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.”

Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s then-ambassador to the United Nations, holds up the United Nations Charter as he speaks at the U.N. General Assembly for a special session on the war in Ukraine on March 2, 2022, in New York City.

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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 describe 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 the proposal, Russia is seeking recognition of its claims over five Ukrainian regions—three that it fully occupies and two that it partially occupies.