{"id":26256,"date":"2025-08-27T10:16:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T10:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/26256\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T10:16:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T10:16:08","slug":"its-very-hard-to-negotiate-in-good-faith-if-your-cities-are-being-hit-with-missiles-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/26256\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s very hard to negotiate in good faith if your cities are being hit with missiles\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an unforgettable scene, broadcast live around the world, Sergiy Kyslytsya, then Ukraine\u2019s permanent representative to the United Nations<\/a>, berated his Russian counterpart Vassily Nebenzia as Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine<\/a> in 2022.<\/p>\n

Kyslytsya interrupted Nebenzia\u2019s prepared speech to an emergency session of the Security Council, shaking his telephone at him: \u201cCall Putin, call [Russian foreign minister Sergey] Lavrov to stop this aggression.\u201d <\/p>\n

Then he warned: \u201cThere is no purgatory for war criminals. They go straight to hell, ambassador.\u201d<\/p>\n

The outburst was high drama, great television, and it made Kyslytsya famous. <\/p>\n

Three-and-a-half years later, he has amended his warning to say that war criminals make a stopover at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague<\/a>. <\/p>\n

In June, Kyiv and the Council of Europe<\/a> signed an agreement to establish the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kyslytsya returned to Kyiv as first deputy foreign minister last February, after five years as UN ambassador. He has since taken part in negotiations with Russia in Istanbul in May, June and July and he accompanied Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy<\/a> to the White House on August 18th.<\/p>\n

\"SergiySergiy Kyslytsya speaks out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the United Nations’ headquarters in February 2022. Photograph: Michael M Santiago\/Getty <\/p>\n

On Friday, Lavrov, who has been Russia\u2019s foreign minister for 21 years, poured cold water on Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a> hopes for bilateral and trilateral summits involving himself and the presidents of Russia<\/a> and Ukraine. \u201cThere is no meeting planned,\u201d Lavrov told NBC News.<\/p>\n

The network sought a riposte from Kyslytsya. \u201cI read the transcript of Lavrov before I was interviewed and saw nothing whatsoever different from what the Russians have been saying for more than three years,\u201d he tells The Irish Times. \u201cIf there is a division of labour in Moscow, then Lavrov is the bad cop.\u201d <\/p>\n

In negotiations, Kyslytsya has found Lavrov to be \u201cthe most toxic part of the Russian establishment\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a post on X dated August 24th, Kyslytsya quoted Canada\u2019s ambassador to the UN, Bob Rae: \u201cWe know the Russians are lying when their lips start moving.\u201d Lavrov and Russia have moved from lies to \u201cpure bullshit\u201d, Kyslytsya wrote.<\/p>\n

Lest anyone accuse him of vulgarity, Kyslytsya reminds me how \u201cit was Trump who said the Russians were bullshitting him. I was not the first one to Tweet about bullshitting. The copyright belongs to Mr Trump\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mudslinging aside, neither a Putin-Zelenskiy summit nor a ceasefire is imminent. <\/p>\n

The next two important events for Ukraine will be the unveiling of a European plan to provide security guarantees to Ukraine and the UN General Assembly next month.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe regional administration building, struck by a Russian missile in the early days of the full-scale invasion, stands in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Photograph: Brendan Hoffman\/The New York Times <\/p>\n

At the August 18th meetings, the US president appeared to have adopted Russian leader Vladimir Putin\u2019s<\/a> all-or-nothing demand for a final peace agreement without a prior ceasefire. Kyslytsya says Trump \u201cwas not that categorical … From what I understood, Trump was saying, \u2018You want to get a ceasefire? Get a ceasefire. But what I am interested in is the soonest-possible peace deal\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo for us, if somebody doesn\u2019t like the definition of ceasefire, it\u2019s fine for us to call it \u2018stop the killings\u2019, a truce or whatever,\u201d Kyslytsya says. \u201cIt\u2019s not about names. It\u2019s very hard to imagine you can negotiate in good faith if your capital and your cities are being hit with ballistic missiles.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Russians opposed a ceasefire in the Istanbul negotiations. \u201cThey said, literally, \u2018No ceasefire until you withdraw from occupied Russian territories\u2019,\u201d Kyslytsya says. \u201cThey meant the oblasts of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, which they invaded and declared part of their territory according to their constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a change hailed by US vice-president JD Vance<\/a> as \u201csignificant concessions\u201d, Russia now demands that Ukraine withdraw completely from the 25 per cent of Donetsk it still holds, but appears to have dropped its demand for the rest of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.<\/p>\n

In his last visit to the Oval Office, Zelenskiy showed Trump on a map that most of the territory seized by Russia in Donbas (Donetsk and Luhansk combined) was taken in 2014, not since the 2022 full-scale invasion. The British ministry of defence estimates it would take Russia four-and-a-half years to seize the rest of Donbas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe overwhelming percentage of territories in that [occupied] red belt in the east and in the south were not invaded since 2022, which means that Putin is bullshitting when he says he is very successful in advancing on the front,\u201d Kyslytsya says. <\/p>\n

\"AA Ukrainian girl holds up a portrait of a missing relative to released Ukrainian prisoners of war following a prisoner-swap in Ukraine on Sunday. Photograph: EPA <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the map of Luhansk region, you see a very small piece of land, 1 per cent of the oblast, which is not invaded so far. If Putin cannot invade this little piece of land in three-and-a-half years, how can he tell Trump he is advancing successfully? <\/p>\n

\u201cIn the last 1,000 days, he managed to invade about 1 per cent of Ukrainian territory. At this rate, it would take him 99 years to take all Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n

It would be illegal and unacceptable to Ukrainians for Zelenskiy to hand over territory that Russian does not occupy, Kyslytsya says.<\/p>\n

There is, however, an understanding that Ukraine will lose for the foreseeable future much or all of the 20 per cent of its territory which Russia already occupies. \u201cAs president Zelenskiy said publicly and in meetings, we are ready to discuss territorial issues, but the beginning of such a discussion should be the contact line,\u201d Kyslytsya says.<\/p>\n

To many observers, the recent flurry of diplomacy surrounding the Ukraine war appears to have been nothing more than an optical illusion. Kyslytsya insists the peace process is real and says there has been progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important development in recent weeks is America has confirmed they would be part of the security guarantees,\u201d he says. \u201cThe fact that the Americans said on several occasions, including in the Oval Office, that they will participate is a game-changer … The US remains the most important piece of this puzzle.\u201d<\/p>\n

The plan for security guarantees is advancing, Kyslytsya says. Heads of state and government, foreign ministers, national security advisers and militaries consult almost daily. \u201cAt the end of the day, the Russians will be compelled to stop this war if they see the allies have the ability to deter the recurrence of future aggression.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"UkrainiansUkrainians show portraits of their missing relatives to released Ukrainian prisoners of war following a prisoner-swap in Ukraine on Sunday. Photograph: EPA <\/p>\n

Kyslytsya would not be drawn on which countries will send troops, the number of troops involved or their rules of engagement. The US may provide intelligence, reconnaissance, command-and-control and air defence capabilities to enable European-led ground troops and a no-fly zone, the Financial Times has reported.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian diplomat has visited Ireland many times, for work and for pleasure. He wears silver Celtic rings, purchased in Galway, and adorns his pet terrier with a green ribbon on St Patrick\u2019s Day<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ireland, Kyslytsya says, \u201cis very poetic. It has wonderful literature and music. There are similarities with the history of Ukraine: hundreds of years of colonial occupation; fighting for your language and identity; the experience of famine\u201d. <\/p>\n

He hopes that Ukraine will be admitted to the European Union<\/a> by the end of the decade. Putin and Trump exclude the possibility of Ukraine joining Nato<\/a>, but Kyslytsya has not given up. \u201cI don\u2019t think all Nato members are ready to agree with the Russian narrative that Russia has a right to dictate to any country what alliances it has a right to join,\u201d he says. \u201cWe should not prejudge the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an unforgettable scene, broadcast live around the world, Sergiy Kyslytsya, then Ukraine\u2019s permanent representative to the United…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,21586,356,2219,13,14,6,12175,11,12,15,16,5,4897,550,12468,7,8,2264,2863,2263,2267,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-26256","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-council-of-europe","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-european-union","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-jd-vance","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-north-atlantic-treaty-organisation-nato","23":"tag-russia","24":"tag-the-hague","25":"tag-top-stories","26":"tag-topstories","27":"tag-ukraine-crisis","28":"tag-united-nations-un","29":"tag-vladimir-putin","30":"tag-volodymyr-zelenskiy","31":"tag-world","32":"tag-world-news","33":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}