We need to figure it out, we can’t rush, we need to find out everything, hold consultations, consult with NATO, understand how Putin will react to this,” then Russia will see that it can continue with impunity. And now five more drones will fly to you. Shame on you. But in the end, Putin will still force them to admit that they are at war. The only question is how much time they will lose trying not to call a spade a spade.

– Why does Putin need this? After all, it is often said that Russia does not have enough strength to fight against both Ukraine and Europe at the same time.

– He may not have enough infantry. But look at something else: the Russians are not stupid. They counted the number of missiles for the Patriot systems that the Europeans have, compared it with the number of their own missiles and jet drones. We all have to understand: if Russian missiles and drones fly over Europe tomorrow, the first thing they will do there is shoot down everything that flies, using Patriot missiles. And they will use up their stock in a week, because all these resources are limited.

– The Middle East, in principle, demonstrated that the same Americans were not ready for the new realities of war.

– And this despite the fact that for five years American military delegations were constantly in Ukraine. They studied the Ukrainian experience. I think there are already multi-volume works written there about what can be learned from Ukraine. But as soon as the Americans themselves entered the war, it turned out that they had not really learned anything. All these five years they talked about Ukrainian lessons, and then the American army began to spend missiles for Patriot systems on such a scale that the question arose whether there would be enough of them at all.

In February, a four-star American general told me that everything was fine, the army was acting responsibly and managing the available military resources. And then half a year passed, and the Americans themselves wrote that two-thirds of the air defense missiles were gone. That is, Europe is actually not yet physically ready to confront this level of threat. It is not ready, but it is preparing as best it can. However, real readiness will most likely come after the war begins.

– And the mentality also has to change…

– Of course. All the problems will be solved after these first five drones. Just like we had. They are the same as us. We were preparing for something, preparing, and then the war started, and it turned out: oh, we still need to do this, this and this. It will be the same with them. They are already in the process of preparing, and that is commendable, well done. But we will really feel the changes only after something happens. So I don’t know when exactly this will happen, but the logic of everything that is happening suggests: it will happen.

– Against the backdrop of Trump’s failed peacekeeping policy, can China’s role and influence change regarding the war and peace in Ukraine? To what extent is the Chinese factor decisive in the Russian-Ukrainian war and can Xi really influence Putin?

– Maybe. He can just call and say: “Starting tomorrow, we’re stopping everything.” Or start gradually tightening the screws, making it clear that Russia needs to gradually put out this flame. But Putin is happy with everything for now. And Xi Jinping, in my opinion, is too. He has a very clear picture in his head: he needs Putin’s weak Russia. Putin’s Russia, because he knows how to work with this person. They understand how to manage him, how to put pressure on him, how to force him to make the right decisions.

– What then should we expect from China? Should we even count on any steps from Beijing?

– Xi Jinping is happy with everything for now. Putin is becoming weaker and more dependent on China. America is scattering its forces on various problems and is also weakening. Europe is weakening. Ukraine is also becoming exhausted. Therefore, in reality, Xi Jinping needs Russia, Ukraine, and Europe. He needs no one to win outright.

– So that everyone remains in a state of permanent war?

– In a state of permanent weakening of each other. So that everyone would look at China, they would come to it and say: “Help.” And it would answer: “And what will I get for it?” And then it would put forward its conditions. Today, this war does not pose any strategic threats to China that would force it to urgently intervene and seek its end. But Ukraine definitely needs to have relations with China and maintain a dialogue. This is one of the two superpowers in the world. And today I do not see a model for ending the war that would not take into account China’s position.ADVERTISING

– So China could potentially become a party to a major deal?

– China will not allow an agreement to be concluded that it will not approve in one way or another. A simple example is the Budapest Memorandum. China was not a signatory to it, but later joined the relevant assurances regarding Ukraine, because China must be part of any major historical process. But today it is a different China. It does not want to join the agreements that someone has concluded with it. It wants to be the one who solves the problems, without whom their solution is impossible.ADVERTISING

– But is there already a specific Chinese plan for Ukraine? Will Beijing decide depending on the development of events?

– There is no specific plan. Everything happens as the play goes. But Xi doesn’t need a strong Russia. If Russia wins and subdues Ukraine, it will become stronger. It will have new ambitions, a new sense of its own power: they say, we did it, we can go further. And this is a completely different conversation with Beijing.

Historically, Russia and China have fought each other many times. And I am convinced that in our lifetimes we will see China begin to make territorial claims to the Russian Federation. Perhaps, officially, they will talk about it cautiously at first. But at various levels, representatives of the Communist Party of China may begin to raise the issue that Russia once received a million square kilometers of territories that China considers historically its own. They say, this is unfair, something needs to be done about it. And then a different conversation will begin. We will have to negotiate, look for a solution. Dear Russian comrades, our friendship is boundless. But our patience is not boundless either. There should be no taboos in such relations. They say, we have a question about what happened in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. You offended us then, you took our territories. Let’s settle it somehow now. All this can become a subject of politics. And Putin is also aware of this. That is why Xi Jinping does not need a strong Russia.

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