| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| We all share a strong desire to end this war quickly and reliably, and peace must be lasting. | ||
| Not like it was years ago, he said, when Ukraine was forced to give up Crimea and part of our East, part of Donbass, and Putin simply used it as a springboard for new attacks. | ||
| Or when Ukraine was given so-called security guarantees in 1994, but they didn't work. | ||
| Of course, Crimea should not have been given up, he said. | ||
| Just as Ukrainians did not give up Kyiv and Odessa and Kharkiv after 2022, Ukrainians are fighting for their land and for their independence. | ||
| Now our soldiers have had success in Donetsk and the Sumy regions. | ||
| I'm confident that we will defend Ukraine effectively and guarantee security and that our people will always be grateful to President Trump, everyone in America, and every partner and ally for their support and invaluable assistance. | ||
| Russia must end this war, which it itself started. | ||
| And I hope that our joint strength with America, with our European friends, will force Russia into a real peace. | ||
| A lengthy social media post there from Vlodimir Zelensky ahead of this meeting today. | ||
| We're asking you simply, what do you want to hear from this meeting, if and when they do come out and take questions from the press? | ||
|
unidentified
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You can finish watching this at C-SPAN.org. | |
| We're going to leave it here and take you to a discussion of last Friday's Trump Putin summit in Alaska from Foreign Policy Magazine. | ||
| This is live coverage on C-SPAN. | ||
| Ukrainian President Zelensky back in the White House, but he's not coming alone. | ||
| He'll be joined by the leaders of Britain, Finland, France, Italy, Germany, as well as the heads of NATO and the European Commission. | ||
| It is a real united front. | ||
| How will Trump respond? | ||
| In a moment, two expert guests will help us make sense of what happened in Alaska last Friday and where things might head next. | ||
| We've received a lot of mail from our subscribers around the world. | ||
| I will try to channel the best questions in this conversation. | ||
| If you're not a subscriber yet, use the code FPLive for a discount. | ||
| We are also a podcast. | ||
| Just look for FP Live on your favorite audio platform. | ||
| So here's the main thing we know from Friday's meeting between the presidents of Russia and the United States in Alaska. | ||
| There was no agreement on a ceasefire deal, which was the basic starting point for Ukraine and Europe. | ||
| Putin's proposal is that he'd accept a peace deal if he could claim all of the Donbass, a region that includes Donetsk and Luhansk. | ||
| Ukraine still controls, crucially, 2,500 square miles of territory there. | ||
| And in exchange, according to Trump envoy Stephen Witkoff doing the rounds of TV talk shows yesterday on Sunday, the United States might provide security guarantees for Ukraine, the likes of which it offers Japan or South Korea. | ||
| Not quite NATO membership, but an actual guarantee. | ||
| Who knows whether that will happen. | ||
| All of that is what we've learned so far. | ||
| The question now, as Zelensky and European leaders head to the White House, is what they ask for and also how long negotiations might take, given that we don't have a ceasefire. | ||
| And just this morning, there were more attacks on Ukraine. | ||
| I have two terrific guests. | ||
| Andrea Kendall-Taylor has served as a CIA analyst focused on Russia and is now a senior fellow at the Center for New American Security. | ||
| And Sergei Radchenko is a historian of the Cold War who teaches at Johns Hopkins University. | ||
| He is the author of To Run the World, the Kremlin's Cold War bid for global power. | ||
| Welcome, both of you. | ||
| I'm going to look back a bit before we look ahead. | ||
| Andrea, I was so struck by the image of Trump receiving Putin on Friday on a literal red carpet, clapping his hands, and then they both got into the presidential car, the beast. | ||
| Putin is, of course, a war criminal, and we know both he and Trump care a lot about the value of imagery, of symbolism. | ||
| Reflect a bit on the scenes we saw on Friday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think they're nothing short of remarkable. | |
| I mean, as you said, there was such pageantry associated with the visit. | ||
| And it was quite shocking to see the way that President Trump welcomed the Russian leader. | ||
| I mean, I think many people who don't see a problem in communicating and using diplomacy through crises even recognize that, yes, talking is okay, talking can be good, but you don't have to applaud and clap and celebrate the arrival of a war criminal. | ||
| So that was really shocking. | ||
| And I'll say, I'm actually sitting in Europe right now and talking with many European colleagues. | ||
| From their perspective, the imagery that came out of the summit was nothing short of shocking as well. | ||
| And I think really undermines perceptions also of U.S. leadership and really has called into question where the U.S. is heading and its reliability as a partner. | ||
| So it really did send shockwaves through our alliance. | ||
| Sergei, let me bring you, and you are so steeped in Soviet history, so much of this summit, it felt like a blast from the past. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Ravi, it did. | |
| And this is what it was intended to do from Russia's perspective. | ||
| Putin went to Alaska to stand in glory next to the American president. | ||
| That, of course, is something that he craves, that he wanted for a long time, this recognition as America's equal and as almost, well, higher than the Europeans, for whom this summit, of course, was a disaster. | ||
| But the fact that Putin was there, Europeans were not represented there, obviously gave Putin that sort of standing, that sort of prestige, that sort of confidence to tell his domestic audience, look, they try to shun us, but they could not do that anymore. | ||
| And here I am, and Russia is standing here in glory. | ||
| So I think there is a historical tradition here going all the way to Cold War summitry meetings of Soviet and American leaders, which for the Soviets always represented an opportunity to raise their country up and to show it as one of the great players, great powers in the world. | ||
| And they care so much about recognition as well globally. | ||
| Andrea, let's move to outcomes from what we saw, what has emerged on Friday and then trickled into the news on Saturday and Sunday. | ||
| At the press conference on Friday, it was telling to me that neither Trump nor Putin took questions from reporters. | ||
| They were quite vague in their remarks. | ||
| But what we now know is that they are skirting around a ceasefire as a first step and talking about going straight to a peace deal. | ||
| This as Putin is continuing his attacks on Ukraine even this morning. | ||
| What's your sense? | ||
| And I know a lot could change in the next few days. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Did Trump get played here? | |
| I think without a doubt. | ||
| And I think, you know, many people now see with the summit that like that the worst fears of the analytic community going into the summit now appear to be in play. | ||
| So, number one, it was just the pageantry that we talked about. | ||
| So, Putin was able to secure this meeting on U.S. soil with a U.S. leader. | ||
| He stood on the stage during the press conference and parroted his view of the war, how it started and what it's about without any rebuttal from the U.S. president. | ||
| He was able to, you know, we'll see what happens today with the meeting with Zelensky, but one of the things that I fear the most is that he was successful in driving a wedge between the U.S. on the one hand and Europe and Ukraine on the other by now putting the impetus back on the Ukrainians. | ||
| I mean, I think that was one of the key goals that Putin had coming into this was to say yes, but, you know, appear pragmatic, appear like he was ready to make a deal, and then frame the Ukrainians as the one being the barrier to peace. | ||
| And I fear that's where we sit today. | ||
| And quite notably, there were no concessions from the Russian side and no pressure, no sanctions. | ||
| And so it really was a great success, I think, for President Putin in that, yeah, he's shifting the onus back onto the Ukrainians, raising the risk that the United States reapplies pressure to Ukraine, while also buying more time to prosecute this war. | ||
| So all in all, I think it was a big win for the Russians, a big loss for Ukraine, and a big loss for the Europeans, because as you said, Ravi, one of the key points the Europeans thought they had secured was that there must be a ceasefire before any discussions of territory or concessions. | ||
| And again, that's, you know, Trump, that flew out the window as well. | ||
| So, you know, I think the Europeans thought they were in a good place. | ||
| And it turns out, you know, I think that was a little overly optimistic. | ||
| And Trump was willing to kind of sell that out and take Putin's side. | ||
| So I also think it is a setback for the transatlantic relationship as well. | ||
| And we'll see how they hold up in the White House today. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| And the other thing here is no matter how this goes in the next two or three days, Putin retains the right not only to continue attacking Ukraine, but to kick the can down the road for weeks or months. | ||
| In many senses, we're back to square one on that front. | ||
| Sergei, when Putin said the only way to get to a settlement in his speech on Friday is to, quote, eliminate all the primary roots of the conflict and also to consider what he called legitimate concerns. | ||
| Another phrase there that he's used before. | ||
| I was reminded of your book, To Run the World. | ||
| Those could have been the words of Stalin or Khrushchev. | ||
| Talk to us a bit about the significance of those phrases that he was using. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So it's very typical, very common. | |
| In Soviet history, you know, the Soviets felt that they were entitled to what they called a legitimate sphere of interests in Europe. | ||
| The problem, of course, was, beginning with Stalin, is that others did not think, namely the United States did not think that the sphere was legitimate. | ||
| Hence, you have the Cold War, because the Soviets say, well, this is our legitimate interest, the Americans. | ||
| How possibly can your control of Eastern Europe be legitimate? | ||
| So you have basically effectively a confrontation. | ||
| However, it should be said that around 1944, there was a moment, 1944-45, from the percentages agreement to the Yalta conference where there was an effort by the British and the Americans to kind of say, okay, maybe this are your interests, et cetera. | ||
| And then during the Cold War, 56, 68, when the Soviets invaded Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the American reaction was basically, yeah, you know, what's yours is yours. | ||
| We're not going to worry about it. | ||
| What's different in Ukraine is that since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, there has been a pushback from the Europeans and from the Americans. | ||
| And this is not in your sphere of interest. | ||
| And of course, the fact that the Ukrainians themselves proved on the ground that they could withstand the Russian aggression also basically disproved Putin's allegations. | ||
| But he's trying to come back to this. | ||
| And that's why he's pushing his idea about Ukraine's non-involvement in NATO. | ||
| That's one of his core conditions, right? | ||
| The fact that the Ukrainians should not be allowed to enter NATO. | ||
| And I think Trump has bought that, judging from his reaction after Alaska. | ||
| Trump is agreeable to that. | ||
| But there are a bunch of other things. | ||
| Like, for example, Russia is trying to impose particular kinds of kinds of laws on Ukraine in relation to the Orthodox Church, in relation to the Russian language. | ||
| It wants Ukraine demilitarized, which means it would not be able to resist any further Russian aggression. | ||
| And that, for Putin, would basically set the parameters of Ukraine being effectively in not necessarily annexed by Russia, whatever remains of it, but being something like Belarus. | ||
| In other words, deferring to Russia. | ||
| This is what he wants. | ||
| Andrea, I want you to try and unpack one detail that has emerged in the last couple of days, and that is that Putin wants to claim all of the Donbass, a region that includes Donetsk, Luhansk. | ||
| But Ukraine still controls a significant part of the Donbass. | ||
| It also has control of two crucial cities there that have a lot of defensive fortifications around it. | ||
| They wouldn't want to give it up. | ||
| And were they to give it up, then Russia is uniquely positioned to attack further any time down the line. | ||
| Talk to us a little bit about Putin's thinking on trying to take all of Donbass and what that would mean for Ukraine. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's hard to say what Putin's thinking is, but in my view, I mean, it's an absurd request. | |
| He's basically asking for territory that he hasn't been able to take militarily. | ||
| Like, let's remember, he's been at this for years. | ||
| They've made a major push in the east at an extreme cost of Russian lives. | ||
| There was a really interesting piece that the UK Ministry of Defense put out just recently saying that if Russia were to continue its pace of gains from this year, it would take Russia four years to take the rest of the Donbass. | ||
| So it is absurd that this is a request. | ||
| I mean, we understand why he's doing it. | ||
| It's because the Russian leader, when they illegally annexed this territory, considered the entirety of the region, despite the fact that at the time they didn't control all of that land. | ||
| So he's trying to make good on his illegal move to annex this territory and take it all. | ||
| But as you said, Ravi, it is tactically important territory. | ||
| And there's no way that Ukraine could agree to cede that territory without exceptionally robust security guarantees from the United States. | ||
| I mean, first and foremost, there's not Ukrainian support for Zelensky to cede this territory. | ||
| When you look at public opinion, Ukrainians themselves are not ready to cede that land. | ||
| It would have a disastrous impact on military morale. | ||
| Can you imagine having to tell Ukrainian forces that they have to voluntarily cede this territory that they've been fighting for and have lost significant life over? | ||
| So it would be a disastrous effect on Ukrainian morale. | ||
| And the main point, I mean, and what Sergei was getting at is the security guarantee piece is really critical. | ||
| Because, as you said, with this territory, they could use it as a springboard for future attacks. | ||
| So, in order to even contemplate turning over that land, and we'll be clear that that's a decision that only the Ukrainians can make. | ||
| But we know that they can't turn it over, you know, at a minimum unless they receive these security guarantees such that they can be sure that Russia won't attack further. | ||
| Sergei, Andrea was laying out a bit of how Ukrainian sentiment here is important. | ||
| They don't want to give up more territory. | ||
| Inasmuch as we're able to gauge a little bit of what Russian sentiment is here, what's your sense of how they took in Friday's summit and how they might be thinking about Russia's options going forward? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So, I think you have to separate here the views of the expert community and the general public. | |
| The general public is affected by propagandistic takes. | ||
| They see this war is going basically in Russia's direction. | ||
| They seem to be generally supportive of Putin. | ||
| Although, when I say that, I always have to make this small reservation: polling in authoritarian countries is a notoriously difficult undertaking. | ||
| Nobody will tell you that they oppose the war. | ||
| Nevertheless, from my own observation, from conversations, anecdotal evidence, you would say that basically the Russian public are enthusiastic about this. | ||
| They're not happy about the economic situation yet, but they see the war as going in their direction with all the sacrifice that already has been made. | ||
| It seems that they're willing to make more sacrifice. | ||
| Now, in terms of the elites, things are a little bit more complex. | ||
| I think there's genuine enthusiasm among the business elites that the war might actually come to an end. | ||
| Business elites were never enthusiastic about this conflict, and they're looking forward to the possibility of lifting sanctions, cooperation with Americans, and so on. | ||
| So, this is great for them. | ||
| They're also the security various think tanks affiliated with them. | ||
| And some of those people think that no matter what Russia does now, the United States cannot really be trusted and that Russia should just stick at it and just continue in Ukraine because this serves long-term Russian interests. | ||
| You cannot trust the United States. | ||
| So, you've got a mix of opinions on the Russian side about where this might be going. | ||
| But I would say the general sense is optimistic, just as on our side, the general sense is a little bit pessimistic at this point, simply because we don't know what Trump has on his mind. | ||
| Andrea, as we look to the meetings in the White House and then further ahead from there, what should Ukraine's strategy be in the next few days and weeks? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I'm exceptionally nervous about what's going to happen in the White House today. | |
| I think, you know, one of the things I've thought about is whether or not President Zelensky could almost take a page from the Russian leader and kind of, again, present himself as pragmatic, interested in a deal. | ||
| It's the yes-but strategy where then you attach all sorts of your own conditions and details that have to be addressed before you get there. | ||
| I think, you know, I'm very concerned that President Trump will use this as an opportunity to ratchet up pressure on Ukraine. | ||
| And so I think the best that Zelensky can do is to try to slow the process down at least a little bit and to provide some time for European allies to really circle the wagons, increase their capabilities to step in if the United States ultimately withdraws support. | ||
| So again, he's going to have to walk a tightrope. | ||
| I think we all understand that. | ||
| You can't openly contradict the president. | ||
| But at the same time, he has to stick to his guns and do what's right for Ukrainians. | ||
| And so my big hope then is that, you know, the question to me is then, where do the Europeans come out in this? | ||
| And my hope is that the Europeans kind of stay united as they appear to be behind President Zelensky and actively prepare if the United States does begin to ratchet up pressure on Ukraine and potentially withdraw support in the future. | ||
| Sergei, knowing what you know about Putin and the fact that he is so haunted by history, by the same paranoia and need for recognition that so many of his predecessors had, what do you think is the best way for European leaders and for the United States to play at that paranoia? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I mean, the issue is for Putin is what his goals are in Ukraine. | |
| I don't think that the Trump administration fully grasps the goals. | ||
| It seems that the Trump administration feels that it's just an exchange of territory or, you know, they use this term land swap, which is slightly misleading because it's not clear what has been, you know, or it's more like land for peace, I think would be probably better parallel or the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk or something like that. | ||
| But anyway, the idea is that, okay, you give the Russians some strips of territory in Donbass and this will be fine. | ||
| And look, oh, didn't Putin promise us in Alaska that he would not invade Ukraine again and or he would not invade other European countries again. | ||
| So we buy the, and you know, I don't, I'm not going to say that Putin is about to invade other parts of Europe, but I think it is with regard to Ukraine, it is important to understand that Putin is thinking precisely historically. | ||
| He's thinking long term. | ||
| He's thinking about himself as being some kind of a gatherer of the Russian lands. | ||
| He feels that it's his responsibility before Russian history to kind of bring Ukraine back under Russian wing. | ||
| And the question that has to be asked is, is this acceptable to the Europeans and the Americans? | ||
| I think if you really just put this question to President Trump, the bottom line is probably he doesn't care. | ||
| He doesn't really care. | ||
| If you put this question to Europeans, then I think they would care, right? | ||
| So the question is, well, how then? | ||
| What do you do to prevent this from happening? | ||
| And I think the only answer is for the Europeans to play it tougher, but like just what Andrea was saying, but my fear is that they won't be able to do that. | ||
| They won't be able to bring together a strategy to actually push forward. | ||
| We think they might be working together, but in reality, they still keep looking over across the Atlantic to see what President Trump will say. | ||
| I promise to take some subscriber questions. | ||
| And here's one directly, Andrea. | ||
| This is for you. | ||
| It's from Jim Carney's, and he asks, are there any current Russian vulnerabilities, whether social or political or economic, that the collective West has not yet exploited in this conflict, but still could if it wanted to exert pressure? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think there is tremendous room still to apply more pressure. | |
| And I think that's one of the great miscalculations that Trump continues to make. | ||
| I mean, I think in my sense, I think Trump thinks of Russia, he's stuck in a 1980s kind of mentality. | ||
| And I think the Russians have done everything to play into that. | ||
| Obviously, you had Sergei Lavrov showing up with the USSR sweatshirt trying to remind President Trump of this grandeur that now today's Russia hasn't inherited. | ||
| And in that, you know, at that time, they were two equals staring at each other. | ||
| And so I think Trump underestimates the amount of leverage that the United States along with Europe have. | ||
| And we haven't fully explored the range of costs that the U.S. and Europe together can apply on Russia. | ||
| So that's really where I think things need to go. | ||
| If the United States, if Trump is really serious about bringing an end to this, it's going to have to be by raising the costs to convince Putin that he can't continue this war indefinitely. | ||
| I think that's been Ukraine's motto by going after the oil facilities, just really trying to demonstrate you can't do this forever. | ||
| There will be costs. | ||
| And so what could the U.S. do? | ||
| I mean, there's all sorts of sanctions on banks. | ||
| 20% of banks can still be sanctioned. | ||
| There's more on the enforcement of the secondary sanctions on Russia's oil sector. | ||
| We could add China to that, which is actually the most significant importer of Russian oil. | ||
| So there's really, and if you add up all of this, and you know, Europe with its, I think, is on its 16th sanctions package. | ||
| They've taken a lot more strides in going after the shadow fleet of the tankers that are exporting Russian oil. | ||
| I think if all of these things come together, to me, the Russian economy can be a vulnerability that's showing signs of strain, not maybe in the near term, but it is an area where we can continue to exploit. | ||
| But I think the thing would be to convince Putin now that Trump is serious about imposing costs, because I think President Putin believes that now he'll have four years of a relatively permissive environment to continue this war. | ||
| So the most decisive thing the U.S. could do is if Trump could really credibly convince Putin that we're flipping the script, we're ready to apply pressure. | ||
| And I think at least on the margins, that could influence Putin's calculus. | ||
| You make a good point there about credibility, Andrea. | ||
| I will just say one thing on the secondary sanctions and oil. | ||
| It's very, very difficult to pull off. | ||
| The United States has put secondary sanctions on India so far for purchasing somewhere between a third and half of its oil from Russia. | ||
| That, of course, has ruined its relations with India for now in a way that could have a longer-term effect that is very hard to reverse. | ||
| And then second, given how much oil Russia produces, if you truly stop it from coming online on the markets, you have an oil shock. | ||
| And that leads to basically global inflation, but particularly in the United States, given how much gas prices are subsidized here. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| And I think that's what Putin understands, right? | ||
| And so he believes that the Indians aren't going to move away from gas. | ||
| I think that he, Putin, judges that the United States won't be willing to jeopardize, say, relations with India, with China, for example, over Ukraine, recognizing that Ukraine is not priority number one for Trump. | ||
| And so that's the calculus I think that Putin has made. | ||
| But if we're going to be serious and really get Putin to negotiate from a place that's more genuine, I think that that's what the United States, along with Europe, will have to do. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So could I add just one additional complication to this on sanctions? | ||
| If say, you know, you've got in China's case, you impose secondary sanctions on China, which is, of course, as Andrea rightly said, is the main importer of Russian energy at the moment. | ||
| If you're a president Xi Jinping, are you at this point going to say, oh, yeah, we give up on Russia. | ||
| We're going to stop our help that we've provided them. | ||
| You don't do that because that basically diminishes your status as a great power. | ||
| And I fully expect that China will retaliate and then we'll escalate very quickly just to where we were with the first round of sanctions, which will break down global markets, etc. | ||
| So the complexities are immense. | ||
| And that's why the oil price cap policy has been so difficult to implement. | ||
| But that said, that said, that oil price cap policy costs Russia billions and billions and billions of dollars, if you actually calculate, because they've been forced to sell subsidized oil to India and to China. | ||
| So it kind of works over the long term, i.e., you know, very, very, very long term. | ||
| But my concern is that this is not, you know, some even if Russia experiences recession next year, which it may very well experience recession next year, I don't think that Putin is going to follow the economic trends and stop the war in Ukraine because for him, it's a question, it's not about economics, right? | ||
| It's about his legacy, his role in history, etc. | ||
| Yeah, I think that's very well put. | ||
| Biden, who implemented the price cap, his bet was exactly what you're saying, that this would impose pressure on Russia without really hurting the American public too much. | ||
| Putin's bet is that Trump or even Biden would be unable to exert more pressure than that because they don't want the American public to sustain more pain. | ||
| Sergei, I was going to bring up China, and I know you've also studied China quite closely, and it's a big part of your book. | ||
| Tell us how Beijing would have been watching the meetings in Alaska on Friday and how it's watching all the diplomatic maneuvers we'll be seeing on Monday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, this is a fascinating aspect, which I think has been underemphasized in our coverage of the Alaska summit. | |
| I mean, it was a godsend for Putin because it comes two weeks before Putin heads to China for the SEO meeting. | ||
| And there's also going to be a big military parade to mark the end of the Second World War in Asia and so on. | ||
| But for Putin, this was very important because his relationship with Xi Jinping is also kind of complicated. | ||
| They say it's best in history. | ||
| I believe them. | ||
| However, Russia is a little bit in a position of, I want to say vassal, it's not the term to use, but it's a disadvantaged vis-à-vis China. | ||
| And China can apply a lot of economic pressure and bargain hard with the Russians as they have in the past. | ||
| So for Putin, having this summit in his bag with President Trump, he now goes to Beijing and he stands taller. | ||
| He can say, look, even the Americans now, the Americans are taking us into account. | ||
| So you cannot play any games with us. | ||
| We have the United States as well as an option, as it were. | ||
| So that is an interesting game that the Russians are playing. | ||
| As for the Chinese, of course, they are geopolitically minded. | ||
| For them, they don't want Russia's loss because they understand that if Russia loses in Ukraine, then the West basically turns against China, the United States turns against China. | ||
| And their support for Russia is first and foremost grounded in that geopolitical realization. | ||
| You have to support Russia because that's how you play, you know, play the cards, play one side against the other, so to speak. | ||
| So they are going, for that reason, they are going to be very supportive of Russia going forward. | ||
| Although I would also say there's another dimension to their relationship or even another couple of dimensions. | ||
| First is they understand that they have a very complicated history. | ||
| Speaking of history, in the 1960s, they, in 1769, they fought a war, right? | ||
| I mean, this is not historically not a very problem-free relationship. | ||
| So they understand that, and also they understand that when they have a bad relationship, third parties take advantage of that, i.e. the United States. | ||
| So you don't want your relationship to be spoiled, and you have to show some flexibility towards your partner. | ||
| And this, I think the Chinese understand that. | ||
| That's why they haven't been willing to crack the whip all that much, although they hold an economic advantage over the Russians. | ||
| They have been deferring to Putin in many ways, I think, in the way that you would not have expected a senior partner to do. | ||
| So that is one thing. | ||
| And the other thing, just to finish, is I do think that Xi Jinping and Putin share a vision of the world. | ||
| Perhaps they don't have a common ideology. | ||
| I don't even know what ideology would mean in this sense, but they do have a shared vision of the world where they feel that the world is or the West has taken an unfair position and needs to be brought down a peg or two. | ||
| And so for this, they're working together. | ||
| They're willing to work together. | ||
| And for that reason, I think their relationship is fairly strong, although I would not call it an outright alliance. | ||
| Andrea, as we look at the geopolitical dimension of this, the diplomatic dimension of what's been happening in Alaska and now the White House, let's talk about the military dimension on the ground a little bit. | ||
| I know you follow this closely. | ||
| What are the things to keep an eye on in the coming weeks and months if we don't have a diplomatic breakthrough? | ||
| I know that the conflict has sort of been mired and very sort of slow movements on either side, but with fairly big sort of losses of life. | ||
| And then the use of drones that have really made kind of transformed the nature of the way these two sides are waging war. | ||
|
unidentified
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I would say, you know, most immediately there, you know, leading up into the summit, there was, I think, a lot of confusion about what was happening in parts of the front line in the east. | |
| There were a lot of narratives out there that Russia was on the verge of making some very significant gains up around Pokrovsk and some other places. | ||
| And that was a narrative, I think, that President Putin actually used with Trump to try to convince Trump of this narrative that Russia will inevitably win. | ||
| We are inevitably strong. | ||
| Ukraine is going to lose this war. | ||
| So don't you want to side with the victor? | ||
| But there's a lot of reports now coming out that Ukrainian forces and certain kind of battalions have been able to stem some of the vulnerable areas along that front. | ||
| So that's really good news, I think, coming out of Ukraine. | ||
| But what you do here is, is as they've had to kind of surge forces to try to shore up the front line where they were most vulnerable, then that movement of troops in and of itself also creates vulnerabilities in other places that Russia could exploit. | ||
| I mean, I think the real reality is that Ukraine continues to have problems with manpower. | ||
| It's been a persistent problem. | ||
| So far, they've been exceptionally effective at offsetting that problem through the use of drones, as you said. | ||
| But what we saw in that particular part of the front line was that Russia was adopting some different tactics that was able to offset Ukraine's advantage in drone warfare. | ||
| So I think that's something really to be able to watch is, you know, what will be the situation with manpower for Ukraine? | ||
| Is Russia able to kind of make using, I mean, essentially what they're doing is just sending twos and threes across the front line, accumulating some more mass. | ||
| So will they be able to adopt that tactic in other places? | ||
| And as Ukraine kind of has to rush to shore up vulnerabilities, is it creating holes or gaps in other places that Russia will be able to exploit? | ||
| The question is, does Russia have the capability, the capacity to actually take advantage of some of these things? | ||
| And that's an open question. | ||
| But I do think from the Ukrainian side that there is a bit of concern that as these different challenges begin to accumulate, that things can go slowly until they go quickly. | ||
| And they're wanting to prevent that kind of mass breakthrough or exploitation on the front line. | ||
| So, I mean, I think it is a difficult situation for Ukraine on the front line so far. | ||
| But Russia so far hasn't been able to exploit it. | ||
| But that's what I'm watching is this kind of the vulnerabilities and the ability of each side to either shore them up or exploit them or not. | ||
| Sergei, no matter how this is resolved in the coming weeks and months, if the war does end on some terms, I'm curious how you think Russia's future looks like. | ||
| Putin has transformed Russia's economy into a wartime economy. | ||
| He went in with these maximalist claims and was supposed to have taken over all of Ukraine within days. | ||
| That didn't happen. | ||
| He will try to spin any sort of deal as a win. | ||
| But if you look at the broader trajectory over the last three or four years, it gets harder. | ||
| And then finally, if you broaden out that trajectory and through history, he is not Peter the Great. | ||
| He's not Catherine. | ||
| How do you think the Russian people will see a resolution to this war? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, the Russian people, you might say, will embrace any sort of victory that Putin can sell to them, right, as something that serves Russia's glory. | |
| And this is something quite remarkable about the Russians in the sense that sometimes they tend to just focus on their country's alleged greatness or glory at the expense of things that actually should matter to them, i.e. their quality of life. | ||
| And that's why for so many people at the start, so many experts in Russia as well, you know, the war did not even make any sense at all. | ||
| Because if you were going to increase your influence in your immediate neighborhood, though, surely there are other ways of doing this, not through military conquest. | ||
| You just increase your gradually increase your economic influence. | ||
| And yes, everybody wants Russia to be greater power among the Russians, right? | ||
| But it doesn't, you don't necessarily do through this kind of brutal war. | ||
| But I think what Putin has done with his invasion of Ukraine is he has changed the narrative domestically. | ||
| And his argument effectively is, look, we were able to stand up to that alleged situation where others were looking down on Russia. | ||
| We're standing up and now they will count, they will have to take us into account. | ||
| So I think the longer term idea here is that if Russia is able to claw itself to something, to claw its way to something resembling victory in Ukraine, then it would expect to come back to respectability in Europe. | ||
| I don't know how this would work from the European perspective, because the Europeans are saying, no, we're not going to accept that for the foreseeable future, right? | ||
| You have some voices in Europe, like Orban and Hungary, saying, yeah, yeah, okay, you know, we'll deal with the Russians. | ||
| And of course, the Russians hope to promote these kinds of voices, like in countries like Germany, which they will, you know, they hope will see that it's in their interest to re-engage with Russia if, for example, it has been able to impose some kind of peace on Ukraine. | ||
| I'm not sure that this is going to work long term. | ||
| So it's very difficult to see. | ||
| I mean, Russia predictably has, You know, it turns to authoritarianism and has upheavals and crises and revolutions. | ||
| And I fear that this is what will be in store for Russia in the coming years. | ||
| And once Putin is out of the picture, well, anybody could make a call here what might happen. | ||
| We also don't, I think we need to keep our eyes open for the possibility of change for the better, because we also thought about the Soviets in the same way. | ||
| We thought the Soviets were aggressive. | ||
| They would always stay like that, always imperialistic, so always invading other countries. | ||
| Here comes Mikhail Gorbachev, and basically, very quickly, everything is undone. | ||
| So I think we should keep that possibility in mind that changes might come. | ||
| But for now, I think for the near future and for the medium-term future, I think Ravi, those factors that you've outlined, i.e., investment in the military, investment in kind of this national greatness narrative of national greatness, that will continue to play out in Russia. | ||
| Ravi, if I could just add two quick points. | ||
| I mean, I do think it's important to emphasize that how the war ends will be really critical for the Russia that we have afterwards. | ||
| And one key point is, you know, that people have highlighted is: well, if it is kind of a Russian victory or kind of the capitulation, if Russia is actually able to achieve many of its more maximalist aims and has a weak and indefensible Ukraine, you know, obviously another war in the future with Ukraine would be possible. | ||
| But also, then Russia could potentially have a lot of its forces freed up to pursue aggressive operations elsewhere, whether it's kind of antagonizing other parts of Europe, you know, they're returning to Syria, you know, trying to shore up Iran, its partner in Iran. | ||
| So that will be part of it. | ||
| And then I think Sergei makes such an important point about, you know, we don't know what will happen necessarily in U.S.-Russia relations, but Russia and Putin are watching very closely about how Europe is ramping up its defenses and are now really framing Europe as an enemy also. | ||
| That's been a really key theme of some of the Russian narratives. | ||
| So in my mind, with the militarization, investments in defense and kind of this need for Putin to maintain and always have an enemy and an other, how important that is for his own domestic stability. | ||
| I think confrontation for the foreseeable future is the most likely outcome. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| We'll have to leave it there, but Andrea, Sergei, I learned so much. | ||
| And we'll just have to have you back in the next few days because this is going to keep developing a momentous time in our lives. | ||
| We will stay on the story, of course, on FP Live and in the magazine. | ||
| Remember, if you are not a subscriber, use the code FP Live, one word, FP Live, for a very nice discount. | ||
| We're also a free podcast. | ||
| Grab your phones, look it up, hit follow. | ||
| You know you want to. | ||
| I'm Ravi Agrawal. | ||
| Thanks for watching. | ||
|
unidentified
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Watch the Town Hall live at 7 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at cspan.org. | |
| Democracy is always an unfinished creation. | ||
| Democracy is worth dying for. | ||
| Democracy belongs to us all. | ||
| We are here in the sanctuary of democracy. | ||
| Great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies. | ||
| American democracy is bigger than any one person. | ||
| Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected. | ||
|
unidentified
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We are still at our core, a democracy. | |
| This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom. | ||
| As you're calling in, we're going to take you to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where Time Politics reporter Nick Popley joins us. | ||
| Nick Popely, set the stage today at the White House. | ||
| What more have you been able to find out about timing and sort of sequence of events here for this series of meetings for the President today? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, good morning, John. | |
| Thank you for having me. | ||
| It's certainly shaping up to be a very consequential day here at the White House. | ||
| As we continue to follow the fallout from President Trump's summit in Alaska with his Russian counterpart, we know that President Trump has sort of backed down from his earlier demand for a ceasefire and is now pushing for a final peace deal in order to end the war between Ukraine and Russia. | ||
| And this is something that has really raised eyebrows in Europe and particularly amongst Zelensky and his officials in Ukraine who are visiting the White House today, who will be speaking with the president at around one o'clock. | ||
| And then the president will be meeting with the European leaders who are here to sort of give support for Putin for Zelensky. | ||
| And they hope to find out more information from the president about what he really wants out of this and how he plans to end the war in Ukraine. | ||
| He's floated this peace agreement, so the question is now, what does that really entail? | ||
| Does it involve giving up territory? | ||
| Does it involve security guarantees for Ukraine? | ||
| And if so, what would those security guarantees look like in practice? | ||
| Past security guarantees have not worked as well as Ukraine would have hoped. | ||
| So the vision, the hope today is that Ukraine can get some answers and that President Trump can explain his position a little bit more clearly. | ||
| And so there'll be a lot of eyes on how that meeting goes. | ||
| The leaders of those countries may speak with the press afterwards. |