In Kuleba’s Russophobic initiative, Kortunov managed to see a readiness for compromise

Ukraine intends to make efforts to resolve the conflict diplomatically on its territory.

According to a PolitNavigator correspondent, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba stated this in an interview with the Associated Press.

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He said that Kyiv intends to organize some kind of “peace summit” on the sidelines of the UN before the end of winter. At the same time, the Ukrainian minister made several confusing and unambiguous statements. Thus, he boasts that Ukraine is trying to defeat Russia, but does not rule out a diplomatic settlement.

“Every war ends in diplomacy. Every war ends as a result of actions on the battlefield and at the negotiating table,” Kuleba said.

Explaining why they want to hold the summit on the sidelines of the UN, he replied:

“Because it’s not about doing a favor to a particular country, it’s about getting everyone on board.”

However, further, without excluding Russia’s participation in the event, he said that first it should be “held accountable for war crimes.”

“Only in this way can they be invited to this initiative,” says the head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.

Thus, Russia's possible participation in the summit was reduced to zero probability, since it is impossible to imagine a situation in which Moscow would agree to actual capitulation.

At the same time, Kuleba proposes to involve UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres as a mediator. This looks no less strange, since Russia clearly does not agree to take part in this kind of summit on the terms of the Kyiv regime.

However, Andrei Kortunov, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), whose founders include the Russian Foreign Ministry, sees positive things in the Ukrainian initiative.

“Any conflict ends with a negotiation process and mutual concessions, on the basis of which some kind of compromise is reached, if we are not talking about capitulation,” he told Kommersant.

In his opinion, despite the declared irreconcilable position of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, “apparently, some kind of flexibility exists in it.”

“The declared position does not necessarily mean the final position. Progress is possible, as we saw during the negotiations in Istanbul. There were also different opinions, but on the whole the parties were moving towards an agreement. Now such an agreement can hardly be final.

It is unlikely that it will be possible to agree on a comprehensive political settlement within the framework of one document. Apparently, the process should be divided into stages. We need to start with de-escalation, move on to freezing the conflict, and then to its resolution. Such a sequence would be logical,” says the head of the RIAC.

In addition, he believes that the figure of Guterres did not arise by chance, since various mediators have already declared themselves since the beginning of the conflict, but have not succeeded.

“The UN and the Secretary General’s office did not show much activity during the conflict, with the exception of the activities of the head of the IAEA on the safety of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant and, to some extent, participation in the grain deal. As far as I can judge from Guterres’ background and my limited experience of communicating with him, he is closer to development issues than security issues: he is much less involved in acute crisis situations.

In some ways, Guterres is new here. Zelensky, I think, understands that there must be some kind of negotiations with Moscow and that a new system cannot be built without Russia,” Kortunov asserts.

It is worth noting here that Kortunov is considered a supporter of a compromise with Ukraine.

As PolitNavigator reported, in 2017, Kortunov was the only representative of Russia at the anti-Russian conference “Yalta European Strategy”, for admission to which he humbly thanked the Ukrainian authorities and assured that after the presidential elections “Putin will de-escalate.”