‘There are three possible outcomes to this war’: Henry Kissinger interview

Andrew Roberts: Henry, at Davos, you said the dividing line between Russia and Ukraine should return to the status quo ante because pursuing the war beyond that point could turn it into a war not about the freedom of Ukraine but into a war against Russia itself. You came under a good deal of criticism for that, not least from Mr Zelensky. How is the world going to find a new equilibrium after this, however the war ends?

Henry Kissinger: The purpose of the Davos statement was to point out that the issue of war aims needed to be faced before the momentum of war made it politically unmanageable.

When Zelensky commented, he hadn’t read what I had said. In his most recent statements he has essentially accepted what I outlined in Davos. He gave an interview to the Financial Times [on 7 June] which fundamentally accepted the basic framework.

The basic framework is this: there are three possible outcomes to this war – all three of them are still to some extent open.