ON THE CARDS
Ukraine has not abandoned the idea of a Ukraine-Africa summit, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told a delegation of visiting African journalists mid November in Kyiv.
“It is still on our agenda. We are working on it. I do believe we are working on raising the relation with the African Union to a higher level,” he said, adding that they have suggested to the African Union Commission to sign the respective document, and this document is still under consideration.
A clearly despondent Kuleba, fielding questions in his offices at the Foreign Ministry, which incidentally had invited the 15 journalists from 10 African countries, acknowledged that the process for hosting a (summit) is a two-way engagement.
“Our aspirations are not enough to host the summit only just because Ukraine wants to do so – we need a sufficient amount of African countries to get together in the same place," Kuleba said in response to a question from The Midweek Sun.
He was however, buoyant about their achievement in managing to conduct a historical visit of seven (7) African leaders to Ukraine in the summer – referring to the visit by African Presidents to Ukraine to broker peace between President Volodymyr Zelensky and his nemesis, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We continue working on the Ukraine Africa summit,” he emphasised.
While Kuleba conceded to the diplomacy tenet which holds that one can choose one’s friends but not neighbours, he pointed out that they had endured long running wars with Russia even before they existed as nation states.
“We were neighbours with Russia there were wars between Kyiv and Moscow back in times when many Western nations were not existing as states,” he said.
Kuleba said it was “incorrect” to suggest that the West exploits Ukraine to defeat Russia in the same way that the argument that Ukraine utilises the West in order to punish Russia for all the evil Russia has committed over the centuries against Ukraine is incorrect.
“In principle, if we were having such an ideological discussion, I would say we are exploiting the West, and you would say no, it’s the West that is exploiting you. Both these points of view do not meet the reality,” he said.
He was responding to The Midweek Sun’s observation that the repeated calls by the West for Ukraine to deal Russia a “strategic defeat on the battlefield” were counterproductive to President Zelensky’s 10 Point Peace Formula.
“The reality is that Russia led by President Putin tries to maintain its geographical periphery of its neighbours in its influence.”
He said the history of the Russian empire, starting with the Communist Revolution of Bolsheviks in 1917, shows that the Russian empire lost its forced peripheral terrains like Finland, Poland.
“Then later on when the Bolsheviks seized power it was no longer the Russian empire, it was absolutely a different Soviet power. But the first wars the Soviet powers had conducted, firstly against Poland, secondly against Finland.
“Then as a result of the Second World War, Soviet Union expanded its influence up to central Europe. And since 1988, it started to lose these territories. Central Europe left, then Soviet Union collapsed.
“This ongoing war launched by President Putin has the only reason, he realised that the only way to stop Ukraine in its aspiration to have a real independence, and the answer is only by the war,” he said.
He said Ukraine right now is absolutely a state in the political sense, it is anti-colonial just like the anti-colonial movements in Africa.
“So you, an African, you know it’s your land, your country, you have the right to decide how you are going to run your life, what language you use.
“You decide who is your friend and who is an enemy. But still there is sort of a capital that says no, no, no, we will decide that instead of you.
“Your language is not good enough, not beautiful enough and complicated because you never had your statehood and you are unable to manage the state, because your independence poses a threat to me, and just because I
make money out of you, and if I lose you I will make less money, when I say that, and that’s the way that Russia behaved towards Ukraine, you can probably hear some similarities.”
He said that in-fact Ukrainian people are offended when someone says they are just being exploited or utilised, not only because it does not reflect the historical truth, but simply because “we fight and struggle for our independence.
“We never invaded Russia, we never attacked Russia and even assuming the argument that Ukraine is used by the West, and is a real fact, Russia would easily avoid that situation – just don’t attack Ukraine. “We are not going to assume that the West forced Russia to attack Ukraine in order to use Ukraine later on to destroy Russia”, Kuleba said.
“It is still on our agenda. We are working on it. I do believe we are working on raising the relation with the African Union to a higher level,” he said, adding that they have suggested to the African Union Commission to sign the respective document, and this document is still under consideration.
A clearly despondent Kuleba, fielding questions in his offices at the Foreign Ministry, which incidentally had invited the 15 journalists from 10 African countries, acknowledged that the process for hosting a (summit) is a two-way engagement.
“Our aspirations are not enough to host the summit only just because Ukraine wants to do so – we need a sufficient amount of African countries to get together in the same place," Kuleba said in response to a question from The Midweek Sun.
He was however, buoyant about their achievement in managing to conduct a historical visit of seven (7) African leaders to Ukraine in the summer – referring to the visit by African Presidents to Ukraine to broker peace between President Volodymyr Zelensky and his nemesis, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We continue working on the Ukraine Africa summit,” he emphasised.
While Kuleba conceded to the diplomacy tenet which holds that one can choose one’s friends but not neighbours, he pointed out that they had endured long running wars with Russia even before they existed as nation states.
“We were neighbours with Russia there were wars between Kyiv and Moscow back in times when many Western nations were not existing as states,” he said.
Kuleba said it was “incorrect” to suggest that the West exploits Ukraine to defeat Russia in the same way that the argument that Ukraine utilises the West in order to punish Russia for all the evil Russia has committed over the centuries against Ukraine is incorrect.
“In principle, if we were having such an ideological discussion, I would say we are exploiting the West, and you would say no, it’s the West that is exploiting you. Both these points of view do not meet the reality,” he said.
He was responding to The Midweek Sun’s observation that the repeated calls by the West for Ukraine to deal Russia a “strategic defeat on the battlefield” were counterproductive to President Zelensky’s 10 Point Peace Formula.
“The reality is that Russia led by President Putin tries to maintain its geographical periphery of its neighbours in its influence.”
He said the history of the Russian empire, starting with the Communist Revolution of Bolsheviks in 1917, shows that the Russian empire lost its forced peripheral terrains like Finland, Poland.
“Then later on when the Bolsheviks seized power it was no longer the Russian empire, it was absolutely a different Soviet power. But the first wars the Soviet powers had conducted, firstly against Poland, secondly against Finland.
“Then as a result of the Second World War, Soviet Union expanded its influence up to central Europe. And since 1988, it started to lose these territories. Central Europe left, then Soviet Union collapsed.
“This ongoing war launched by President Putin has the only reason, he realised that the only way to stop Ukraine in its aspiration to have a real independence, and the answer is only by the war,” he said.
He said Ukraine right now is absolutely a state in the political sense, it is anti-colonial just like the anti-colonial movements in Africa.
“So you, an African, you know it’s your land, your country, you have the right to decide how you are going to run your life, what language you use.
“You decide who is your friend and who is an enemy. But still there is sort of a capital that says no, no, no, we will decide that instead of you.
“Your language is not good enough, not beautiful enough and complicated because you never had your statehood and you are unable to manage the state, because your independence poses a threat to me, and just because I
make money out of you, and if I lose you I will make less money, when I say that, and that’s the way that Russia behaved towards Ukraine, you can probably hear some similarities.”
He said that in-fact Ukrainian people are offended when someone says they are just being exploited or utilised, not only because it does not reflect the historical truth, but simply because “we fight and struggle for our independence.
“We never invaded Russia, we never attacked Russia and even assuming the argument that Ukraine is used by the West, and is a real fact, Russia would easily avoid that situation – just don’t attack Ukraine. “We are not going to assume that the West forced Russia to attack Ukraine in order to use Ukraine later on to destroy Russia”, Kuleba said.
