That are made, they do not need these negotiators, who we were from the very beginning and remained there, i dont know, in the 16th, some 15th century, when the profession was more or less formed, and really from the moment negotiations, lets say minsk ended, this era of minsk, when they ended, and more, well , to be honest, in one of the interviews i already said that, in principle, the biggest problem and mistake of the democrats of ukrainian diplomacy is that we could not avert a war, if only. Diplomacy somehow Something Like that creative was done by minsk, postminsk, it doesnt matter what the negotiations are called, then i would say, yes, diplomacy has the right to exist in this conflict and it plays a role, as soon as the conflict started, all diplomacy can do is try to concentrate, to coordinate the aid that comes, well, for this you dont really need to be a diplomat, well, ukrainian diplomacy tried to avert the war with the help of negotiations and consultations. This was, by the way, the main line of president zelensky, he wanted to restore the norman format, talking with russia, conducting these huge number of consultations, in the contact group, all this was continued, so what . Vitaly, i had the honor of being a minister, then i remember very well these negotiations, which actually led to the meeting in paris, i will be honest, we expected this meeting much earlier, right after the inauguration of president zelensky, so that we knew that it was a long process, and he needs a lot of time so that after the first meeting, getting acquainted, as it usually happens, something. The process would move somewhere, well, actually, you see that it was in fact, the last meeting of the president s, and it was obvious that at this meeting putin finally settled in the opinion that he will not achieve what he wants, he needs to use other tools, the other tool was war. And if we talk about the extent to which it was possible to avert the war, from the point of view of delaying the situation there, we had some opportunities, do you remember . The russians all the time pretended to want to negotiate there, put forward some conditions for nato and the european union, sent some documents, what were we to do in such a situation . We had a at the first stage, at least while i was involved in this process, we had an idea behind which we saw postminsk progress, one of the problems of minsk, which was, if you remember, at some point the following phrase there are no alternatives to minsk , it was very threatening. Because we got stuck in this minsk and did not see a way out of it, the problem of minsk was that, being planned for only one year, it survived not only this year, but even survived its original authors, both merkel and poroshenko, and olando, and remained in fact, the only one who remembered what it was born for, how funny it is, was putin. One of the problems was that after leaving minsk we did not get the same alternative, the alternative should have been forms, and if you remember, there were also. Advisory councils, new road maps and so on and so forth. I thought it was dangerous to go this way, because unless putin understands that we continue to delay and there is no legal basis for this, he will simply tear up these agreements as he did and attacked, finding there some case of beli, having found some explanation for why he is doing it, but these socalled agreements in istanbul, it was a continuation of minsk from the russian side, they also wanted to create some trouble. There is such an idea that it is possible, you know, to break off the negotiations with, for example, russia and start from a new page and write the istanbul ones, i even sometimes hear in the comments that in this case the president will not have such unfortunate minsk negotiations, we will never sign and so on and so forth, the problem is not the ukrainian president , obviously, but the problem in the russian president , and likewise, if someone thinks that he can come to istanbul, sit down, take a piece of paper, say, well, everything that was postponed. Yes, something happened, you have to think about what will be reassessed later, but lets write from the very beginning, and so point one the war ends, point two and so on and so on, no, because the Russian Federation obviously remembers all these agreements, everything is hemmed, everything is numbered. And when they arrived, they declared, you, relatively speaking, fooled us all this time, it doesnt matter, even they were fooling, they were not fooling, this is their position, and from now on we will continue to follow those points, the most painful of them, and now there are much more of them, if we at first, well, we could not think about it, and they could not insert it , that ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity are threatened by something, the minsk agreements were not about this at all, and the istanbul agreements were actually about this, but tell me, if you are talking about diplomacy, to what extent can we. Work with our western allies, to maintain this level of support and empathy is, again, this depends on diplomacy or withdrawal of hostilities, because now they say that the speaker of the house of representatives of the american congress, he realized that it is necessary to help ukraine when he was told that in april there will be no weapons in the Ukrainian Army at all, and this will lead to a disaster, but its not diplomacy, its just staging a disaster. 2. 5 years ago, almost before the war began, the talks in britain, when i held them there, were as much along the lines that we will help you, as we helped you, but you understand, our soldiers will never fight, and this is a red li and so on and so on and so on, to which i always replied to my colleagues in conversation, that your political system is so liberaldemocratic that between the first frame, like the ukrainian children are killed lying along the roads, sorry for such a harsh comparison, and by the time you decide that you will help ukraine by sending everything, you wont even have time to protect yourself, so your voter, your press is free bbc, starting, ending all of us, you they will simply force a circle for it, you simply have no way out, that is why this conversation took place behind closed doors, lets not bring it to this, lets immediately determine what you are ready to do, what you are ready to do in the event of an obvious escalation that leads to war, by the way, you mentioned the main motive, that western Public Opinion, american, european, canadian, australian, whatever, just an example was britain, it explodes just when it sees women and children shot and forces politicians to act, and if our army holds position and does not allow anyone to continue, then the interest of Public Opinion decreases, politicians sigh freely and start discussions for six months, these same discussions could have been for six months precisely because nothing of the kind happened, just imagine what could happen if we you successfully counterattacked, and you. Would have fired even at some of your former places where our troops were stationed, but were pushed out, maybe we would have turned from good guys to bad guys with you, like israel, in fact the same thing, what happened in israel we talked about this topic, we talked with britain, the british noticed immediately and due to the fact that, to be honest, they fought all their lives all over the world and accumulated a lot of history, this conversation was held, well, there is some kind of understanding of how to counteract such trends , the impression is that the israelis were not completely ready for this, strangely enough, although it has already happened several times, i do not know if they can be ready for this at all, if you proceed from the fact that the support position, it generally lives with that grief and the unfortunate who needs it to help, take for example this program that accepted ukrainian refugees in britain, unlike virtually all other governments, the british decided that the citizens of smi will take on the biggest, biggest burden , they pay 200300 pounds for electricity there. Water, i. E. People are not paid for it, people give it themselves, and britain is clear that the rise of ukraine, which in relation to ukraine will allow to calculate who has an extra apartment, i remember that the ratio of people who are ready were offered and those to whom the government allowed to take ukrainian refugees were 1 to 25, 25 times more british wanted to take them, but the government said, you dont really appreciate it, you cant afford it, now there is no such support even in britain, not to mention already about many other countries, or maybe it depends . Such support from some kind of personal interest of the leader, so we see there that president macron began to show personal interest, and in france the discussion about ukraine began much more lively than several months ago, and on the other hand, there was Prime Minister johnson in britain, he was obviously interested in using the ukrainian case, at least for his own selfpreservation, if we speak seriously, cynically speaking, well, Prime Minister sunak has other problems, he ukraine will not help, he needs to prepare for the elections, and that is why there may not be such an obvious. You know, price tags, if we go to the end, then these conversations about the fact that Berri Johnson used us or another leader, i always answered , how many ukrainians do you know . Interesting, opinion, zero, because as long as this or other reasons help us get what we need, it doesnt matter to us, i agree with you that there is a role of man, but there is another interesting factor, which in principle contradicts the first what we ve discussed with you, very often countries want to see that theyre investing in someone whos. Who s winning, so basically speaking, we re helping, we understand that were going to be helping for a long time, its going to hurt for sure, but look, we invest in the right guys, they attack, they attack, they resist, they are brave warriors. And not simply, which is obvious, where the war is going, and we just throw away, well, just out of pity, no, no, this fact that you are helped, as the americans say, that if you want to sit down at the negotiating table, we will help you negotiate, if you want to fight, we will help to fight, it depends on what you want to do, well, this is the order , not putins, because he thinks that he will prolong the war, hold his ground, and in the end the west will lose patience, maybe he is miscalculated, maybe he is right, but we are in. I remember a conversation with the british Prime Minister, when he said that our economy is twice the size of russias, and after all, if it was directly applied to us, even we could to break them, even in the light of weapons, i am not talking about the fact that this strategic depth, which the allies, including the United States, have built for us, is not measured against the capabilities that russia has, it is obvious that russia is now accumulating weapons, a Large Resource mobilization, we are all aware of this, but ukraine would not have a chance, if we didnt have allies, we are currently discussing the method of exiting the war, we are not talking about how you and i will surrender and capitulate at the lowest cost, because we have allies for the fact that putin will survive them all, do you not think so , that there is a problem with this understanding of the very term victory, because for us victory is a zerosum result, by the way, for the russians as well, by and large we have to win as we see it, and for the measures victory is success negotiations, and here we are the first day says we want you to sit at the table. Negotiations with a strong position, i am generally surprised that you violate this, considering how unelectrified our Information Space is, how divided we are and this idea that the year 91 is our goal and we are going to it, then the votes such, if you listen, you understand that our allies may not want us to be with you, allies may, but we have a sociology of the ukrainian position, it is like this, then it is necessary to understand at what moment this help from the allies will come. Decrease on the way to reaching the border of 91, and if we are ready to fight even with shovels, and we say this, as when the israelis said that you are with us or without us , it does not matter, we will fight, and the american said that well, okay, well, we will do it with you too, although we asked not to do it, if we manage to convey it to them and show the way to victory, well, if we determine that our victory is a state better than before the start of the war, thats normal, thats just the way it is a diplomatic trick that is. Easy to see what we could actually achieve, and i i can tell you until what moment, maybe the allies will be with us, until the moment when the signal comes from the kremlin that yes, we are ready for real negotiations, until the end of the war, at least until the armistice, so we are ready to sit down and to speak, im afraid that this is the biggest trap that can drive us into, if russia says that we propose a truce, or lets say, a ceasefire, we suppress, we become an aggressor with you, because. For maybe not for americans with british canadians, but for the socalled global south side clock, listen, russia proposed, well, how come, they stopped the troops, they stopped what we were helping ukraine for, so that ukrainian boys and girls would not die, then our, our position will be very weak and diplomatic in in the sense that we need to disperse the allies once again, to say that listen, we have stopped, but they will come again, but they will come again someday, well. It is not as certain as now, the battle that happen directly, i cannot understand at all why russia does not try, in time of the minsk agreement there were at least 26 or 28 e of these seesfire, what is called i. E. I. E. You cant for now , who stood behind us, i will say, well, thats it, we did everything, there are so many problems all over the world, we left, and you stay, you and i can find this point, when they broke away. But you were already working then in the ministry of Foreign Affairs, you remember all this, this conditional year 2014, the state is weak, there is no legitimate president , it is divided, you can take it with your bare hands, and they have never changed this point of view, they have only either stopped, or strengthened, stopped, but they have been in these breaths all the time for 10 years, thank god, one of the reasons why you and i survive is that we simply overestimate russians often, they are not that directly deep in intelligence. Well, here is the question, yes, here we are, how we use this situation, that is, to what extent we can achieve Real Security guarantees, not neutrality, because the exchange of peace for neutrality is the exchange of peace for the end of the world, if it can be so, well , belgium violated its neutrality three times only during the Second World War by the germans, and hussein declared neutrality right before the operation. A desert storm, that is, well, actually , the result shows that it does nothing, and it is necessary to tell the ukrainians about this, because there is some kind of belief that lets abandon nato, and then the russians will finally fall behind us, and everything will be fine, the problem is that, yes , we. Want to join nato and they are offended because of that, some people still believe, without understanding, that finland increased the border with nato by 1,000 km, and we did not even join, that is, fight, you know, i always joked, i say, well, russian nezadov, so fight with nato, why are you at war with us, well, you are afraid of nato, well, what did you know, well , i will remember on your border, as much as you like, and the prevention of the coronavirus, like that, yes, well, by the way, now, when the Prime Minister was minister sunak in poland, just during the press conference with Prime Minister tusk, there was a conversation that thank you for came, brought with him the fact that your planes will patrol our space, polish, because we have such a difficult situation on our border, we have russia and belarus, and the british Prime Minister, yes, yes, yes, here i came specifically, and during the next year typhoons will be here to patrol, which is very important to protect your space, and the ukrainians are, well, at this moment , its even bothering them, its their problem, the poles, this is the country that actually has the most. Of gdp, the size of the military budget is more than that of the United States, 3. 9 . Well, the poles can believe that if there is any catastrophe in the russianukrainian war, then they can get at least a hybrid war from russia and belarus. Well, what happened last time, as they call it, you remember them, its immigration, immigration, hybrid war brought to its peak, when it actually arms. Was, and for this reason even the british sent their engineering corps to help the poles build barriers on the border, this is already serious. Well, after all, here is a guarantee of safety, they can be provided. We saw the previous nato summit, which ended without the results that the ukrainian delegation was hoping for, and we saw that president zelenskyi was at a large expense even in the sense, he wrote this famous postik and showed it, i would say frustration with the fact that he saw there and now it will be washington. The nato summit too, i think there will be no frustration, because there are no special expectations. I think that what happened last time was a misplaced expectation of what could be what a specific organization is capable of. We have a misunderstanding in ukraine that nato is only as strong as it is, relatively speaking, it is their weakest link, the weakest link is decisions that are made unanimously, and any country, i dont know, albania, hungary, slovakia, maybe the decisionmaking process, there are all kinds of cunning steps that allow, but from the very beginning we talked about the fact that those people who understand something about nato, that it is necessary to look for a coalition of those willing, since operations were formed, for which nato did not have of common opinion, if we had worked from the very beginning to assemble a coalition of the willing around us, and not to push through our accession to nato, which is obviously at this historical stage, to put it mildly, complicated, it seems to me, as of today. This coalition would look much better, but the trip brings the same strawberry back from britain and the meeting there in poland with the secretary general of nato, with tusk and not the reverse whore with the germans, these are just the fir