Euronews has spoken to former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba about his expectations from Europe and the Munich Security Conference.
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00:00The U.S. Secretary of Defense has called restoring Ukraine's pre-2014 borders unrealistic and
00:06ruled out the country's NATO membership.
00:08Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba says Ukraine must now focus on what remains
00:14on the table.
00:15Overall, Russia is interested in three topics, land, NATO and money.
00:23And now we see that land and NATO are already gone without any fight.
00:31Of course, Ukraine will continue to insist on it, but this U.S. position has been set
00:36more than squarely.
00:39So what stays on the table is money.
00:42And that will be about sanctions, about frozen Russian assets.
00:49And the new element added to it is this raw material agreement that Trump wants to sign
00:56with Ukraine.
00:58President Zelensky doubts Europe can fill the gap if U.S. support fades.
01:02Ahead of the annual Munich security conference, Kuleba says the ball is now in Europe's court.
01:08So high expectations, but I don't think there will be anything new coming from the U.S.
01:15side.
01:16What I think could happen is whether Europe is going to speak up.
01:24But Europe has been silent so far, and it has to give its voice.
01:32It has to say what is happening, what is its view on this.
01:36Because basically everything that Trump said and did so far did not only not match Ukrainian
01:44interests, but also European interests.
01:49Ukraine wants NATO membership, but instead there are suggestions of different security
01:53guarantees such as European peacekeepers.
01:56Kuleba believes that to be unrealistic.
01:59Three thousand kilometers of the front line.
02:03Three thousand kilometers.
02:07Zelensky said at least 200,000 troops are needed, and he's very humble in his assessment.
02:13That means that all the entire armed force of the entire European Union will have to
02:23go through the peacekeeping operation.
02:25Because if you deploy 200,000 to the line, it means that you need to have at least 200,000
02:32at home resting and preparing for the rotation.
02:38The cost of this mission is uncountable.
02:41I mean, I cannot even count how much it is going to cost.
02:47And listen, if you have all that money that you are ready to invest in peacekeepers, it
02:53will be much cheaper to give them to Ukraine to allow it to build up its own army and fight
03:02the Russians without exposing the lives of EU soldiers to the threat of being caught
03:09up in fire.
03:10Less than three weeks from the three-year mark of Russia's full-scale invasion, Donald
03:14Trump is pushing for negotiations.
03:16The terms, however, remain unclear.