Ekaterina Prisyazhnyuk11:28, 08.11.24

The head of the Russian Foreign Ministry is not as strong a diplomat as people usually think, the former minister claims.

In the Russian Federation, the decision to wage a full-scale war against Ukraine was made in a very narrow circle.

This information was shared by the former head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba during an interview with “24 Kanal”. “For example, I think that Lavrov (Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, – Ed.) did not know that there would be a war,” the former official said.

The former head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry also spoke about a meeting with Russian representatives in 2022 in Antalya, Turkey. According to him, there was a very high price for even the smallest mistake at the event. Kuleba added that as soon as he entered the room where the negotiations were to take place, he “turned off” all emotions.

“In such a situation, emotion will play against you, make you weaker. These were probably the only negotiations in my life that I conducted like a machine. Just artificial intelligence, which is completely focused on processing information, calibrating its words, completely depriving itself of any emotions,” he said.

The former head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs shared that the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs did not feel confident and showed “that he is not such a big bad wolf as he is portrayed.”

“Then I realized that Lavrov is certainly a strong diplomat, but not as strong as people used to think of him, that he is, as it were, the ideal of a top-level diplomat,” he noted.

Kuleba added that nine people participated in the negotiations – he, Lavrov, the head of the Turkish Foreign Ministry Mevlut Cavusoglu, and each of them had two people nearby. There were no media at the event.

“We worked through everything. That’s when I realized that he (Lavrov, – Ed.) most likely didn’t know about the start of the war and didn’t influence the decisions that were made. Perhaps this has changed for them now,” the source emphasized.

The former official recounted a striking episode. According to him, he proposed to Lavrov to agree on a 24-hour corridor from the city of Mariupol in Donetsk Oblast (the negotiations took place during the Russian siege of the town), but Lavrov replied that such a question should supposedly be decided by the military.

“I said that let’s call whoever we need to now. I called our defense minister, and Lavrov called his. But he replied that it was not within his authority. Then I said that foreign ministers have the authority to discuss anything, so let’s call the presidents. He snorted something and refused to call,” Kuleba emphasized.

The former minister claims that representatives of the Turkish side watched this “ping-pong” with great delight:

“In the end, Lavrov showed that he could not bring himself to call his superiors to resolve some issue, and that he was not in the mood to resolve any issues at all. The Turks saw this – and understood who had what goal. Lavrov wanted to act as a “smoke screen” for the war, an imitation of diplomacy.”

The former head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry noted that his goal was to solve a specific problem, save the lives of citizens of our state and try to stop the confrontation.

(C)UNIAN 2024