DW spoke with Ukraine's ambassador to the US, Olha Stefanishyna, about the progress of peace talks. She said Ukraine convinced negotiators in Geneva to drop a "full amnesty" clause, leaving room to hold Russia accountable for war crimes.
00:00Olga StefaniĹĄina, Ukraine's ambassador to the United States, welcome to DW.
00:04Madam Ambassador, the holidays are coming up, so my question, where and how are you planning to spend Thanksgiving this year?
00:12Well, I'm spending this day in the United States, where Thanksgiving is originally a very important celebration.
00:22But as a Ukrainian, my thoughts are elsewhere, but I really hope, I do hope that for all the Americans, including the President of the United States and many other people who are now having a decisive role in terms of ending the war.
00:41Do you know if you are spending this day in Washington, D.C. or somewhere in Florida?
00:46Well, Florida is a great place, but at this point, I'm at D.C.
00:52The reason I'm asking is because it was initially planned that President Zelensky could meet with President Trump in Florida, where the American president will be celebrating and spending his Thanksgiving with his family.
01:07When is President Trump meeting with President Zelensky at this point? Do we know?
01:10Well, this is like a process in action. So things are very dynamically changing. It's very important to us that this dynamic is very high and productive.
01:24So, and the meeting is the decision which will be taken at specific points.
01:30So, as you know, while we are talking, there is like, we have a talks which are being completed at the Abu Dhabi and just now President of the United States has now that he's sending Special Envoy Vitkov to engage with President Putin directly.
01:47So, and as it has always been, Ukraine is committed to whatever effort would be needed to end the war.
01:57So, this will be the formula under which Ukraine will remain a sovereign, independent country.
02:01You just mentioned the Army Secretary of the United States. He's coming to Kiev soon while Mr. Vitkov is on the way to Moscow.
02:08Is Driscoll playing a new role as a new envoy, Special Envoy of the United States on Ukraine since Keith Kellogg is retiring?
02:21Well, I don't think this is something to be compared at all because Secretary Driscoll remains as a Secretary of the Army.
02:29And basically, he has opened up the ability for American senior leadership to travel to Ukraine just to get the first hand information about the military situation.
02:44And as you know, he has built entire drone innovation line and policy based also on Ukrainian experience.
02:52So, he has been involved in Ukraine for quite a period of time, but now he has this new enhanced role as the negotiator.
03:03And we're really confident that it's good that he came to Kiev.
03:08He spent time with the Ukraine military leadership.
03:12He had all the briefings and information, but also he was one of the negotiators over the meetings in Geneva.
03:18And he was in Abu Dhabi.
03:20So, he has the whole spectrum of information, including the whole military readouts.
03:27So, he could not be misleaded with this, you know, Russian speculations about almighty Russian army, you know, heroically dying in hundreds of thousands on the front lines.
03:39So, this is very important.
03:42He has a very strong professional stand.
03:45He has the most senior military position in the U.S. Army, as you can imagine.
03:51So, I think it's a good new player in this framework.
03:56So, what plan is Secretary Driscoll bringing to Kiev?
04:00Is it a 28-point plan, 19-point plan, or a completely new plan that Mr. Yermak just offered?
04:08What is he bringing?
04:09There was a set of arrangements formed after Geneva.
04:13There's something that we can really confirm.
04:15There's some things to be further discussed with Europeans.
04:19There are, like, some things, like, there was a lot of speculation about this point on amnesty.
04:24And I can definitely say that it is not part of this 19 points.
04:29So, this point is not there because it's extremely arguable and it's an issue about justice.
04:35And there were, like, a lot of multiple misinterpretations.
04:40So, on this basis, a lot of discussions were taking place in Abu Dhabi.
04:44And Secretary Driscoll will follow up this conversation.
04:48So, what does the absence of this point mean to Ukraine and to Russia?
04:53Will Russia be held accountable for its actions in Ukraine?
04:59Well, now, this particular moment when all eyes on every public comment, you know, Ukraine, American officials are making, are there.
05:10And just while we're expecting for public creation from Russian administration on the plan, I would not really go further into that.
05:20But I think this point has caused a lot of speculations and misreading.
05:26And it's very important that it's not there and it evolved after the conversations and negotiations leaded by Ukrainian delegation in Geneva.
05:36So, this has not been subjected to discussion in Abu Dhabi at all.
05:41So, again, the point about total amnesty for Russia and Ukraine is out of play.
05:49Yes, yes.
05:49Senior Ukrainian official describes what happened in Geneva as a dramatic breakthrough.
05:56How do you assess the results of the Geneva talks this time?
06:01Well, I think I would put it like, I would do assessment on both sides.
06:08First, it was not just another round of talks.
06:12It was a delegation formed by a decree of the president.
06:15It was formalized.
06:19So, President's Chief of Office, Andrei Yermak, was leading the delegation.
06:24And it was a very concrete setting of people having specific roles.
06:28But what is now less important that on U.S. side, the delegation was very powerful.
06:33So, we had the Secretary of State Rubio present, Secretary of Army present, Jared Kushner present, Special Envoy Vitkov present, a wider group of people, and also Deputy NSA Andy Baker, who has been putting a lot of glue behind the things on a regular basis.
06:52So, these were two powerful delegations.
06:55Both delegations, like Ukrainian delegation and American delegation, had full mandates from their presidents to work in a constructive way, round the clock, on something that would really be acceptable and could be equalized to the just peace.
07:12And it has happened so.
07:15So, less than 24 hours after the delegation started to work, we have heard and saw public statement on both sides, on Ukraine and also on U.S. side, that parties reached a good set of arrangements.
07:29So, I also, I've told you about the amnesty point.
07:33I also know that there's a number of points to be discussed with European allies about the frozen assets and other elements about, for example, NATO membership.
07:42There's also a set of things which is not related to ending the war, but it's rather more about relations with Russia, U.S. relations with Russia.
07:53So, there was a lot of progress, but what I heard from our delegation, from the head of delegation and the team working around the document, that there was a lively interest in going through every element of 28 points and just see how many traps were there put by Russians in terms of possibility of misinterpretation, you know, or double interpretation.
08:20So, and I think this was also a useful experience for both sides.
08:25And we're happy that it's not only evolved in a good outcome, but now, based on the Geneva talks, based on the mandates from two presidents, it's been continued in Abu Dhabi and it's not over.
08:38So, now teams are heading to Moscow.
08:40So, this is a, you know, dialogue which had been taking place before with Kafei been to Moscow and it evolved in everything we saw, but also we have a new, very important party to this process of USAID, Secretary Driscoll, and he's heading to Kyiv to spend another two days there just working around the clock, you know, to seal the deal to extent as possible.
09:06There is a big question in Kyiv on whether President Zelensky should meet with President Trump one-on-one before this trilateral meeting, possible trilateral meeting that President Trump is talking about.
09:19You are in touch with your counterparts in the State Department and in the White House.
09:23What signals are you hearing from them?
09:25Do they think that they must sit down beforehand?
09:29Well, there is a very dynamic environment, so everything is, it's really dramatically changing every 24 hours, but I think I would identify two moments here.
09:40First, we have a so-called diplomatic surge in events that are happening and there is like a commitment to work 24-7 around the clock and we have a regular engagement at different levels
09:57on working on working on a plan and on a potential trilateral meeting, so there are like no parallel tracks, there's like only one track from US side, this is the whole team you saw in Geneva, this is the most senior and wide American delegation we ever saw engaged
10:15with Ukraine, but also in resolution of whatever scope of issues, we also saw that Jared Kushner was there, he was one of the key players in recent events in Gaza, in Gaza settlement, so we have the whole team working together and finally we have a clarity in engagement, the dynamics and whatever the moment would come and two of our presidents,
10:43the president of the United States, the president of the United States, the president of Ukraine would have to engage to finalize some of the conversations between them, it would not be a question, I'm sure.
10:51You've already participated in a bilateral meeting between President Zelensky and President Trump in New York, we spoke with you right after, so take me to the room with you, what is the dynamic between them?
11:04Because we've seen President Trump, because we've seen President Trump bounce back and forth from he's a nice guy to you don't have the cards and back, so when the cameras are off, how do they communicate?
11:17Well, I think every time the meetings were taking place, first it was frank, it was open, and I think this is the basis for, you know, having the results.
11:31So first, after the meeting in New York, we immediately engaged in discussions about the long range, about the capabilities we can get.
11:39Of course, we're not speaking only on Tomahawks about wider amount of things.
11:44And also after the meeting in Washington, it was my president and also President Trump first ever said that we are ready to talk about stopping on the existing line.
11:54So that speaks about the very fact that both sides have enough trust in this conversation so that they could really step up and make a decision afterwards.
12:06Recently, President Trump accused the Ukrainian side of not being grateful enough for what he has done to Ukraine to end this Russia's war, unprovoked war.
12:16Let me ask you, are you grateful for what President Trump is doing right now?
12:21Well, I'm grateful to God that I am alive. I'm grateful to God that it's not only me but all the family around me is alive.
12:31And I'm grateful to God that President Trump is a president of the United States who has made one of his biggest commitments is ending the war to Ukraine.
12:41Whatever we have to do as an entire nation and every American who supports that should really be targeted to back up this commitment.
12:51But I think, from what I think, it's very important that there is a very right moral standing here.
13:01And it's not the last thing which is really important for US officials here.
13:06So we are grateful for this dialogue and for everything which has been done to help our nation to survive as a sovereign state.
13:15But I think what's happening next is very important and we are backing up any efforts which is coming from the United States to the extent we can.
13:25Ambassador Stefani, thank you very much for your time.
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