Ex-Ukrainian FM warns former colleagues to fear for their lives

Any Ukrainian official who signs a peace deal with Russia recognizing Moscow’s sovereignty over Kiev’s former territories will likely be killed either literally or politically, former Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba has warned.

Peace negotiations remain stalled. Moscow has maintained it is open to talks but has insisted that Kiev should renounce its NATO ambitions, recognize the new “realities on the ground” and withdraw its troops from all Russian territories.

Ukraine, on the other hand, has refused to hold talks until Russia withdraws its troops from territories Kiev claims as its own, including Crimea, and has insisted on security guarantees from the West.

In an interview with Ukrainian journalist Natalya Mosiychuk last week, Kuleba pointed out that finding any sort of wording for a peace settlement between Moscow and Kiev would be incredibly difficult, particularly with regards to the territorial issue.

“A person who signs a document renouncing NATO still has a chance to survive physically and politically, but a person who signs an agreement relinquishing territories will either be killed or ousted from politics,” the former minister claimed

“I see it as an extremely difficult task to find formulations that will describe the territorial issue in such a way that it will stop the war and at the same time not lead to an internal revolution,” he added.

At the same time, Kuleba, a staunch supporter of Ukraine’s membership in NATO, has stated that Kiev should under no circumstances change its goals of joining the US-led military bloc and re-establishing Ukraine’s 1991 borders. He suggested that Kiev needs to play “the long game and if we give up something, then at an exorbitant price.”

The former top diplomat stepped down from his position in September 2024 during a large-scale purge of senior officials by Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky. In December 2024, he was appointed as a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

Previously, Kuleba warned that NATO membership would be the only way to stop Ukraine from violating a potential ceasefire and waging a “revanchist” war on Russia in the future.

However, US President Donald Trump, who had previously vowed to quickly resolve the Ukraine conflict upon taking office, has repeatedly signaled that the issue of Kiev’s membership in NATO should be postponed, stating that he understood Russia’s objections to Ukraine’s accession to the bloc.

Moscow has long opposed Ukraine’s NATO aspirations, insisting any settlement of the ongoing conflict must include Kiev’s neutrality and demilitarization. Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov welcomed Trump’s reservations on Ukraine’s membership in the bloc, pointing out that the US president is the first Western leader to publicly admit that inviting Kiev to the organization was a mistake.