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Ukraine’s former Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has said that reducing the size of Ukraine’s armed forces as part of a peace deal with Russia would be “humiliation” for Kyiv and leave the country vulnerable to future aggression.
“If you establish a cap on the army (…) it’s a clear message that a foreign power humiliates your army, your nation,” Kuleba told Euronews’ interview programme “12 minutes with”.
“We will pave the road to hell with good intentions of satisfying the Russians. And capping the army is the most prominent example of that effort.”
Diplomatic efforts to strike a peace deal have accelerated in recent days after a draft 28-point framework — now known to have been authored by the Kremlin — was presented to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by the US administration.
The original US-Russian plan floated a limit of 600,000 troops for the Ukrainian army, which currently has almost 1 million soldiers, according to Zelenskyy.
The leaked European counterproposal drafted in talks in Geneva earlier this week — which do not reflect a formal negotiating position — pitched a higher cap of 800,000 soldiers during peacetime.
EU officials have since rejected such a limit, with foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas saying on Wednesday a peace deal should limit Russia’s army rather than Ukraine’s.
‘No good times for Europe ahead’
Western allies who are part of Ukraine’s “Coalition of the Willing” have long reiterated that a strong Ukrainian army is the best security guarantee for the country. In recent months, they have shifted their focus to strengthening the Ukrainian military as an alternative to reliance on foreign troops.
Another concept still on the table is providing Kyiv with security guarantees similar to Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which stipulates that an attack on one ally is an attack on all, without Ukraine becoming a fully-fledged NATO member.
“Isn’t it embarrassing that, almost four years into the war, European leaders are still jumping from one topic to another, from sending peacekeeping forces to reassurance forces to strengthening the Ukrainian army, to offering something like Article 5,” Kuleba questioned.
“You know, with this pace of decision making and conceptual understanding of where Europe is heading, there are no good times for Europe ahead.”
Kuleba also said he believed the push for a deal has “already fallen apart” due to the “aggressive and erratic handling of the original 28-point plan by Washington,” and due to leaked calls between US and Russian envoys exposing how the plan was crafted.
You can watch the full interview with Dmytro Kuleba on Euronews at 5:15 pm CET.