A Ukrainian Diplomat on the Future of Russian Aggression

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🗓️ 2 May 2022

⏱️ 27 minutes

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Summary

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine enters a third month, prospects of ending the conflict are still nowhere in sight, and there seems to be no end to the destruction that Vladimir Putin is willing to inflict. Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, tells David Remnick that he expects Russia to continue escalating its attack leading up to May 9th, a day of military celebration in Russia commemorating the German surrender in the Second World War. “They will escalate attacks by missiles from the sky to terrorize Ukraine in general,” he predicts, “and to make the government more susceptible to surrender.” In contrast to President Volodymyr Zelensky—who was a political rookie when he took office, in 2019—Kyslytsya has spent his career in Ukraine’s foreign service. In the years after the Soviet breakup, he says, Ukraine wanted to both placate its neighbor and ally itself with Western institutions. This created a “cognitive dissonance,” he says, that prevented Ukraine from recognizing the extent of Russian aggression. Having watched as diplomacy failed, Kyslytsya still has to separate his work from the personal toll of Russia’s invasion on his family and friends. “I try not to engage emotionally because if I engage emotionally too much, I am not operational,” he says. “And if I am not operational . . . I’m of very little use for my government.”

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1:12.0	This is the Politics and More podcast. I'm David Remnick.
1:18.3	As the Russian invasion of Ukraine enters a third month, its brutality escalating all the time.
1:25.3	Prospects of ending the conflict are still really nowhere in sight.
1:29.7	For all the astounding resolve of Ukrainians, we're looking at a relatively small country up against
1:35.3	one of the world's largest militaries, and there seems to be no limit to Vladimir Putin's
1:41.1	destructive impulses. Ukraine's most senior diplomat is Sergei Kislyza,
1:48.0	the country's permanent representative to the United Nations.
1:51.4	Kisleetza has spent his entire career in Ukraine's foreign service,
1:55.2	trying to avoid precisely the kind of catastrophe that's playing out now.
2:00.4	And I talked with him last week. Now, when you listen to the rhetoric of catastrophe that's playing out now. And I talked with him last week.
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