Ukraine's former foreign minister reflects on the war three years on
Introduction
By Susan A. Hughes
“What a day,” Dmytro Kuleba, a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and a former foreign minister of Ukraine, said as he spoke at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at Harvard Kennedy School on Monday.
Earlier that day, the United Nations General Assembly had voted on a resolution calling for a withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine and pointing to Russia’s aggression. “Three years since the invasion, the United Nations votes on a routine resolution on the just and lasting peace in Ukraine. Ninety-three countries voted in favor, about 60 abstained, and then a group of countries voted against it,” he said.
Joining the United States in voting no, Kuleba noted, were Belarus, Hungary, North Korea, Equatorial Guinea, Nicaragua, and Russia. “This couldn’t be imagined a month ago,” he said. “A reality today.”
The U.N. Security Council, with European countries abstaining, then adopted a U.S.-drafted resolution that pointedly did not blame Russia for the 2022 invasion.
Kuleba was delivering the Lamont Lecture, which was established 40 years ago by Corliss Lamont, Harvard class of 1924, to recognize the leadership of individuals in diminishing the risk of nuclear war. The lecture was presented by the Institute of Politics in collaboration with the Belfer Center.
In her introduction, Meghan O'Sullivan, director of the Belfer Center and Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, called Kuleba, who holds a PhD in international law and had led Ukraine’s foreign policy from 2020-2024, “very practiced in the art of diplomacy.”
Kuleba expressed that his understanding of the current strategy for delivering peace to Ukraine may be different than that of the United States but said Russia has seized on the confusion by increasing the attacks against Ukraine.
Russian drone and missile attacks on Ukraine had intensified over the last few days, he said. “Knowing that the United States is not providing new packages of air defense interceptors and Europe cannot compensate those deliveries, Russia wants [Ukrainian] air defense to shoot out its interceptors as soon as possible and expose the country to total destruction by Russian missiles, Iranian drones. ... And by the way, North Korean missiles are also being used.”
“It was always convenient to have an independent Ukraine, but to keep it in the Russian zone of influence,” Kuleba said. “For 30 years the United States of America and the rest of the West looked at Ukraine through the eyes of Russia, through the lens of their relationship with this great nation, never willing to assess Ukraine on its own merits,” he said.
And the beneficiary of this unrest is China, Kuleba argued. “China has patience. President Xi and President Putin, unlike President Trump, enjoy the luxury of time,” he said. “And this is why they know that they will be there in four years, in five years. They will be there as long as they want."
Kuleba said he hoped that President Trump’s strategy will end the war but expressed skepticism about trying to “reset” the relationship with Russia at the expense of a free Ukraine: “Where does realism take us if we throw human beings and nations into hell for the sake of remaining realists.”
O’Sullivan asked Kuleba what the United States was understanding correctly about Putin’s intentions and what it was getting wrong.
“What they get wrong is that they probably believe that [a ceasefire] is going to hold and turn into something sustainable, but it won't,” Kuleba said. “It won't because everything we know about Russia suggests that it will remain focused on its ultimate goal of destroying Ukrainian statehood.”
Asked about the “reverse Nixon” strategy—that the administration is trying to drive a wedge between Russia and China—Kuleba said that, “If Putin has to choose between the United States and China, he will always choose China, because an alliance with China gives him the strength to be who he is and gives him the guarantee that he will be in a sufficiently strong position to continue confronting the West, whatever the administration in Washington will be.”
The event is available for viewing online. Future Forums are available at the IOP website.
Photo by Martha Stewart