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Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba criticized the pace of European decision-making on the Ukraine war, saying European allies had failed to provide “answers to the most important questions.”
“Isn’t it a shame that almost four years after the war began, European leaders are still jumping from one topic to another, from sending peacekeepers to security forces to strengthening Ukraine’s military,” Kuleba told Euronews’ interview program. 12 minutes.
He added: “At this pace of decision-making and conceptual understanding of where Europe is going, there will never be a good time for Europe.”
His comments came as diplomatic efforts, led by the United States, accelerate to reach a peace deal. Earlier this week, the Trump administration presented Ukraine with a peace framework drafted by special envoys from the United States and Russia, sparking a diplomatic spat over rewriting the terms of the deal.
Two EU aides took part in negotiations with Ukrainian and US delegations in Geneva earlier this week, but European leaders have largely stayed away from the negotiations.
Tuesday, France and England I reconfirmed As part of the Coalition of the Willing, a group of Ukraine’s allies, it expressed a commitment to providing Ukraine with “robust” security and announced the creation of a new joint task force to shape these guarantees with the participation of the United States.
However, the 33-nation coalition has not yet made any concrete commitments regarding the number of troops it will deploy.
“We appreciate all the efforts being made to support Ukraine,” Kuleba explained. “But when it comes to these big issues, the coalition is more focused on branding and framing than actually providing answers to the questions that matter most.”
“We don’t have another America.”
It has emerged that the 28-point draft peace framework presented to Ukraine earlier this month was drafted in backchannel talks between US special envoy Steve Witkoff and senior Russian official Kirill Dmitriev.
a leaked tape Telephone records obtained by Bloomberg between Witkoff and another Kremlin aide revealed this week that Witkoff was coaching the Russians on how to win over President Trump.
Asked if he could trust U.S. negotiators, Kleba said: “No, but we don’t have a second America.”
“So we need to engage with them with the understanding that we cannot rely completely on them,” he added.
“But there are so many issues where America is irreplaceable that we can’t just say, ‘We don’t want to do any business with you because you talk to the Russians too often and put their ideas on the table as your own.'”
He added that current efforts to reach a peace deal are “already collapsing” due to “Washington’s aggressive and erratic response to this 28-point plan” and the damage caused by leaked calls between U.S. and Russian aides.
“But there is definitely something new,” Kleba explained. “So this initiative will develop into another initiative. The problem is that it won’t change much. The framework may be different, there may be 15 points, 30 points, or 35 points, but the content is the same.”
“And the question is, what do we have to do to change the content of the proposal?”
Watch the full interview in the video player above.
