In an exclusive interview, Russian Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy delivers a powerful and controversial message: Ukraine’s society must fundamentally change for true peace to be possible.
Daniel Davis takes you on a deep dive into the implications of these bold statements and what they mean for the future of the conflict.
Get ready for hard truths, sharp analysis, and perspectives you won't hear in mainstream media.
🔥 Don't forget to LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and HIT the notification bell to stay informed!
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Daniel Davis takes you on a deep dive into the implications of these bold statements and what they mean for the future of the conflict.
Get ready for hard truths, sharp analysis, and perspectives you won't hear in mainstream media.
🔥 Don't forget to LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and HIT the notification bell to stay informed!
#DmitryPolyanskiy
#UkraineConflict
#Russia
#DeepDive
#DanielDavis
#UkraineWar
#SocietalChange
#Geopolitics
#RussianDiplomacy
#WorldNews
#BreakingNews
#GlobalPolitics
#PoliticalAnalysis
#PeaceProcess
#UkraineCrisis
#RussianPerspective
#InternationalRelations
#ConflictResolution
#ExclusiveInterview
#RealTalk
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hey everybody, welcome to the Daniel Davis Deep Dive. We have a real treat with us today.
00:04We have the Russian Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Dmitry Polanski, Ambassador Polanski.
00:11We're just really grateful to have you on the show today. Thanks for joining us.
00:15Pleasure is mine. Welcome.
00:18Well, listen, a lot has been going on. I mean, even today, just very recently, after the last couple of hours,
00:24there's been some statements coming out of the White House.
00:26Everybody's trying to figure out where is this war going.
00:30How is the diplomatic path going?
00:31There's a lot of very different views on what the diplomatic path even is.
00:36And so we're going to try to, I guess, change fact or exchange fact from fiction here.
00:41And so you can tell us from the Russian perspective, frankly, what the situation is.
00:45And we want to play a couple of sound bites from some people who've been saying some different things.
00:50And just get your advice on that or get your comment on where that is and help us figure it out.
00:56Well, listen, let's just jump right in.
00:58First of all, President Trump was being interviewed in the Oval Office here a little bit ago when the prime minister of Norway was in town.
01:07And one of the questions that somebody asked him was that, does he have a deadline for when he has to have an answer from both Zelensky and from Putin?
01:16And here's what he said.
01:17Mr. President, do you have a deadline for when the prime minister?
01:21I have my own deadline.
01:22I have my own deadline.
01:24And we want it to be fast.
01:26And the prime minister is helping us.
01:28He wants it to be fast, too.
01:29And I think everybody in this, you know, at this time in NATO, they want to see this thing happen.
01:36So we have a deadline.
01:38And after that, we have it.
01:40We're going to have a very much different attitude.
01:41But I think it has a very good chance of getting done.
01:44So he said elsewhere in that conversation that he thinks that there's a good chance that there's going to be a deal made, that Putin wants a deal, that he thinks Zelensky wants a deal.
01:57But he's hopeful that it will get done.
01:59What do things look like on the diplomatic track from the Russian side?
02:02Well, I think that it's very easy to understand our reasoning and our logic if you just make a little historical tour how it all started and where we are, where we were from the outset.
02:17So in our understanding, the problem, the Ukrainian crisis started in February 2014, when there was this unconstitutional coup in Kiev and ultra-nationalists came to power, those who from the outset proclaimed a very hostile policy, not only towards Russia, but what's more important towards Russian-speaking part of the population, which in fact constitutes a large part of the Ukrainian population.
02:46So to certain estimates are more than 60%.
02:50So Russian is very popular in Ukraine, even now, regardless of all the actions against it.
02:57And the new authorities also started very nationalist way towards Ukrainian history.
03:05They rewrote totally the history of the country, and they made heroes of Ukraine, those who were collaborating with Hitler, and those who were liberating Ukraine from Hitler, they are now considered to be outlaws, and people cannot worship them and pay tribute to what they did.
03:25So, and the immediate consequence of this policy was the war that the new Ukrainian leadership launched against its own population in the east and in the south of the country.
03:39As a result, first, the first result was that Crimea decided to rejoin Russia as a result of a referendum.
03:48Then there was a bloody war, which dragged on for many years, and there were several attempts to stop this war when the Ukrainian army was fighting the Russian-speaking population in the east and in the south.
04:02The toll of this war was considerable, according to certain estimates, 14,000 people perished because of this.
04:10Then there was this Minsk agreement, which was an attempt to stop this war and to bring peace.
04:18And Zelensky, when he was elected in 2019, he was elected because of his promises to bring peace to these regions and to stop the war.
04:26And later on, he totally turned 180 degrees and he forgot about his promises, he forgot the fact that he was defending the Russian-speaking population, and so on and so forth.
04:41So it dragged and dragged on and on, and one of the most important threats to Russia, apart from this situation, when our compatriots, Russian-speaking compatriots, were prosecuted and harassed in Ukraine,
04:58an imminent threat from Russia was also from Ukraine joining NATO.
05:02And we were also very clear about the fact that this is absolutely a red line for us.
05:08We were clear about it at least from 2007, from President Putin's speech at the Munich conference, which opened a lot of eyes in the world on what's really happening.
05:18And we made, we made a last attempt to counter diplomatic solution in 2021, in December, when we presented two draft treaties on European security, which had to tackle this, this, this issue.
05:34We were also saying that Ukraine has to implement Minsk agreements in good faith in order to, to stop this, this problem coming to, to its apex.
05:44But in, in the, at the beginning of 2022, President Zelensky made several statements.
05:50One of them was that Ukraine is absolutely keen to join NATO in the nearest future, also to acquire nuclear weapons.
05:58This was one of his threats that he voiced in Munich again.
06:03And also, the fact that Ukraine doesn't want to implement Minsk agreements because they are contrary to what Ukraine has to do in his life.
06:12And I'd like to ask you, you're a specific part of the Minsk agreements, because my understanding, and please correct me if I'm wrong here, is at least from the Russian side,
06:21the central issue in the Minsk agreements that Ukraine was supposed to accomplish was a change in their constitution that would have given limited autonomy to the Russian-speaking population in the East.
06:34Is that the central part?
06:36Exactly. That was a part of the package. The package consisted of 13 steps, and the last step of these 13 steps was a reestablishment of Ukrainian control over the eastern border.
06:46But Ukraine, from the outset, started to upend everything and saying that they need to get control of the border first,
06:53and then they will decide on how to punish those who were rebelling against them in the east of Ukraine.
06:59So it was absolutely not helpful to any resolution.
07:02And the Western countries who were supposed to guarantee this process, they were de facto playing in Ukrainian hands.
07:08And now we know, because of the revelations of former Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande,
07:14that they were using these Minsk agreements as a smoke screen for arming Ukraine and for preparing it to the war with Russia.
07:22Why I'm going in such a such length to that story is that we, if we want to solve this issue, we want, we need to address the root causes of this issue.
07:32And that's the core of the Russian approach.
07:34It has been such from the outset, we said that we came to Ukraine in February 2022 to end the war that was going on there,
07:43that had been going on there since 2014.
07:45And we absolutely need to take decisions, and Ukraine needs to take decisions to never make it happen
07:53and to never generate any threats towards Russia that would be considered by Russia as such.
08:00So this is the logic of our approach.
08:03We were promoting the same approach when, after one month of the start of our special military operation,
08:09in March 2022, when Ukrainian and Russian negotiators gathered, first in Minsk and then in Istanbul.
08:17And they initialed a kind of a deal which was based on these, on these root causes,
08:23on addressing these root causes, to make it a sustainable solution.
08:26And you know the story?
08:28Zelensky was thinking what to do with it, and then Boris Johnson came there as a hawk,
08:34and talked him out of going along this path, saying that Ukraine is allegedly capable of defeating Russia
08:41if the West is supplying weapons and intelligence to Ukraine.
08:46And Zelensky took this fatal decision for his country.
08:50We know the consequences of this right now.
08:54But the approach that Russia was demonstrating at that moment was totally consistent with the logic
08:59that was behind the Minsk agreements and with the logic that we promote right now.
09:04Let's address the root causes and make a sustainable solution.
09:08We are not buying any agreements that would be based on the fact that let's freeze this along the battle line,
09:15and then we'll decide what to do about this.
09:18We have been there already in Minsk,
09:20and I think that that's the logic that we shared repeatedly with President Trump,
09:26with his envoys, with all the American counterparts who really display the openness and willingness to solve this issue,
09:34but to solve it in a sustainable and long-lasting way.
09:37And this is very important.
09:39Before we get into the specific details that seems to be on the table right now,
09:43about both from what Vladimir Putin has said from June of last summer,
09:48and also Peskov said earlier today, it was reported on the news here.
09:51But before I get to that, I want to ask one, I think, really important question on where maybe the fuse
09:57that started this whole war may have started, and I'd really like your clarification here.
10:01You mentioned that Russia had been trying to get the Ukraine side to apply the Minsk agreements from 2015 forward,
10:09and everything was kind of copacetic.
10:11Everything was kind of passive.
10:12It was going on.
10:13Nothing was happening until Russia started building up its forces in April of 2021.
10:18Now, my guess is, I don't know if this was the cause or not,
10:23but one month before that, when you had Zelensky sign the law saying that he was going to reoccupy
10:29or retake the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea by force if necessary,
10:35is that what caused Russia to start building up forces on the Ukrainian border?
10:39Well, there were a lot of factors that made us take such a decision.
10:45But these forces were not brought to action until February 2022.
10:53And there were several reasons to that.
10:55As I told you, first of all, there were these provocative statements by Zelensky.
11:00There was this unequivocal rejection of Minsk agreement and the logic of Minsk agreements.
11:07His decisive push, which was imminent, to attack the Donbass republics, the Donetsk republic,
11:16and the Lugansk republic.
11:17And you know that when our troops captured certain areas, certain strong points of Ukrainian army,
11:25we found their military plans that were telling that already in March Ukraine was ready to launch an attack itself to these regions.
11:33So it was kind of a preemptive strike.
11:35And what's more important, I recall quite vividly these events, what was happening in February 2022,
11:43I recall that there was a significant intensification of shelling of Donetsk and Lugansk at that moment.
11:51And there were floods of refugees coming to Russia, hundreds of thousands coming there,
11:57because Ukraine has intensified its shelling of residential areas in Donetsk and Lugansk.
12:03There were a lot of casualties.
12:04There were a lot of, this was a lot of destruction.
12:06And that, I think, was the last drop that really made us take this decision that we took.
12:14So we were very cautious towards this.
12:16We were ready to do this.
12:18And we were displaying willingness to seek other solutions.
12:23We were reaching out to the West.
12:24We were reaching out to the US, to NATO.
12:26We proposed draft treaties on European security.
12:29We proposed collective actions and agreements to kind of talk Ukraine out of what Ukraine was about to do.
12:38But all this in vain.
12:39And only when we understood that we exhausted all other measures, then we had to take this decision,
12:45which was an easy decision, but very necessary for our country.
12:48I see.
12:49And so I won't replay all the things that have happened over the course of the three-plus years of war.
12:55But now then we're in a point to where it seems like we're getting to the end game.
12:58Either there's going to be a negotiated settlement or there's going to be a military conquest.
13:03It seems to me that that's the decision right now.
13:06And before I get into the specific terms that are being proffered by both Trump and by Putin here
13:11and seeing if there's room to bring those together,
13:14I want to play a comment from earlier today from General Jack Keane, a retired four-star Army general,
13:20who is the, I guess he's the chairman of the Institute for the Study of War, et cetera.
13:26And he's a little bit of a hawkish.
13:28You probably have heard of him since you've been in your position for a while.
13:31But I want you to specifically address the claim that he's going to make here
13:36that there is pressure even now in the fourth year of war that will work on Russia.
13:41The administration has got to get real tough with Russia,
13:46hit them hard in their central banks and their energy sector with crippling sanctions
13:49and robustly arm Ukraine.
13:53And that will get Putin's attention more than anything else.
13:58Not so Ukraine can continue to fight,
14:01but so we can bring Russia to the negotiating table and get a deal.
14:06And that, I think, is going to be the next step the United States will have to take
14:10if Russia rejects the deal, which I suspect they will.
14:15It seems a little odd that he's saying to get Russia to the table when Russia is at the table right now.
14:21But how do you react to that kind of claim of pressure that's going to cause Putin
14:24to actually make a deal that the U.S. side likes?
14:28Well, first of all, if you analyze our statements in the Security Council that we were making
14:34and also the statements that our leadership had been making from the outset,
14:40from the start of our special military operation during all these three and a half years,
14:44you will see that there is always an invitation to dialogue.
14:48We said that we are ready to implement the goals of our special military operation
14:54by peaceful means, through diplomacy, and this is a preferred way for us.
14:59But if nobody is forthcoming, if Ukraine is stubborn to continue a fight,
15:04okay, we will implement it through military means.
15:07And that's what we are doing right now.
15:09This hasn't changed.
15:10We are in the phase when there are a lot of invitations to negotiations,
15:13but as you see on the ground, we continue to implement the goals of our special military operation
15:19the way we were doing it.
15:21So nothing has changed here.
15:22Second, the expert that you mentioned, he maybe wanted to strike an upbeat tune,
15:29of course, of what U.S. is capable of doing.
15:33And again, this is the never-ending song that we must punish Putin,
15:37we must punish Russia, so on and so forth.
15:39But he forgets two things.
15:41First of all, we have been in the middle of these crippling sanctions, as he said,
15:49for at least three years already.
15:50So there is everything that is sanctioned.
15:53Russia is very autonomous right now.
15:55Russia has learned how to deal on its own during these years.
16:00And this is a very positive effect of sanctions for my country.
16:03We are not depending on anybody.
16:05Now there is a big turbulence in world financial markets.
16:10A lot of people are afraid because of tariffs, and Russia is not afraid of this, because we are self-reliant.
16:17We are not relying on anybody else.
16:19We are grateful for support that some of the friends are rendering us, but we are capable to do everything on our own.
16:26So I can hardly imagine what can be sanctioned more.
16:31And I know that it's not only my opinion, but this is an opinion of several experts who were contemplating new packages of sanctions, both in the US and in the European Union.
16:41And they came to the conclusion that everything significant has already been sanctioned.
16:45And the Russian economy is booming.
16:47We have a very significant growth.
16:49And those who visit Moscow will see how Moscow lives.
16:53It's not the way it is being portrayed in certain countries, especially European.
16:58It's enough to remember Tucker Carlson's tour of Moscow when he was amazed by the level of life and everything that is happening in Moscow.
17:07Cleanness and all other things.
17:09I can tell you myself that Moscow wins a lot in comparison to many cities, especially in New York, where I have to work right now.
17:17Second, he says that they should heavily arm Ukraine and so on and so forth.
17:22But again, according to the opinion of many experts, there is nothing, there is no wonder-waffe.
17:29There is no such a weapon that would turn the outcome of the war.
17:34It's only a matter of time that Zelenskyy regime is losing.
17:38And that's, I think, was one of the incentives of why President Trump is doing what he is doing.
17:44He said it openly when he faced Zelenskyy in the White House.
17:48He said, you don't have any cards in your hands.
17:51It's indeed so.
17:52We have cards in our hands.
17:54And Mr. Trump understands this very well.
17:56So no matter how experts like the one that you showed me are trying to strike this upbeat tune, the reality is much grimmer.
18:05And we heard a lot of things during these years.
18:07You remember people were claiming that the Russian army is fighting with shovels, that we are disassembling washing machines to take our components for our missiles.
18:18Because then there were, like, a handful of missiles left.
18:22And this was a never-ending story during all this year.
18:25So I think that this is one of the episodes of this wishful thinking, which doesn't have any basis whatsoever.
18:32Right.
18:32Nor is it helpful in actually reaching a negotiated settlement.
18:35And I know we're running low on time here, so I want to get into that.
18:38But there is, in the media, there is a discussion of a seven-point plan that Trump is apparently issuing that he'd like both Russia and Ukraine to agree to.
18:50And those points are recognition of Crimea as Russian territory, de facto recognition of the other four Russian advances into those four regions, the oblast, a ban on Ukraine joining NATO,
19:02a lifting of sanctions on Russia imposed since 2014, a resumption of U.S. and Russian economic interest, a minerals deal between the United States and Ukraine,
19:11and then a shared control of the Zaporizhian nuclear power plant.
19:15Now, those are a lot of issues, and they're kind of hard for the Ukraine side.
19:18But my question of you is, are these terms agreeable to the Russian side?
19:24Well, there are a lot of speculations about what's going on and what can be the endgame and how the peaceful outcome.
19:32It may look like, and if we commented on each and every suggestion of this kind, I think that that would be our job 24-7.
19:40We are not commenting on speculations.
19:43I think that there was, I think yesterday, a comment on this by our press secretary, Mr. Peskov,
19:49that you should listen only to those who are involved, and not to those who are trying to figure out what can be before our negotiations,
20:01negotiators.
20:02So I would really warn everybody to be very cautious.
20:05And a lot of these things can be provocative, just, you know, to look at our reaction on how we would think about this or that point.
20:16So I wouldn't really like to comment about all these things, because they're not, as far as I understand,
20:23this is the story of the journalists.
20:27And the journalists have written a big number of stories during these months, and very few of them, frankly, came true.
20:35I'm not saying that this plan has no attitude towards reality.
20:40It's hard for me to assess it, because, first of all, I'm not in the loop of the immediate negotiators.
20:46Secondly, I know that if it were so simple, then, of course, President Trump and his team would have already voiced these points,
20:55saying that this is a position of the U.S. set in stone.
20:59But diplomacy is not about setting anything in stone.
21:03It's about finding solutions and compromises.
21:05And there are basic things that you can't sacrifice.
21:08And we see and we know that President Trump is aware of our position, that if we're seeking sustainable long-term settlement,
21:18then we need to address the root causes of the problem.
21:20And some of the root causes…
21:21Right.
21:21And actually, that's one of the things I think that maybe, hopefully, you can comment directly on.
21:26And that is what President Putin has said are his negotiating points.
21:31And I think that these are the minimum standards.
21:34And I'd like your view on the back side.
21:35But here's what your president said last June 14th.
21:39The essence of our proposal is not some kind of temporary truce or suspension of fire, as, for example, the West wants.
21:45This is not about freezing the conflict, but about its final completion.
21:49And I will say again, as soon as Kiev agrees to a similar course of events proposed today,
21:54agrees to the complete withdrawal of its troops from the DPR and LPR in the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions,
22:00and really begins this process, we are ready to begin negotiations without delaying them.
22:04I repeat, this is our principled position.
22:07Neutral, non-aligned, nuclear-free status of Ukraine.
22:11It's demilitarization and denazification.
22:14So those are…
22:16Apparently, Dmitry Peskov reiterated some of those today,
22:20that they would have to lay down their arms and withdraw from all four to the administrative borders.
22:25Is that, as far as you understand,
22:28is that the minimum requirement that all of those terms have to be met for the Russian side to end the war?
22:33Yes, and I think that there are a lot of other elements which are quite obvious.
22:39There is an element of the real control of what's happening along the front line,
22:45the former front line, monitoring.
22:47Because if we judge by the experience of the Minsk agreements,
22:52this is the key issue.
22:53So OEC had to do it to monitor the ceasefire.
22:57But it turned out that OEC, some at least of the members of the OEC teams,
23:03were doing absolutely the opposite thing.
23:05They were, in fact, spying for Ukraine.
23:08And the question of monitoring, the question of guarantees of the ceasefire, of everything else,
23:14I think, are the key issues here and other key issues which are not being resolved.
23:19And you saw that we had two attempts to test the willingness and the credibility of the Kiev regime,
23:27because Americans asked us to.
23:28First was the moratorium on the strikes of energy infrastructure,
23:32and we adhered to it for 30 days.
23:35And as a result, we got more than 100 very serious infringements of this agreement.
23:43Secondly, this was the Easter truce, which was announced by my president.
23:48And Easter, you know, is a sacred holiday booth for us and for Ukrainians and for everybody else.
23:53And Zelenskyy was taken aback.
23:57He didn't know what to do.
23:58First, he rejected it.
24:00Then he hesitated.
24:01And he said that something that could be interpreted as if he was agreeing with it.
24:07But, in fact, in reality, Ukraine never sticked to it, to this agreement.
24:15And this was kind of illustrative, showing that either Ukraine is not trustworthy,
24:20or the Ukrainians on the front line, they do not obey to the orders of their commander-in-chief.
24:27Only two explanations.
24:29And let me ask you two really important questions.
24:33At the tag end of that comment there by President Putin,
24:36he said that not only the territory has to be surrendered,
24:40but also there has to be a denazification and a demilitarization.
24:44How does Russia define each of those two terms?
24:47Start with demilitarization.
24:48Demilitarization, I think it was one of the elements that was included in this draft agreement in Istanbul,
24:56that I already mentioned, in March 2022.
24:59There is a certain cap on Ukrainian troops that is safe for Russia to see that Ukraine is not posing a threat.
25:08And the question is, of course, what kind of cap is agreed, number of heavy weapons, of manpower, whatever.
25:16So Ukraine shouldn't be heavily militarized, because it had been militarized,
25:21it had been being militarized for eight years before the start of our special military operation.
25:26One of the members of the Russian Duma in December speculated that that number was maybe around 85,000.
25:34Is that something close to what you understand to be the number?
25:37Number of troops or what?
25:38Yeah, number of troops that would be allowed in the Ukraine military.
25:41Oh, it's very hard for me to make an opinion on this, sorry.
25:44But it's something much smaller than the current number, which is allegedly 700,800,000.
25:50Sure, it should be much smaller.
25:53It should be the number that poses no threat to Russia, to Russian regions,
25:57that doesn't allow the Kyiv regime to wage a war against its own population.
26:02And then probably the most contentious issue at all,
26:07how does Russia define denazification in terms of reaching an end-of-war negotiation?
26:12Denazification means that those who are associated with the Nazi cause,
26:18with the Nazi acts, with the crimes committed by the Nazis in Ukraine,
26:23are not allowed to be part of the structures, of the power structures in Ukraine.
26:29In this future, I would say, Ukraine.
26:33So what strikes my mind in this regard, for example, we have some historic reference.
26:40It's the situation with Austria, when Austria was reunited as an independent state in 1955,
26:48if I'm not mistaken.
26:49There was a treaty signed by the allied powers, including Soviet Union.
26:54And one of the points of the treaty was denazification.
26:57It means that those who were associated with the Nazi past in Austria
27:01were not allowed to be ruling this country.
27:05This is maybe not 100% relevant example.
27:08Of course, time is different right now.
27:11But in my understanding, denazification is also linked to the accountability,
27:18because there were a lot of crimes committed, openly committed, by the Nazis in Ukraine,
27:23like, for example, the setting on fire of the House of Trade Unions in Odessa on the 2nd of May, 2014.
27:32And a lot of those who were openly there, who were instigating the violence,
27:38are now, for example, members of the RADA, of the Ukrainian parliament.
27:44So these people should be, of course, removed from power.
27:48I don't know what is the way to ensure this, and what kind of punishment,
27:53and who will have to deal with this.
27:56But in my understanding, as a Russian citizen, I think this is part of the denazification process.
28:02And I guess maybe the last question we have time for here.
28:07If Russia does not get, or a better way to put it,
28:13if Ukraine does not agree to all of these terms from the June 14 terms that Putin has listed out,
28:19that Peskov has talked about before, to include the denazification and the demilitarization,
28:24however defined, if Russia doesn't get all those terms,
28:27will they simply keep fighting until they accomplish these on the ground?
28:32And the key question on that is, if they get the negotiated deal,
28:35it's the administrative borders, is what it's called.
28:38But if they fight, will they go beyond the administrative borders
28:41and continue to conquer more territory?
28:44History shows that any subsequent draft deal is much worse for Ukraine.
28:50Minsk agreements were better to be implemented by Ukraine than Istanbul draft,
28:56because according to Minsk agreements,
28:58Ukraine would have absolutely regained control over Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics,
29:05provided it gave them certain autonomy and made certain measures to protect Russian language.
29:13In Istanbul, the only territory that Ukraine was ceding, apart from Crimea, of course,
29:18because the question of Crimea was closed a long time ago,
29:21was certain regions of Donetsk and Lugansk regions.
29:25Now, the draft that you mentioned and that President Putin said,
29:30explained in detail in June last year,
29:34is already about the administrative territory of the four additional regions,
29:39I mean, apart from Crimea, the Donetsk, Lugansk people's republic, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions.
29:47So, this deal is, the draft deal is apparently worse for Ukraine to swallow.
29:52I don't know what will be the next one,
29:55if the next proposal that will be made, according to this logic,
29:58would be much worse for Ukraine to swallow.
30:03If I may, just a little bit, I forgot when I spoke about denazification,
30:07what is also very important is to change the structure of Ukrainian society,
30:13the basis of the society,
30:15because now the nationalist groups linked to neo-Nazis,
30:19something like Azov, which had been banned for a long time in the U.S.
30:24before the special military operation,
30:26like some others,
30:26they are playing a very important role in this society.
30:30Of course, the role of these organizations should be reviewed,
30:36and there should be no glorification of nazi collaborators,
30:40of those who have fought with Hitler,
30:42people like Bandera, like Shukhevich,
30:45who are responsible for terrible atrocities against humanity,
30:49for Holocaust, for many other things.
30:51So, this is also part of denazification.
30:53I think it's important for me to mention it.
30:55And, you know, if you're just looking at the situation,
30:59and it's totalitarian,
31:00and you hear Trump, as we talked about at the outset of this show,
31:03saying, I have a deadline in my mind.
31:05It's coming up pretty soon,
31:07and possibly even within a week, if he didn't get there.
31:10And if you're trying to see how close are we,
31:13it's not a good sign when just yesterday,
31:15we had the president of Ukraine say this.
31:18So, it sounds like that Ukraine is not even close to agreeing to any of the terms,
31:44much less to all of them.
31:45And I guess my final question is,
31:48is there ever a point to which Russia say,
31:50all right, there's no more diplomacy,
31:52now it's just a battlefield,
31:53and we're going to finish until we get there?
31:55We are at the battlefield,
31:57and our troops are fighting,
32:01and we'll continue to fight unless we find a solution that is acceptable to us.
32:06We're not there yet.
32:07When you analyze the behavior of the Kyiv regime of its leader,
32:12you need to understand one simple thing,
32:14that this regime is not interested in any kind of peace.
32:17And the only tactics, the only strategy it has,
32:20is it's to prolong possible negotiations to avoid being blamed for undermining these negotiations,
32:27but nevertheless to drag them as long as possible.
32:30And his strategy is to involve directly other countries,
32:35first and foremost United States,
32:37but this is a hard task right now,
32:39but maybe some European countries,
32:42to involve them directly in fight with Russia,
32:44because Ukrainian army is at the brink of collapse.
32:47And he understands this with armaments,
32:50without armaments.
32:53It's not the question of this.
32:54People don't want to fight,
32:55and he understands this.
32:56So he wants to involve the others.
32:59That's why he will not accept any proposal.
33:02He will try to play with those who are not interested in Russia
33:06and the U.S. striking any deals,
33:08including a deal on Ukraine.
33:10And that's his tactics, that's his strategy.
33:12You shouldn't make any mistake in this regard.
33:14So maybe you pay too much attention to analyzing concrete words and facts
33:20that this man is pronouncing.
33:23But he's an actor.
33:24He was given now the role that he needs to undermine this peace process.
33:29And he's playing this role.
33:30Write another role to him, and he will play it.
33:33The playwrights should be very insistent in this regard.
33:35So I think that's the only way.
33:37You should look at this from this perspective,
33:40and not from the perspective of trying to find a rationale
33:43in what the leader of the Kiev regime is saying.
33:47There is no rationale.
33:48There is no logic.
33:49The only logic is to prolong the war
33:51and to avoid the situation when Ukraine will be blamed
33:55for not being forthcoming to the proposals of President Trump.
33:58That's his tactics.
34:00And I'm sorry, one last question if you have time.
34:03Let's say that he does.
34:06He maintains exactly what you suggested there,
34:08tries to drag this out, doesn't agree to anything that Trump wants to do.
34:11Trump just says, all right, I'm done.
34:13We're going to walk away like we've threatened to do.
34:15And now it's between Russia and Ukraine to fight it out.
34:18And then Russia continues on.
34:19And whether that's three months, six months, 12 months,
34:22they continue fighting and get maybe all the way up to the Dnepa River
34:25and up to the gates of Kiev.
34:27If they still don't submit, will the Russian army simply keep going?
34:32I think that's what we are doing right now.
34:35We are not setting any deadlines, any artificial deadlines.
34:39We are doing our job.
34:40We are crushing the Ukrainian army, the army of the Kiev regime.
34:45And we are doing this, and we will continue to do it
34:48unless we have a diplomatic solution, which we were prioritizing from day one.
34:53And so far, I don't see any controversy here.
34:58We are saying that we are not going to stop unless we have a good solution, a good deal.
35:03And I think that the American team knows about this.
35:06So there is absolutely no contradiction in what we are doing and what we are seeing.
35:11I see.
35:11Well, listen, I really, really appreciate you carving out this time for us, Mr. Ambassador.
35:16It's been a delight to have you on the show today.
35:19Thank you very much.