Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that he left the country and went to Poland after the government decided in Kiev to ban former diplomats from traveling abroad. He admitted this in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
“I never thought that I would have to flee my country like a thief in the night“, Kuleba said. According to him, the decree of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky refers to former diplomats and is not related to restrictions for men of draft age.
The former minister believes that the ban is directed personally against him and a number of other diplomats.
“The truth is that Zelensky and his entourage do not want us to travel abroad and say things that, in their opinion, may contradict the government line“, he noted. At the same time, Kuleba emphasized that he usually defends Kiev's position in foreign statements.
The former foreign minister also stated that the Soviet mentality is preserved in Ukrainian “palace circles“: if a citizen travels freely abroad, he may automatically be perceived as a potential “agent“.
Later, Kuleba's press service clarified in a comment to Hromadske that the interview had been misinterpreted. According to his representatives, the politician traveled to Poland in transit to participate in a conference in South Korea, and plans to return to Ukraine on September 20.
Kuleba headed the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry from 2020 to 2024. After his resignation, he became a senior fellow at the Center for International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In November, the former Ukrainian foreign minister said that the country currently has no opportunity to turn the tide of hostilities. If this continues, it will lose the current conflict.