Read the full transcript of Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyanskiy in conversation with Norwegian writer and political activist Prof. Glenn Diesen on “A Strategic Mistake to Make Russia an Enemy”, July 26, 2026.
Current State of US-Russia Relations at the UN
PROF. GLENN DIESEN: Hi, everyone, and welcome back. We are joined today by Dmitry Polyanskiy, the First Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, to speak a bit about the state of relations between Russia and the United States.
In the media, there’s a lot of coverage that relations are taking a turn for the worse. One never knows to what extent these are theatrics or if they’re real. But from your perspective there at the United Nations, how are you seeing things? Is there a feeling that negotiations are still moving forward and improvement of bilateral relations?
DMITRY POLYANSKIY: Well, we don’t see anything particular developing here at the UN. We interact with our American colleagues in the way we were interacting the last several months. There is no bilateral track here. So the efforts to normalize, to bring back to a rational level bilateral relations are being undertaken elsewhere, not in New York and not on the margins of the UN.
So we interact without any problem on the UN agenda, on the Security Council. And I wouldn’t say that there is any change.
Shifting Approaches to Ukraine Peace Negotiations
PROF. GLENN DIESEN: In terms of moving forward, though I know the negotiations take on a different format. But initially when the Trump administration took over, we heard Hegseth talk about peace in Ukraine, which would require restoring Ukraine’s neutrality, accepting certain territorial concessions.
While in the last few weeks there’s been more of a shift where the Americans as well as Europeans are speaking more of only a ceasefire. Some people are confused why it seems to have shifted away from the original language, the recognition that this would have to be a settlement based on Istanbul Plus.
DMITRY POLYANSKIY: I think that there are a lot of words and emotions around these negotiations in Istanbul. But the most important thing is that we have now conducted the third round of this negotiation. So the process is ongoing.
There are concrete humanitarian results from these negotiations. You know that there was an exchange of prisoners, there was an exchange of bodies. Work is going on the list of children which Ukraine has given to us at the last round. And we have brought the response during this round. I think these issues were already highly publicized in the press.
Also we exchanged draft memorandums, Russian and Ukrainian documents, showing what is the vision of the possible settlement of the dispute of the Ukrainian crisis. And they are very far away from each other. That’s the reality. But it’s only the start of the negotiation process and we bet on it.
We proposed in Istanbul during the last negotiations to establish three online working groups to work towards these issues that we enumerated in our memorandum. And we hope that the Ukrainian side will accept – at least we think that this is the only viable format right now to move towards peace. Everything else are speculations.
I know that there are a lot of parties, a lot of countries which are not happy even by the fact that the negotiations are ongoing. But when we organized the first round, we were also acting in line with the vision that President Trump expressed after he was elected, saying that there is a need for direct Russia-Ukraine negotiations. So it doesn’t contradict this line. And we don’t think that there are any reasons for the Trump administration to see it in a negative way.
It’s a long way. Nobody was expecting it to be solved quickly. And we also understand that there is a lot of pressure on President Trump and his administration. A lot of people who want to bring it back to the situation when the US was involved, when the US was spending money on Ukraine and when the US was buying weapons and all these things. There is a number of these politicians and countries who are now trying to undermine this process.
But we judge by deeds, by acts and not by words. So we will see what will come out of this. And we are ready to continue this negotiating track in Istanbul.
European Strategy and Sanctions Impact
PROF. GLENN DIESEN: Yeah. No, it seems as if many European governments’ strategy seems to be limited to getting the United States pulled back into effectively the Biden policies. But do you see this being a possibility?
I’m thinking of Trump making this 50-day comment that in 50 days this will be the limit to reach an agreement and announcing that new weapons will be sent and also imposing further sanctions. But given the amount of sanctions that have already been put on Russia and Russia’s diversification, are sanctions something that Russia’s worried about or is it not that extensive?
DMITRY POLYANSKIY: No, sanctions are not something that we are worried about. But in any case, I would leave this exact topic to the discretion of the two presidents because they are in touch and they have telephone conversations once every month. So I think that there is special chemistry there during these conversations.
And I wouldn’t dare comment on these things. I would rather let it to the presidential administration and to presidents themselves to give assessments of such statements.
Military and Political Developments on the Front Lines
PROF. GLENN DIESEN: No, that’s fair enough. I did want to ask though, more about how you see things on the front lines and both the military and the political aspect, because it’s very widely commented now that a lot of the front lines appear to be falling or cracking quicker now than in the past on the Ukrainian side, especially in the Pokrovsk region, Chasiv Yar, Kostiantynivka.
And at the same time, we see Zelensky coming under greater pressure, not just from societal elements, but also from other politicians or part of the political system in Ukraine as well.
Do you see things changing or unraveling or is this too strong of a language?
DMITRY POLYANSKIY: I think that things are changing, that the fronts from the Ukrainian side crumble, and that’s an ongoing process. You can read any military data about this and you will have the impression about the advancement of Russian troops at the front. It’s maybe not as quick as some people would imagine, but there are a lot of reasons for it, strategically, tactically, and also because of the fact that the character of today’s war has changed.
It’s no longer the war of tanks and artillery, it’s rather the war of drones. And it’s a bit different situation. I’m not a military person myself, so I wouldn’t dare speculate on this issue. But I trust my military command and I know that they are doing the best they can in order to save the lives of our soldiers and civilian population and at the same time to move forward and to advance the goals of our special military operation.
But there is also one more factor that you should take into account. And I tried to highlight the importance of this factor during today’s meeting of the Security Council, which was called by Western countries. The fact is that, to put it bluntly, the Ukrainians don’t want to fight because they really don’t see any need – the majority of the population doesn’t see any need to fight for Western geopolitical interests, to fight for this corrupt regime, which is absolutely not thinking about the interests of Ukraine.
And this is a trend. And this trend is reflected in the way the conscripts are being – potential conscripts are being captured in the streets in a very brutal way. And they are being brought to the front without their consent. And of course it affects very much the way they fight. And this is a very problematic issue for the whole of the society.
Internal Situation in Ukraine
And it’s hard to imagine how this situation can change given the fact that the Kyiv regime doesn’t offer any alternative. So it doesn’t engage in meaningful negotiations. It doesn’t acknowledge the necessity of respecting the right of Russian-speaking population. For example, it continues its propaganda campaign against Russia, which is no longer winning the hearts of the Ukrainians. This is quite clear.
So from this internal point of view, I think that the changes are also very important and things may develop very fast. Everything that Zelensky does, given his lack of popularity, given the fact that Ukrainians nowadays, they don’t have any opportunity to express themselves because there is no freedom of speech – any dissent, any criticism of Zelensky, any ideas of the need to stop fighting are being treated as Russian propaganda, as treason.
Today I also highlighted in the Security Council a letter which we all received, all members of the Security Council received several weeks ago from a number of political prisoners in Ukraine, quite well-known personalities which are now in prison. And they are speaking about thousands of political prisoners in Ukraine and there are no elections inside. So Ukrainians can’t change their leadership. They are absolutely hopeless in this regard.
This is a very important factor and I think that Western countries are starting to be aware of it very slowly. But still they need to take into consideration that the things that are happening within Ukraine are not corresponding to the picture that the West is trying to project of Ukraine elsewhere as a democratic, freedom-loving country respecting the rights of everybody, which is very much responding to the criteria for the membership of EU and NATO.
This is only a theoretical picture, but in practice things look absolutely differently and it’s very hard not to notice them. And that’s what I wanted to highlight during our meeting of the Security Council. And these things started to develop in this way long before the start of our special military operation. We can say that since the Maidan coup in 2014, these worrying trends are starting to gain momentum. But even before this, and this was done with the support of Western countries. So this is their project and they are now reaping what they have sowed.
PROF. GLENN DIESEN: Yeah, no one gets well from looking at the Ukrainian Telegram channels, one gets the impression, yeah, morale is dropping and there’s more criticism now towards Zelensky and his government. But you also see people like Yulia Tymoshenko criticizing the Europeans, especially Germany, for using Ukrainians as cannon fodder.
DMITRY POLYANSKIY: Sorry, I said, “sowing what they…” – reaping what they have sowed. Sorry, that’s the wrong way I put this expression here.
Changing Russia-Europe Relations
PROF. GLENN DIESEN: Well, it’s interesting. I was wondering how the relationship is changing now between Russia and Europe, because in the past in Russia they often considered the EU the “good Europe,” the “good West,” while NATO was the “bad West.” But these days, relations between Russia and Europe are going much worse, it seems, than with the Americans, especially Germany, which stands out.
And I just want to ask, what does this mean for any possible settlement in which Ukraine could possibly join the EU? Because in the past it didn’t seem like Russia cared much. But after the EU has become more anti-Russian, people like Dmitry Medvedev argued that the EU also would be considered too anti-Russian to be a possibility for Ukrainian membership.
DMITRY POLYANSKIY: I don’t think it’s the question that is now top on the agenda of whether and how and when Ukraine might become a member of the EU. But I need to observe one thing that the EU has changed very much during all these years and the EU has become very much militarized.
So one thing is when we were speaking about an economic and political block which didn’t have a serious military component, and by this it was distinguished from NATO. But what we see right now is that there is no big difference between the EU and NATO. The countries start to militarize, they’re speaking about a distinct military face of the EU and EU forces, EU army, all these things, which brings them closer to NATO, in fact.
And the degree of Russophobia is more or less the same. And the countries are also more or less the same. So we of course will bear this factor in mind in the future. And this is a big strategic mistake by Europe that it is strategically planning something, some defense system which would be against Russia, because the only feasible option would be to build a security system that would embrace Russia, encompass Russia, that would share the responsibility and interests both of Russia and European states.
Europe’s Strategic Mistake
And this was possible, and this still remains possible. But the logic now has changed a lot to the fact that Russia is being portrayed as an enemy to Europe, to NATO, to the EU. And it’s very disappointing that the younger generations of Europeans are now being brought up in this hysterical atmosphere of Russophobia, of Russia being portrayed as an enemy.
This doesn’t seem good for the future, of course, and these trends need to be stopped. And I think it’s a responsibility of the public opinion in Europe to stop and see where the things are going and to analyze what are real risks and what are potential and what are imaginative risks for the European continent.
And I would say that everything that is related to Russia, Russian alleged plans of attacking NATO is of course not only hypothetical, but absolutely absurd. Because you will never find anything like this in our doctrine. We never wanted to do anything in Ukraine. And we made several attempts to highlight our preoccupations, our positions when we were not heard and when we were not left any choice, then we had to start our special military operation.
But we made every effort possible to avoid this kind of scenario. So this is a lesson that Europe of course has to learn and we hope that it will do it in the nearest future.
PROF. GLENN DIESEN: Just a quick last question on specifically Germany. It’s often commented now that it’s quite peculiar that Germany stands out now as seemingly prepared to take over the mantle in terms of this leadership in opposing Russia now that the US is pulling back. I was wondering if you can speak to this. What is the state of relations now between Russia and Germany?
Russia-Germany Relations: A Painful Transformation
DMITRY POLYANSKIY: There are virtually no relations now between Russia and Germany. I don’t know the details. Of course, we have embassy there and they have embassy in Moscow, but that’s it. There are no exchanges.
I don’t, frankly, recognize Germany right now. I spend a lot of time in this country. I have a lot of friends there, but I can’t recognize Germany. And it’s very disappointing because we have very troubled history, which we really succeeded in leaving behind.
Our generation, for example, was brought in total respect to Germany, and we didn’t see Germans as enemies, as maybe the generation of our grandfathers and grandmothers who had to fight Germany during the Second World War. So it seemed that the amends have been made. And German was, I think, one of the maybe second popular foreign language in my country after English.
But things have changed, and not because we changed these things, it’s because of Germany. All of a sudden we see this kind of blatant Russophobia. And it looks like most of the German politicians simply lost their minds, not to mention that they have forgot the lessons of history.
So it’s very hard and painful to comment on what Germany has become. I don’t know whether it will come to its senses or not. It’s up to German neighbors also to figure out what this kind of trend and what this kind of transformation may mean for Europe.
We have our own thoughts about this, but we will not be vocal about this at this stage. This is very worrying and very much depends on Germany and Europe. And when Germany is ill, then the whole Europe is ill, I think, and Germany and France together, especially when they are both ill, then I think everybody else has to follow suit.
So I don’t know, maybe we will come to certain moment when these two countries will come to their senses and when we will be speaking about something positive and something constructive. And maybe they will understand of how many mistakes and errors were made in our relations during last years. And maybe they will make a genuine effort to rectify these mistakes. That would be something that Russia would only welcome.
PROF. GLENN DIESEN: Well, I know you’re busy running in and out of Security Council meetings, so I appreciate taking the time. So thanks again.
DMITRY POLYANSKIY: Thank you.
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