Updated July 28, 2026 at 3:35 PM CDT
KYIV — When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, Sergiy Kyslytsya was in New York serving as Ukraine's ambassador to the United Nations.
That day, Kyslytsya leaned into his microphone at the U.N. and looked straight at his Russian counterpart Vasily Nebenzya. Kyslytsya did not hold back.
"There is no purgatory for war criminals," he said. "They go straight to hell, ambassador."
Russia's invasion severed diplomatic relations between Kyiv and Moscow. That made Kyslytsya's posting at the U.N. a particularly unique one: the only place where a Ukrainian diplomat engaged directly with his Russian counterpart.
"My fellow ambassadors in all capitals around the world would not talk to them," Kyslytsya says. "So by the time I was part of our negotiating team (for peace talks), I already knew how to control my feelings and attitude."
Official negotiations mediated by the U.S. have stalled since early this year as the Trump administration has focused on the U.S. war on Iran. Yet Ukraine continues to talk with American and, occasionally, Russian envoys, says Kyslytsya, who has been a key member of Ukraine's negotiations team since 2025.
"Dialogue," he says, "is active and ongoing."
NPR spoke to Kyslytsya, who also serves as the first deputy head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office, inside the well-guarded presidential compound in Kyiv. His office is decorated with wartime artwork and shelves of history and current-affairs books, including one by Jared Kushner. Standing guard is DeZi, Kyslytsya's 13-year-old Jack Russell terrier.
In a wide-ranging conversation, Kyslytsa reaffirmed Kyiv's current position on stopping the war: freeze the fighting along the current frontline.
"Of course, that does not entail illegal or de facto recognition of the territories occupied by the Russians as Russian territories," he says.
The Kremlin, he says, continues to make unrealistic demands. He points to the "3+2" proposal, also known as the "Anchorage formula," which Russian officials have described as a U.S.-backed diplomatic framework that emerged from an August 2025 summit in Alaska between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Under this proposal, Russia is seeking recognition of its claims over five Ukrainian regions—three that it fully occupies and two that it partially occupies. U.S Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this proposal had failed because Ukraine rejected it, and that he wants a deal acceptable to both sides.
"The Russians are obsessed, and Putin is obsessed with taking full control of the Donetsk region, the 15 to 20 percent that's not occupied," he says. "And (the Russians) have been feeding the Americans with the line that in two or three months, they will take full control."
Even when it's clear, he says, that this is no longer solely a war of infantry and artillery.
"It is a war of the 21st century," he says. "And we have the upper hand."
Ukraine's long-range drones are repeatedly hitting Russian oil and gas facilities, causing fuel shortages, and weakening the Kremlin's ability to wage war. Kyslytsya argues the Russian army is no longer making meaningful advances on the battlefield.
"And that has become very apparent not only to Ukrainians but also to our partners and to the United States," he says.
President Trump praised Ukrainian troops at the NATO summit in Ankara last month.
In June, Zelenskyy wrote a pointed open letter to Putin proposing face-to-face talks between the two men.
"In Russia, this war is a decision of just one person," Kyslytsya said. "In Russia, this war can be stopped at any given time by just one person."
Kyslytsya says he believes it's likely such a meeting could happen even later this year and yield in a "major breakthrough."
Last month, Putin said he saw no point in such a meeting. But if the war continues on its current trajectory, Kyslytsa says that could change.
"Because, see, if we keep doing what we do, with long-range strikes, sooner or later, the Russian leader would have only one choice: to sit down and discuss how to stop this war."
He says he believes even Putin has realized that Ukraine now has all the cards.
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