I would not want us to approach a meeting of the three leaders – Ukraine, the United States, and Russia – having lifted all sanctions on the Russian Federation. This is an important point. Sanctions were imposed for aggression, not for an opportunity to have a chat. So if we say that this is the end of the war, there is a certain order for lifting sanctions. I told the American delegation this because I have had this feeling for quite a long time: when we talk about Russia’s loyalty, we should not buy it at such a price. Because without sanctions, we could find ourselves in a trilateral dialogue where we still do not know what will happen next, but the sanctions have already been lifted. And who will have the strength we had at the beginning of the war to impose all those sanctions again? To bring people together in such a way that we could secure more than 20 sanctions packages around the world. That is why I am very cautious about this.

I do not want us to find ourselves at a meeting with Putin without tools – without sanctions, without money, or without frozen assets. Because then, as Mr. Trump said, we really would not have too many cards in our deck.

From an interview with Alla Mazur for TSN Week on 1+1, as part of the United News telethon. (3/5)