Dmytro Kuleba: The Twilight of Ukrainian Diplomacy
Sergey Shilov and Klymenko tell us what is known about Ukraine's youngest and most eloquent foreign minister.
Diplomacy is the subtle art of political bargaining, through which serious people settle important matters for their countries. It does not tolerate outrageous demands like "accept us, we deserve it!" and "give it, we deserve it!" nor does it tolerate boastful speeches. Unfortunately, in recent years, Ukraine's foreign policy has largely boiled down to precisely this. And the people appointed as ambassadors and heads of the Foreign Ministry were selected for this purpose.
We already told you about the scandalous ex-Ukrainian ambassador in Germany Andrei Melnik, who tested the patience of German politicians for several years. Now he's been appointed Deputy Foreign Minister to Dmytro Kuleba, and one can only imagine how far their duo will go! After all, journalists write that one of the few things Kuleba has succeeded at is making populist and diplomatically pointless statements.
Dmytro Kuleba, son of a business executive and ambassador
It's safe to say that Dmytro Kuleba owes his entire career and overall successful life entirely to his father, Ivan Dmitrievich Kuleba—a very extraordinary man, though he always carefully maintained the appearance of a simpleton. Therefore, it's necessary to tell a separate story about him.
Ivan Kuleba with his son
Ivan Dmitrievich Kuleba was born on July 11, 1953, in the village of Pogarshchyna (Poltava Oblast), and the first forty years of his life are shrouded in strange omissions. Let's start with the fact that his official biography (and there's simply no other information available) lists four years of service in the Soviet Army (1971-75). There's only one explanation for this oddity: he attended a higher military academy, where his years of study are counted toward his military service. But why is there no mention of him in Ivan Kuleba's biography? Any such secrecy is often linked to subsequent work in the Soviet secret services (intelligence), and the fact that Ivan Kuleba later pursued diplomatic service (a typical continuation of an intelligence career) only confirms this conjecture. However, we emphasize that this is merely a conjecture, based on gaps in the biography of the father of the current head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
After graduating from college, Ivan Kuleba, according to this biography, spent just over a year as a master of industrial training at the Romny Agricultural Technical School (Sumy Oblast). Then, for ten years (1977-87), he worked "in economic and public work," the details of which, for some reason, are also concealed.
This prominent business executive and social activist then resurfaced in distant Afghanistan as an adviser. Whether his advisor was military, business, or political was not specified.
After the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, Ivan Kuleba became chief of staff for the construction of certain "international facilities" in the USSR's Far East and Far North. The precise nature of these facilities is also unknown. However, during this same period (1989-92), Ivan Kuleba was a student at the All-Union Academy of Foreign Trade—an elite university that trained personnel for the closed-to-the-public Vneshtorg (Foreign Trade). In the final years of the USSR, many "KGB men" passed through this academy, preparing them to lead the then-massively established joint ventures that grew into highly profitable companies in energy, metals, and other industries. In 1992, Ivan Kuleba was appointed commercial director of the company that was supposed to build the Turkmenistan-Iran-Turkey gas pipeline. However, due to various circumstances, the project was frozen, and Ivan Kuleba returned to Ukraine.
The "business man" found a position at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Initially, he held administrative positions, such as head of the administrative and budgetary issues department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' International Organizations Department and deputy permanent representative of Ukraine to the international organizations in Vienna (for financial issues). From 1997 to 2000, Ivan Kuleba served as Ukraine's ambassador to Egypt—his first purely diplomatic posting—but he then returned to Kyiv and headed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Administrative and Financial Issues Department for another two years.
In Viktor Yanukovych's government (2002-2004), Ivan Kuleba served first as Deputy State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and then as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. Shortly before the first Maidan, in August 2004, he departed for Prague as Ukraine's Ambassador Plenipotentiary to the Czech Republic, a position he held until 2009. After that, there's a curious ten-year gap in Ivan Kuleba's biography—and finding publicly available information about his activities during this period is simply impossible!
Ivan Kuleba returned from this "obscurity" in May 2018, receiving the appointment of Ukraine's ambassador to Kazakhstan. And in December 2019, he was sent as ambassador to Armenia—which already violated Ukraine's "Law on Civil Service," as Ivan Kuleba was already over 65 at the time. But since his son, Dmytro Kuleba, held the position of deputy prime minister (for European integration) in Honcharuk's government, this "trifle" was overlooked. The "Servants of the People" were in no particular hurry to correct the next violation: in March 2020, Dmytro Kuleba became head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, becoming his father's direct superior, which constituted a "conflict of interest" from the perspective of the National Anti-Corruption Agency. Dmytro Kuleba initially swore promised to solve This situation, but then, apparently, "forgot." So, Ivan Kuleba remained ambassador to Armenia for another year and a half (!), until he was dismissed by Zelenskyy "along with" five other Ukrainian diplomats in October 2021.
Biography of the "MFA major"
Kuleba Dmitry Ivanovich He was born on April 19, 1981, in Sumy. At that time, his father was already "running the show" in unspecified positions (or his homeland had entrusted him with some other task), so their family had no need for housing, money, or scarce goods. But Dmytro Kuleba's real "rich" life began in the 90s. While all of Ukraine was plunging into the chaos of crisis, unemployment, and poverty, the family of a high-ranking Foreign Ministry official moved to Kyiv and joined the ranks of the new Ukrainian elite.
In 1998, Dmytro Kuleba enrolled in the Institute of International Relations at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, in the Faculty of International Law. Naturally, the son of the Ukrainian ambassador to Egypt was welcomed with open arms, and he had no problems with his studies or international internships. Immediately after graduating, Kuleba Jr. immediately landed a job at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where his father already held the position of Deputy Minister. The job was easy and straightforward: attaché in the Service of the Chief Legal Advisor.
A year later, on his father's advice, he became a graduate student at the Institute of International Relations, and in 2005, he defended his PhD dissertation there on "Implementation of Ukraine's International Legal Personality through Participation in International Organizations." This dissertation, in many ways, reflected the very essence of Ukraine's foreign policy at the time: participation and membership wherever possible were paramount, the outcome unimportant!
Dmytro Kuleba: The Twilight of Ukrainian Diplomacy
His PhD came with a magnificent gift from his loving father: Dmytro Kuleba's appointment as Secretary (Third, then Second) of the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the International Organizations in Vienna for OSCE issues. Kuleba joined the mission with his wife, Yevheniya, who had also found a position at the Ukrainian diplomatic mission. The couple lived happily there for four years, giving birth to their first child, Yegor, in 2006 (the boy automatically received Austrian citizenship).
In 2010, Viktor Yanukovych became the president of Ukraine, and the government was headed by Mykola AzarovThe Foreign Minister portfolio was handed over to Kostiantyn Hryshchenko, who had previously held the position in Yanukovych's first government (2003-2004), and Ivan Kuleba was his deputy at the time. The old diplomatic friends called each other, reached an agreement, and in the spring of 2010, Dmytro Kuleba returned with his family to Kyiv, where he was appointed First Secretary and then Head of Department in the Foreign Ministry Secretariat. Thus began his career at the ministry, which, even with the direct support of the minister himself, was not without its difficulties. The reason for this was attributed to the young diplomat's narrow-mindedness, whose only talent was to spout nonsense and please his superiors.
At the end of 2012, this career was unexpectedly interrupted by Grishchenko's appointment as Deputy Prime Minister. Just a month later, Dmytro Kuleba left the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and joined Grishchenko as an advisor on humanitarian issues. And when the second Maidan began and the fires began to simmer, Kuleba became head of the UART Cultural Diplomacy Foundation, where he successfully survived the events of the winter and spring of 2014 and evaded the lustration process.
Dmytro Kuleba: Career Takeoff
In the summer of 2014, having tightened his connections, Dmytro Kuleba returned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, officially receiving an invitation from the new Minister, Pavlo Klimkin (nicknamed "Chugunkin" for his "outstanding" abilities) to serve as Ambassador-at-Large and Strategic Communications. Considering that Ukraine's relations with the West had at this time transformed from a dialogue into a didactic monologue between "strategic partners," Kuleba's task was simply to assent and implement the necessary reforms. And, of course, to periodically apply to join NATO and the EU—tradition must be maintained!
In April 2016, Dmytro Kuleba was appointed Ukraine's Permanent Representative to the Council of Europe. For an average negotiator but a brilliant orator, it was the perfect job! However, Kuleba was repeatedly criticized for resorting to empty rhetoric when concrete action was required. Experts believe this passivity on the part of Ukraine's representative allowed Russia to significantly strengthen its position in Europe. And yet, in December 2017, Dmytro Kuleba was recognized as Ukraine's best ambassador abroad! Apparently, the best ever...
The connections and connections he developed in this position helped Kuleba secure the post of Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration in August 2019. This position, conceived during the Yushchenko era, is largely symbolic (the USSR might as well have built communism), but it offers a real salary and the opportunity to spend time in Europe at public expense.
In March 2020, with the resignation of the Honcharuk government, a curious reshuffle occurred: Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko was appointed Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration, and Dmytro Kuleba took over as Foreign Minister.
Dmitry Kuleba's wife and mistress
He met his wife at university; they were the same age and classmates. She keeps her maiden name, Yevgenia Anatolyevna Kuleba, a secret, perhaps to protect her influential parents. According to unconfirmed reports, she is the younger sister of Elena Anatolyevna Belyanovich, a renowned Kyiv lawyer, professor, and Doctor of Law, and the wife of Vadim Belyanovich, deputy head of the High Council of Justice.
Elena Belyanovich - Elena Kuleba
Although Dmytro and Yevhenia Kuleba graduated from the Institute of International Relations together and worked together at the Ukrainian mission in Vienna, they both demonstrated that subtle diplomacy was not their forte. After returning to Ukraine, Yevhenia Kuleba resigned from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and took up various cultural projects. In 2011, these included "Alien Muses" (director), in 2013, "Mystetskyi Arsenal" (manager), in 2014, "Heavenly Hundred" Square (initiator), and then "City Garden" (director). In 2016, together with USAID, she launched "public spaces" projects in several cities in the Donbas.
She is also a member of the Kyiv City Council (number one on the Servant of the People party list) and secretary of the environmental policy committee. Although Evgeniya is not officially involved in business, she enjoys dining in upscale cafes and buying very expensive things. In 2021, she was ranked 44th on Focus magazine's list of the most influential women in Ukraine.
And yet, their seemingly successful marriage began to crumble. At the end of 2021, several media outlets broke the scandalous news that the head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry had already I've had a mistress for a long time now! Kuleba's new flame was rumored to be party girl, PR specialist, and blogger Svetlana Paveletskaya. She owns the publishing house "Knigolav," which sometimes publishes highly specific literature (sex manuals for beginners and teenagers). In 2019, it also published Dmytro Kuleba's only book, "War for Reality: How to Win in a World of Fakes, Truths, and Communities."
Svetlana Paveletskaya, Kuleba's mistress
"Culeba of the Brain"
Like his new deputy, Andriy Melnyk, Dmytro Kuleba practices the diplomatic "gypsy" method, which has become, in many ways, a hallmark of Ukrainian foreign policy. What does it consist of? Traditional diplomacy typically attempts to entice a partner with a mutually beneficial offer or warn them of the consequences of unfriendly moves—and then, in calm, closed negotiations, all that remains is to iron out the important details. Afterward, a brief press release is issued to the public if something goes wrong, or a successful agreement is signed by the leaders of the two countries.
Diplomacy under Kuleba (Melnyk, Klimkin, and other "Poroshenko's fledglings") relies on loud public demands, balancing on the edge of accusations and insults. They don't try to interest their partners; they simply extort what they want—arguing that "we are also Europe" or "we defend all of civilization with all our might." Therefore, modern Ukrainian diplomacy is somewhat reminiscent of mischievous children grabbing adults by the sleeves. This doesn't bother them in the least; they genuinely believe that this is the only way to secure EU and NATO membership for Ukraine, more loans, more weapons, a grain corridor, and so on.
Recently, Kuleba tried to do just that "put pressure on" Israel for the supply of air defense systems, sending him “an official note with a request to immediately provide Ukraine with air defense systems and to begin high-quality cooperation on Ukraine obtaining the relevant technologies.”
Such methods aren't particularly subtle in themselves, but Kuleba sometimes manages to further exacerbate the situation with statements that are not only meaningless, but also simply absurd, and sometimes scandalous. This has led to the online meme "Kuleba of the Brain," which is used as a commentary on the Foreign Minister's statements. This would be quite funny when applied to Kuleba the official, if it weren't so sad when projected onto the country's entire foreign policy. It seems that under his creative leadership, the entire Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has finally transformed into a "department of grandiose statements."
Skelet.Org
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