NATO military chiefs are expected to
hold a virtual meeting starting in about
10 minutes time uh to discuss security
guarantees for Ukraine in the event of a
peace deal with Russia. The Kremlin is
playing down any chance of an imminent
face-to-face summit between President
Putin and Ukraine's President Zalinski
amid calls for those talks to happen
from the US president. While speaking in
the past couple of hours, the Russian
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that
questions of security cannot be resolved
without Russia. He said that they hoped
Washington understood the talks without
Russia were what he called a path to
nowhere. He added Russia didn't hear any
constructive ideas from the Europeans at
their meeting with President Trump.
Well, Mr. Trump continues to urge
President Putin and President Zalinski
to discuss bringing an end to the war in
Ukraine, although he isn't pushing for a
ceasefire agreement.
European powers are keen to capitalize
on a sense of momentum following
Monday's talks at the White House. Uh in
Ukraine itself, officials say 14 people
have been injured in multiple Russian
strikes on a town in the northeastern
Sunumi region. Russia launched 15 drones
in the assault in the early hours of
Wednesday. The children injured in the
attack which struck a residential
neighborhood in the town were aged 5
months, 4 years, and 6 years old. Our
security correspondent Frank Gardner
joined me a little earlier and gave us
his analysis of the UK's chief of the
defense staff. Uh that's Tony Radicanin.
Uh his visit to Washington. Well, he has
gone to the US to sit down with his
American counterparts to discuss exactly
what help the US, what support the US is
going to give to any post peace
reassurance force that might or might
not be deployed to Ukraine. Um because
Donald Trump has said, "Well, forget
about groups on the ground. That's not
going to happen. The US is not going to
commit troops to Ukraine, but it might
might provide some air support." What
does that mean? Um I'm not sure that
Donald Trump has worked it out in his
own mind what it means exactly, but
that's why um Sir Vice Admiral Satonyi
Ratican uh Admiral rather has gone to
Washington um to try and establish is
this going to be close air support? What
are going to be the rules of engagement?
Is it going to be logistics? Is it
intelligence? Is it satellite? Is it
surveillance? What's it going to be? And
one really important factor in all of
this that they have yet to thrash out is
that if this reassurance force that's
the coalition of the willing led by
Sakir Stalmer and President President
Philip Mmanuel Mackro if that is
deployed what are going to be the rules
of engagement what happens if Russian
forces shoot at them or break the
ceasefire and shoot at the Ukrainians
are they allowed to shoot back? But, you
know, when you when you look at all
these plans, these talks, these
preparations, I'm not saying they're a
waste of time. They're very necessary,
but it's rather like laying the table
for a grand dinner party, but the table
is built on two wobbly legs. They're
going to have to shore up those legs
because there's a lot of moving parts
here. Russia may not agree to any of
this, and Russia is in no hurry to stop
fighting. They are very slowly advancing
in the Donbass, taking more and more
villages at a tiny slow rate, an
enormous cost of of of men killed and
wounded. But nevertheless, they're not
in a hurry to sign up to any kind of a
ceasefire or peace deal. Frank Gardner.