Ukraine wants ‘real peace, not appeasement’ with Russia, its foreign minister said on Thursday at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the security and rights body seeking a role for itself in a post-war Ukraine.
The path forward for peace talks is unclear at the moment, US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday, following what he called ‘reasonably good’ negotiations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US envoys.
‘We still remember the names of those who betrayed future generations in Munich. This must never happen again. Principles must be untouchable and we need real peace, not appeasement,’ Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha told the OSCE’s annual Ministerial Council.
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He was referring to a 1938 agreement with Nazi Germany in which the United Kingdom, France and Italy agreed to Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland in what was then Czechoslovakia. Agreement is widely used as a shorthand way to refer to the inability to confront a threatening power.
‘Europe has had many unfair peace agreements in the past. They all only led to new catastrophes,’ Sybiha said, thanking the United States for advancing peace efforts and promising that Ukraine would ‘use every opportunity to try to end this war.’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday that his team was preparing for meetings in the United States and that dialogue with Trump’s representatives would continue.
The OSCE, a 57-nation body that includes the United States, Canada, Russia and much of Europe and Central Asia, emerged as an important forum for East-West dialogue during the Cold War.
In recent years, it has often been deadlocked as Russia blocks key decisions, accusing them of being taken by the West. In its statement, Russia complained about the OSCE’s ‘total Ukrainization of the agenda’.
Now, the United States is threatening to withdraw, demanding reforms such as cutting the budget by more than 10% and that the agency ‘return to its core functions’.
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In presenting the U.S. statement, State Department senior official for European and Eurasian Affairs Brendan Hanrahan cited OSCE election monitoring, in which it draws attention to votes that are not free or fair, as an example of exaggeration.
‘The OSCE must stop treating the transformation of domestic political life as one of its main functions,’ he said in his statement, adding: ‘Monitoring, whether of borders, elections or reforms, can only be effective with the full cooperation of the States involved.’
