Ukrainian official: People proposing area concessions have ‘no political future’

The Ukrainian ambassador to the United Nations on Wednesday rejected suggestions Ukraine offer territorial concessions as a means to end the war with Russia, saying that politicians who make such proposals have “no political future.”

Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya said during a Washington Post Live event that as the war enters its fourth month, the notion of such concessions is “very, very dangerous.”

“It’s a matter of principle that the Ukrainians as a nation, they’re so determined that no deals that involve permanent territorial concessions are supportable,” Kyslytsya said. “Any politician that would try to make such a deal with the Russians or whoever has no political future.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also rejected the suggestion, even going after former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who said that such concessions could be made in the name of peace.

“Behind all these geopolitical speculations of those who advise Ukraine to give away something to Russia, ‘great geopoliticians’ are always unwilling to see ordinary people,” Zelensky said in an address last week. “Millions of those who actually live in the territory they propose to exchange for the illusion of peace. You must always see people.”

Kyslytsya said Zelensky and Ukraine’s foreign minister have emphasized almost daily that no peace deal could include territorial concessions or allow Russian troops to remain in the country.

European leaders, including French President Emmanual Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, have urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to begin direct peace talks with Zelensky, but so far there is no end in sight to the war. 

President Biden has had choice words with Putin, calling out atrocities in Ukraine that have included bombings of schools, shelters and train stations. But the U.S. is seldom directly engaging with the Kremlin and instead going through third parties to communicate with Moscow.

Kyslytsya said it would be “politically impossible” for any deals to be struck that would include Russians staying in territories they are in now. The status of the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, is a separate matter, he said.

“The Ukrainians have already sacrificed so many lives that it’s totally impossible to make them give up the territories for nothing,” Kyslytsya said.

Biden wrote an op-ed published by The New York Times Tuesday that doubled down on the U.S. approach to Ukraine, including its unrelenting support of Kyiv that also does not include making territorial concessions.  

“I will not pressure the Ukrainian government — in private or public — to make any territorial concessions,” Biden said. “It would be wrong and contrary to well-settled principles to do so.”