How Olha Stefanishyna pushed Ukraine into a disadvantageous deal with the US? Why Kyiv should not lose Serhiy Kuznetsovʼs case? Where to get the money for 2027? An interview with former negotiator Mykola Yurlov

Donald Trumpʼs latest statements have finally convinced Ukrainians that the United States is now a bad ally in the war with Russia. Many began to recall the resource agreement that Ukraine signed with the United States in 2025 and wonder whether we will have to give up Ukrainian minerals to a country that is pushing us to surrender. You were involved in the negotiation process. What is the legal status of this agreement now? What are our obligations?

I wouldnʼt draw long-term conclusions about relations with the United States based on Trumpʼs latest statements — similar statements have been made before. Especially since the US is about to hold elections, and no one knows yet whether Trump will become a lame duck or whether nothing fundamentally changes as a result of these elections.

Now about the agreement. It is not only and not so much about Trump. I cannot say that the version that was eventually signed is a unconscionable one.

The version that was offered to us from the very beginning was unconscionable — where our debt to the United States was supposedly $350-500 billion (which was untrue) and where we were giving away all the resources without control over them.

We managed to get all of that removed. That is why I do not believe that breaking this agreement will benefit Ukraine now. The key question is actually how this agreement is being implemented. There is not enough transparency in this matter — we do not see public reports.

From both sides?

Yes, from both sides, but primarily from the Ukrainian side.

The government, which is responsible for implementing the agreement, should talk more about its benefits. From what I know, implementation has begun, and the first deposit development projects had already started. Beyond that, the information is restricted.

Who is responsible for implementation?

As far as I understand, this is the Ministry of Economy. The key thing in this agreement is a joint fund (Reconstruction Investment Fund), which is replenished through the monetization of natural resources. But the target area of this fund is reconstruction in Ukraine.

There is fair criticism that part of the agreement is with limited access, but this is global practice when it comes to international agreements related to military, intelligence, and defense topics.

Is the fund being formed?

As far as I know, yes. But we donʼt know what stage it is at now, because there is no such information publicly.

Recently, in an interview, you said that former Justice Minister Olha Stefanishyna demanded that you sign a legal opinion that the agreement did not require ratification. You called that demand illegal. Why? I will clarify right away that we are talking about February 2025, before the presidentsʼ quarrel in the Oval Office.

The issue was not just that the agreement was subject to ratification. Let me start from the beginning. The United States itself did not have a clear vision of what it meant by the term "agreement". Because of this, we had five changes in the American negotiating delegation.

First it was [Scott] Bessent, then [J.D.] Vance, then [Keith] Kellogg, then [Howard] Lutnick, and then Bessent again. And so on for several weeks. It reached absolute insanity: once we agreed on one text, we sent all the amendments to it, and in the morning we have a call from another negotiator who says: "Forget everything you agreed with my predecessor. Now I demand that you recognize $500 billion in debt."

Who said that?

Many [people] said that. But this particular case was in February 2025.

We agreed on a preliminary version with Kellogg and sent it late at night, and the next day we got a call from Lutnick: “Forget all this. You now have to accept the transaction of love” (a very strange notion on his part). He spoke to us condescendingly and on the online call held the phone looking down at us, as if to say that we didn’t understand anything.

At what stage did Stefanishyna demand the legal opinion from you?

That very evening. We had a small task force that was assembled under the leadership of the Presidentʼs Office. There were representatives of the Office of the President, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Economy. We invited several external consultants, lawyers, and investment bankers who gave us expertise on the wording.

We were all in the situation room in the Presidentʼs Office. And then this contemptuous call from Lutnick ends — everyone sits in the dead silence. It was the most difficult moment in my life, because I did not understand how we could get a stab in the back from from the Americans, whom I still consider important partners. At that very moment, Ms. Stefanishyna says: "Well, colleagues, a good deal, letʼs sign it."

I still donʼt understand why she said that — whether she didnʼt understand what happened, or it was malicious intent.

But speaking generally, during my time working with Ms. Stefanishyna, I became convinced that she did not understand the processes. She liquidated the department of international law in the Ministry of Justice. I was the deputy director of this department, and Zakhar Tropin was the director. We had five devisions, 70 lawyers.

In an interview, Stefanishyna said that you couldnʼt cope with the bureaucracy... In your opinion, why did she liquidate the department?

The department was liquidated only to get rid of Zakhar Tropin and me — we did not agree to sign the illegal document on ratification. We wrote a critical review with all the arguments why that agreement could not be signed with those wordings, and showed it to the state leadership. Ms. Stefanishyna found out that this legal opinion had reached the president.

After that, she began to react very aggressively to the then Deputy Minister of Justice Inna Bohatykh, stating that we had too much democracy in the Ministry of Justice. So at the first opportunity, she fired Bohatykh, liquidated the department, and got rid of Zakhar Tropin and me through downsizing.

She did the same with the Sanctions Policy Directorate, which was headed by Maksym Pastushok at that time. This Directorate dealt with the sanctioned Russian assets located in Ukraine. From that moment on, efficiency in this area fell.

Why was it so important whether the agreement was subject to ratification or not?

Because according to the Constitution, the land, subsoil, and natural resources are the property of the Ukrainian people. So when we say that 50% of all revenues from subsoil go to some international fund, the government cannot make such a decision on its own.

Only the parliament, which together with the president represents the Ukrainians, can do this.

In the end, parliament did ratify the agreement.

That was a different version of the agreement, which I had nothing to do with because I had been fired from the Ministry of Justice.

In September, you left both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the civil service in general. Why? Is this related to the investigation into the case of Iryna Mudra, with whom you worked?

No, itʼs not related. I wanted to resign since the end of last year. The reason is that the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not fulfill the agreements.

When I resigned from the Ministry of Justice, Minister Andriy Sybiha invited me to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the position of ambassador at large. Then, for a year, I was fed promises that "the reorganization will take place now, and we will definitely appoint you". For this period, I was supposedly temporarily appointed as an advisor to the Department of International Law. Anyway, “an advisor” is not “an advisor to the minister”, itʼs an analogue of a chief specialist in the ministry.

In this status, I could not fully work on issues of Russian assets, because I was perceived as an advisor, over whom there were four other people. I did not have the necessary mandate to conduct negotiations.

On foreign business trips, I could conduct negotiations only when Ms. Iryna was nearby, who had the appropriate status. And when I told the ministry leadership about this, I heard: "We do not want you to deal with assets."

Why?

Because when a certain track of work falls on you as the Foreign Ministry, you can be held accountable for it

Does Sybiha believe that Russian assets are an unpromising story now?

The leadership believed so, I do not believe so. I believe that this is the most important and critical story, which all this time has been conducted mostly by the forces of our civil society and individual diplomats and advocates in Brussels, Washington and other capitals, and not at the systemic level by Ukrainian diplomacy.

For example, an interdepartmental working group was created at the Cabinet Secretariat to formally work on Russian assets. Its last meeting was in February of this year. And at this meeting, they discussed ttalking points on the reparations loan, which lost its relevance in December 2025.

So, answering your question about why I resigned, because after all this I was told: "The minister changed his mind. In general, no one will appoint you to this position, because you were not an ambassador."

Last year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs created a new Sanctions Policy Directorate, and I was offered to move there. At the beginning of this year, the minister agreed that this department would have a unit that would work on Russian assets.

Another half a year has passed, and the unit has not been created. I ask the leadership about this. They tell me: "Wait." And these are not all the problems that I have seen in our ministry. I wrote my resignation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs before the events with Iryna, and submitted it after.

Did the investigation about Mudra affect the international tracks you were running together?

They all stopped completely. After these events, I met with the State Secretary of the Foreign Ministry and told him that we urgently need to find someone to replace her. He said: “Well, we — as lawyers — have already done everything. The agreements have been signed.”

When I said that signing is not enough, there is still work to be done to get the countries to ratify these agreements, they said to me: “Let the parliamentarians do it.”

Back in the summer, there was a discussion about a new position in the Cabinet of Ministers for a person who would oversee the issue of Russian assets. You were a candidate for this position. Why didnʼt anything happen?

After the offer was made, no one got back to me

As far as I understand, after work on all areas of Russian international accountability stopped, you believe that such a person is needed in the Cabinet of Ministers, and that this person should oversee the entire area, not just the assets.

I believe that experts, civil society, and everyone who cares about the track of international accountability should find the right candidate and propose it to the Prime Minister.

Why should this position be in the government? Mudra was in the Office of the President.

In my experience, no single ministry can handle this. Ideally, it should be the Deputy Prime Minister for International Accountability. Whether this is appropriate now is an open question.

Even a government commissioner for international accountability, Russian assets, with the appropriate mandate from the state leadership and with support from the Office of the President, would be more effective.

He [or she] would not be tied to the specifics of each individual ministry and would have cross-cutting powers. This person could coordinate the entire policy of holding the aggressor accountable, which concerns the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the part where it investigates war crimes.

Currently, there is no such stakeholder anywhere. And I will say right away that I am not seeking this position, because I am not considering returning to the state civil service in the near future.

Do you already have candidates for this position?

So far, those I have spoken to and suggested considering this option have refused. The reason is that the demonization of the public service has reached a critical level. Even at the Ministry of Justice , when I was looking for a person to head the international arbitration unit, I went around the entire legal market twice, probably two or three dozen of people told me: “No, I don’t want to be accused of stealing public funds later, even if I’m not stealing anything.”

There are candidates, but itʼs too early to name them.

Letʼs talk about the tracks that, according to you, have stopped. Iʼll start with the Special Tribunal. The agreement on its creation was signed back in June 2025, and in May 2026, 36 countries created a Management Committee. The EU allocated €10 million for the work of the advanced team. Who is on this committee, who represents Ukraine?

I would divide this issue into two. The Management Committee is not yet operational because the agreement on its creation has to be ratified by the countries. Right now we have zero ratifications.

Hasnʼt Ukraine ratified it either?

No. The draft law is in the development stage.

Then about the advanced team. Who is in it, and what is it doing now?

The Council of Europe itself recruited the team.

When we said that there should be a representative from Ukraine, they said: “No, we will do it ourselves.”

But in general, their job is to prepare the host country agreement [for the Tribunal], which the tribunal should conclude with the Netherlands.

There is another key question regarding the Special Tribunal. The agreement establishing it must also be ratified by states, at least some of them. How many countries have already ratified it?

As far as I know, no state has completed its domestic procedures for one simple reason — the tribunalʼs budget has not yet been agreed. This is the most critical problem.

Who should approve the budget?

First and foremost, the Netherlands, which will host the Special Tribunal. They are setting certain requirements that they need for this.

First of all, these are security requirements. Because of this, the budget still remains prohibitively high. There are hundreds of millions of euros.

So now we need to negotiate with them to reduce the budget, but there is no one to do it?

First of all, this is a political issue. We offered the Netherlands to provide them with our security expertise. Because no other country in the world knows so much about Russian threats.

There are three groups of issues that need to be ensured: physical protection of the facility itself from attacks and intrusions; digital protection; and counterintelligence protection (so that Russian agents do not get into the tribunal or their current employees are not recruited by the Russians).

We were ready to provide expertise on each group, but the Netherlands refused. The second most expensive item is infrastructure. For a full-fledged tribunal, they almost demand that a bunker be built.

Thereʼs no building with a bunker there?

Our embassy there worked with them daily — at least until I left — and demanded that they approve the existing buildings and that they be retrofitted to meet all security needs.

Their key question is “if we detain someone, where do we keep them?”

Use the ICC Detention Centre in The Hague? It was also designed for high-ranking officials.

They consider it insufficiently protected. Additionally, the American sanctions imposed on ICC do not help with this argument.

One of the options we offered them at the time of the last interaction: letʼs say the place of detention will be on the territory of a third country.

For example, Ukraine?

Yes, for example, Ukraine.

Although, now many European countries have refused extradition to Ukraine for security reasons, saying that our lives are at great risk due to the war. Actually, Ukraine has built prisons with shelters to address this issue, but...

Why do I constantly emphasize the need for a figure at the political level who would be responsible for this direction? Because the Netherlands and our other partners think something like this: if this issue is important to you, then where is the person at the highest political level who leads this direction?

There was a previous one. They knew her. She constantly traveled, spoke tough, and wrested these difficult compromises on the tribunal. I was outraged by Sevgil Musayevaʼs statement that allegedly Ms. Iryna only talked about the tribunal, and all the work was done by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

What was it like in reality? When I started being responsible for this track in April 2024, I came to one Core group meeting, and the second, then — the third, and nothing happened.

There was a G7 position and there was a “Hardcore group” position (as we called it). This is Ukraine and a group of states that demanded the lifting of immunities from the "troika".

Thatʼs it, there was no movement, everyone stood their ground. It ended with the Dutch representative standing up and saying that if this continues, it all makes no sense. I came back and said that something needs to be done.

After that, Iryna went to the next meeting in Vienna in September 2024 and began to defend our position very strongly. Only after that did the Americans and Germans come to us with a compromise proposal.

The one where we were allowed to investigate the troika but not try them?

Yes. Not to mention the compensation mechanism, because from the very beginning it was the idea of Markiyan Kliuchkovskyi and Mudra. They implemented it.

So when respected journalists say that this is just about communication...

I will return to the topic of the Special Tribunal. The Americans have imposed new sanctions against the International Criminal Court. The Russians are demanding the arrest of the ICC President. To what extent can everything that is happening around the International Criminal Court affect the fate of the Special Tribunal?

This is a critical situation for international justice. We have spoken directly with the Americans here, in The Hague, in Washington and New York, and have been looking for solutions that could prevent such a scenario.

ICC is not about Israel and Palestine, and not about Russia and Ukraine.

ICC is a universal instrument that, with proper support, could actually improve global security around the world. But… They made this decision because they have fundamentally changed their foreign policy.

This year, we held our first competition to select a candidate for an ICC judge — Supreme Court judge Lev Kyshakevych. But in the end, the ICC Advisory Committee on Nominations of Judges found that he did not meet the requirements due to his English level, which significantly reduced his chances of winning the competition. How did this happen?

There are two different categories in the competition — judges and lawyers (roughly speaking).

Of all the candidates who made it to the Commissionʼs conditional shortlist, the most distinguished were the following: in the judges category — Kyshakevych; in the lawyers category — [Oksana] Senatorova.

During the interview, they spoke in Ukrainian, and Kyshakevych made a good impression on the Commission. The Commission did not test his English separately, because the Ministry of Foreign Affairs provided a certificate that he speaks English at a sufficient level.

Accordingly, I have no questions for the Commission. It was certainly not their job to test his knowledge of the English language. This is not the task of the Commission members.

This was the responsibility of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whose Diplomatic Academy provided such a certificate.

Letʼs talk about money. At the end of 2025, there was a story with a reparations loan that you and your team came up with to attract €140 billion for Ukraine. Then this idea failed at the last moment. Belgium and several other countries were against it first of all. As a compromise to close the hole in the budget for 2026, in the spring we managed to agree on a €90 billion loan for two years. The first tranche came only in the summer, and this ultimately had a bad effect on the situation on the front. Have we returned to discussing the transfer of frozen Russian assets to Ukraine?

Yes, we have a proposal that we formulated last year. Russian frozen assets are currently in correspondent banks around the world under the management of “Euroclear”. This money yields almost no profit — somewhere around one or two percent per year.

In Japan, $30 billion earns nothing at all due to the peculiarities of the countryʼs financial and economic system.

As for the money that works, in 2024 we received the so-called ERA Loans (Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration Loans) repeaid from the interest — €50 billion. This loan supported us all of 2025 and part of 2026. Repayment is backed by the that interest, that is, somewhere up to €4 billion per year, but it could be much more.

There is an example of the Norwegian fund, which showed a profitability of 15 percent due to long-term investments. This is not very relevant for “Euroclear” money, but 6–8% is entirely realistic.

That is, instead of €2-4 billion per year, we could receive up to €12 billion. We cannot use this money due to the lack of political will in both the West and Ukraine, because they are not dealing with this issue here at the moment.

How much money can we get from this? Will we have enough?

If we are talking about €210 billion that is held in “Euroclear” and which currently yields €2.1–4.2 billion per year, then by increasing the rate to 7%, we will be talking about €14.7 billion per year.

Mykola Yurlov proposes a scheme under which Ukraine could receive a loan of up to €200 billion backed by frozen Russian assets.

Діма Вага / «Бабель»

Діма Вага / «Бабель»

It turns out that of these funds, €4.2 billion goes to cover ERA loans, and about €10 billion remains. This does not cover our needs.

Yes, but at the expense of this you can get a new ERA.

One of the versions that is being considered now, if this scheme is implemented, is ERA 2.0. That is, we were given €50 billion at the expense of previous interest, and here we can talk about an amount four times larger.

When we talk about Russian assets, we cannot help but touch on the Serhiy Kuznetsov case, whom Germany accuses of the blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines. The situation is complicated. Another Ukrainian was detained in Croatia at the request of Germany, and now they are demanding his extradition. There are fears that if Kuznetsov is convicted, the Russians will try to use this to get compensation for the "Streams". The frozen assets could be just that compensation.

It is important to understand that any verdict or political pressure in this case can be used against us by Russia and some partners in talks about assets and compensation.

Such risks must be calculated in advance, which is why we need a person with a mandate who sees the whole picture and prepares a legal and political response in advance, rather than reacting after the fact.

Finally, about the compensation mechanism. We have the Register of Damage. Now, as a lawyer, you will help businesses file claims applications to the register. But the register is only the first stage. The next stage is the International Claims Commission for Ukraine. The agreement on its creation was signed by 41 countries, and now — for it to start working — 25 ratifications are needed. How many are there today?

Along with ratifications, another 50% of the budget needs to be filled. As of now, there are 11 ratifications out of the 25 needed. We wanted to do it by the end of the year, but we didn’t have time.

We had planned trips to key capitals in the fall to work on assets and push for ratification of the Claims Commission convention and completion of domestic procedures on the Special Tribunal. As of now, I don’t see anyone doing this, except for the ambassadors directly on the ground, but this is not enough.

The compensation fund is the third stage of the entire compensation mechanism, the place where the money for compensation will be taken from. This is the most difficult stage, because there is no single position on the confiscation of Russian assets and their transfer to the fund. Who will promote this idea now?

Unfortunately, no one. But here I want to address everyone and say that, despite this, it is necessary to file claims to the Register right now. Even despite the fact that there is no money yet.

Why is this important? The answer is very simple — to preserve evidence. Individuals can file claims in person, there is no need to spend money on anything. Businesses need to hire lawyers, because the procedure is more complicated.

The rules have not yet been approved by the Commission itself, but it is necessary to preserve evidence now, because today you have staff, those who directly kept accounting records, accounting for your materials and resources, and tomorrow they may leave, the documents may be lost.

Therefore, I urge you once again — file claims now.