The pictures proudly pumped out to the
world. European leaders and a NATO chief
sat smiling agreeably before the court
of Trump. The president who believes he
can end the war in Ukraine and that
yesterday he may have made that a couple
of steps closer.
>> It was an allstar cast that descended on
DC for yesterday's emergency summit.
>> Hello everybody. You're all right.
>> The president of Ukraine and his
heavyweight entourage, including Sakir
Stalmer and four more European leaders,
plus the president of the European
Commission and the secretary general of
NATO. A summit they hailed a
breakthrough, though delivering scant
detail of what was actually discussed,
let alone decided.
>> Well, President Trump, we want to thank
you so much for joining us this morning.
We know
>> this morning calling into Fox News,
President Trump revealed a little of
what military assistance he was prepared
to put on the table.
>> We've got the European nations and
they'll frontload it and they'll have
some of them, France and Germany, a
couple of them, uh, UK, they want to
have, uh, you know, boots on the ground.
We're willing to help them with things,
especially uh, probably if you could
talk about by air because there's nobody
has the kind of stuff we have. What kind
of asurances do you feel like uh you
have it won't be American boots on the
ground defending that border?
>> Well, you have my assurance. You're not
president.
>> So, no American boots on Ukrainian
ground, but the possibility of air
support, a key desire of European
nations, and also the prospect of
bringing together Presidents Zalinski
and Putin as discussed in a postsummit
phone call to Moscow.
>> I was at the end of the meeting. I was
going to call President Putin and
President Putin expected it. We had a
very good call and I told him that we're
going to set up a meeting with President
Zinski and you and he will meet and then
after that meeting if everything works
out, okay, I'll I'll I'll meet and we'll
wrap it up.
>> Last night, President Zalinski posted
this highlight reel to social media. And
though shy on detail, European leaders
are hailing yesterday as a success.
that success down at least in part to a
simple strategy.
>> I really want to thank you uh President
of the United States, dear Donald,
>> the the path is open. You opened it.
>> Something has changed thanks to you.
>> Yesterday's summit was about diplomacy
on steroids, platitudes and flattery and
talk of what post peace security
measures might look like. But what we
did not hear, what gets you to that
peace is any sense of any concessions
either side might be willing to make.
And that will be the biggest and
toughest issue in these negotiations.
President Zilinski used his time in the
Oval Office yesterday to talk Trump
through the shape of Ukraine, but made
no ultimatums.
For me, this is a very sensitive topic.
I wanted to talk about it. I think the
president heard me and he saw it. We had
different moments, but this is important
information.
That's why the matter of territories is
a matter that we will leave between me
and Putin.
We have never talked about seizing any
territories. Neither Crimea nor Donbass
as territories have never been our goal.
Our goal was to protect the Russian
people who have lived on these lands for
centuries, discovered these lands and
shed blood for them.
>> The Russian response to yesterday's
talks. According to Ukraine's air force,
Russian forces launched 270 strike and
decoy drones last night, as well as five
ballistic and five cruise missiles
across Ukraine, including at these
populated civilian areas. The path to
blood soaked peace is unlikely to be
short.
Paul Mcdamar reporting. Well, our US
editor Anushka joins me now from the
White House. Anushka, a little bit
quieter there today. What's going on?
>> Well, I think lots of people see this as
progress at the moment, certainly on
those security guarantees. Europeans say
before this, actually, America wasn't
really responding on that, but now they
are. I liked how one diplomatic source
put it to me. This is how Donald Trump's
America works. If the emperor says, "I
like that." Then the green light goes on
and the work starts. And actually, I've
just come out of the White House
briefing room where press secretary
Caroline Levit said just that, that
Donald Trump had ordered officials to
start on this. There'll be a NATO
meeting tomorrow. And then the coalition
and the Willings planning teams are
meeting their US counterparts as well.
So, that is progress. As you heard from
Donald Trump himself, no troops on the
ground, but she did not deny there could
be troops in the air, perhaps air
support. Europeans never really expected
American troops on the ground, but they
did expect European ones. And in that,
we have a bit of a problem, even
optimistic officials saying to me, there
is a trust problem with Vladimir Putin.
He said to Donald Trump he was pro a
security guarantee or he could stomach
it perhaps, but now Russia saying no
troops on the ground at all. He also
sounds more cautious perhaps about a
bilateral meeting. There were reports
this afternoon that perhaps that could
happen in Budapest, although they were
not giving anything away here in the
White House. And then there is the other
problem, the question of land. I saw our
prime minister Kier Starmer as he left
those talks last night and I said to
him, has President Zalinski accepted the
principle that President Trump now
clearly supports that seeding land may
be the price of peace?
Well, in terms of the approach that's
taken on territorial issues, what I've
said throughout and being clear with
President Zilinski is that in the end
has to be a matter for him. Um, and
that's why we've had the principle
throughout no decisions about Ukraine
without Ukraine. Now the development
today in relation to President Trump
talking to President Putin and
organizing a bilateral is recognition of
that principle that the two parties need
to talk about this but with a trilateral
President Trump um also um agreed as an
outcome from this meeting but it's
coupled with and you can't separate the
two the question of security guarantees
because those guarantees are so
important to the process as a whole and
today was a real breakthrough because um
we had worked up guarantees from the
coalition of the willing. I'm really
pleased about that. But I was always
clear that we needed um the US as a
backs stop as part of that guarantee uh
to make sure that Ukraine, Europe and
the UK uh are safe and secure as we go
forward. Today a breakthrough on that
and we've now commissioned our teams to
work at speed and urgently on working up
those guarantees. Now that's that that
they were the two outcomes that uh we
the United Kingdom wanted and planned
for out of today and that's why um it
was a good and constructive meeting.
>> But if President Zilinski does not want
to seed land, you will back him.
>> Well, all matters of territory are a
question for President Zilinski. I think
that's a very clear principle that um
I've held that uh everybody recognizes
and I think uh is very important to read
in if you like to the development today
on bilateral meetings and trilateral
meetings um that that is a recognition
um that Ukraine must be at the table and
ultimately it is a decision for Ukraine
>> and the question of land is no trivial
matter. The German chancellor said,
"Imagine giving up Florida if you're the
US." To put it in a British perspective,
the Donbass is the equivalent of Wales
and Yorkshire and then some. But the
White House are triumphant at the
moment. They keep quoting all that
praise from Europeans. They say that
this is the Donald Trump peace effect.
>> Anushka, thanks very much indeed. Well,
in Russia, the universally pro- Kremlin
media have tried to downplay Wim
Zalinski's meeting with Donald Trump and
European leaders, declaring that
everyone looked glooier than a
thundercloud. While an op-ed in the
state news agency Ria Novasti warned
that if future overtures didn't go well,
there would be no more truly generous
compromises, even threatening Western
Ukraine with a headline, "We'll have to
go as far as Leiv." Well, joining me now
is Andre Soldato, who's one of Russia's
leading investigative journalists who
fled the country in 2020 and is now on
Russia's most wanted list. His latest
book is Our Dear Friends in Moscow, the
inside story of a broken generation.
Andre, it's good to see you in the
studio.
>> Thank you for having me. When you hear
what the Kremlin media was saying today
and how people in Moscow were crowing
about the Alaska summit and downplaying
what was going on in Washington and then
you contrast that with the the kind of
love fest yesterday in DC and Trump on
the phone to Putin and all this. Are we
talking about two completely different
universes here?
>> In a way uh the thing is that this war
has never been only about Ukraine for
the Kremlin. It's been partly about
ideology. It was also about the message
uh that Moscow wanted to get back on the
world stage and to get Russia back as a
superpower which also includes uh well
having conversations and talks with the
Americans as equals and that's exactly
what Putin got in Alaska. But he he also
wanted to tell his audience in Russia
that uh Europeans had no agency but
Ukraine and just nothing but a state. uh
well not a real state but a client state
of the United States and again that's
the message the programming media had
been promoting and that didn't change
because of the summit in Washington
>> I mean it's been Russia's policy for a
long time now to prize Trump away from
the Europeans to prize the Europeans
away from Zilinski that doesn't seem to
have worked so far
>> to well it depends because uh Putin
already has achieved what he wanted from
this uh uh new round of peace talks he
got his talks with the, you know, with
the American president, the sup
superpowers together on the red carpet
in Alaska.
>> Absolutely. And because he believes that
his army is well winning on the
battlefield, he's not really interested
to get a real uh peace deal.
>> So if he's not interested in a peace
deal, if he thinks that he's winning, if
he still doesn't want Ukraine to be an
independent sovereign nation state, then
the Europeans and Trump, they're barking
up the wrong tree. I mean, it has to be
something much more robust, doesn't it,
to convince Putin?
>> Absolutely. And the game of Putin now is
to try to shift the blame and to say,
"Look, it's not about me. I'm all for
peace. I'm well, I have no problem with
Trump. It's all because of the
Europeans. It's all because of Zilanski.
We could have a proper conversation
between us,
>> the United States and Russia. And let's
forget just to make Ukrainian question
well a problem, but an quite an isolated
problem."
>> Your book is about a lost generation in
Russia. What do normal Russians,
ordinary Russians, the citizens that we
never really hear from, what do they
think about this war?
>> Well, it's a combination of two things.
Uh, first, there is a feeling of
depression right now in many Russian
cities because depression depression
because people are they're very tired of
this war and the drones attacks. They
have a big effect on the way people talk
about the war. They try.
>> So, that's made a difference. The
Ukraine is bringing the war to Russian
doorsteps.
>> Absolutely. before the drone attacks uh
lots of the Russians we tried to ignore
with war to deny it existence that
nothing actually happened. We we we have
our own well life as it was before 2022.
We have some restrictions but they're
not really important. But now you have
the drone attacks. You have the
disruptions at Moscow and other cities
airports. It's a big deal. You have lots
of footage on social media about this uh
explosions and it has its effect.
>> So they want the war to end.
>> Yes.
>> But on Russia's terms rather like the
president
>> to some extent. Yes. because first of
all they believe that Putin is there
forever. So they don't believe that
there might be any change in Moscow and
also of course there is this sense that
um uh Russia was not treated fairly.
Lots of ordinary Russians believe that
look we got the sanctions and why they
blame us and then you have this all this
game about what aboutism? Why the
Americans were not uh punished for Iraq
or Afghanistan? Why we only uh to
suffer? But do Russians care about
Crimea? Do they care about the Donbas?
Do they care? Do they really care whe
the Zalinski, you know, the so-called
Nazis running the government in Ke?
>> Not really. Uh I think that uh the names
of many Ukrainian cities and towns are
absolutely unfamiliar uh to many
Russians. Uh but they do care about the
well the position of Russia in the world
about this.
>> But a million pe million men have died
or been maimed in this war. That's a
huge number for an idea.
>> Yes. But when you cannot have a proper
national conversation because there is a
sense of uh of repression in the
country, you have so many people sent to
jail just by raising a question about
the war. Well, people are confused.
>> Mhm. Okay. Andre Sato, thank you very
much indeed for coming in. Well, joining
me now from Kee is the former Ukrainian
deputy defense minister Wimir Harrilof.
Thank you very much for coming on the
program.
Harov, you heard what Andre Sodatov just
said there. The Russians are tied. They
want the war to end, but but also they
were broadly speaking in favor of these
war aims. Do you think that this is the
right moment for Zalinski to try and get
some kind of deal out of Vladimir Putin?
I think Russia is in a worse position
now after the beginning of the invasion
in 22 because they facing a huge
economic challenges inside the country
this year and they have no strategic
successes on the ground. Yes, there are
some kind of tactical advances on the
front line but they are not strategic
ones. That's why the key issue for them
now becomes how to sustain the economy
in this war.
>> How to pay people who are not taking
part in
combat actions, how to pay even salaries
to military. It's all about money now
this year and they have to do something
with that. And there is rising
understanding inside the Russian elite
that without any kind of solution in
this conflict they will face a little a
real strategic disaster next year.
>> Okay. But at the same time, Vladimir
Putin has the extraordinary luxury of
running a propaganda machine and a and
an unfree press. So he can more or less
try and sell whatever victory he wants
to sell to a Russian population that's
tired of the war. And at the same time,
Mr. Zalinski can also sell a kind of
victory to the Ukrainian people because
even if he's lost some land, the country
is still independent. It is still
democratic. It is still viable. It might
join the EU. Isn't that that compromise
the space in which you can find an end
to this dreadful war?
It's not easy for Putin to find a
compromise in this war on terms not
related to his initial goals.
>> Zilinski is a representative. He's a
president of the country but he is
representing civil society of the
country and our military and we have we
have very rooted mood and
enthusiasm inside our military and civil
society to defend the territorial
integrity of Ukraine.
>> Right?
>> So it's not about the position of the
president of Ukraine. He knows and he
feels the moves in inside the population
and society in Ukraine. And the people
here, they just express the
understanding of the red lines,
so-called red lines and any kind of
resolution with Russia on this war,
right?
>> It's all about preserving our key
values. It's all about our territories.
But but on that note, what do you think
that President Zalinski, whose position
is weaker now than it was a year ago
because of the the row over investig you
know cor investigating corruption etc.
What do you think that he can
realistically sell to your people to his
people in terms of a compromise on
territory on security you know on
joining NATO or the EU?
uh first of all he has uh to support uh
the motor population in terms of the
territorial integrity of Ukraine. It
means any kind of resolution uh should
not include uh the losing territories of
Ukraine. So we can only tell in future
if any kind of deal is on the table
about the occupied territories temporary
occupied territories for a certain
period of time. uh at the same time no
changes with inside Ukraine following
the demands of Russia on Russian
speaking population Russ and status of
Russian language or Russian church in
Ukraine
>> also red lines and also it's about the
will of Ukraine to join any kind of
European security arrangements like NATO
or something else. So uh of course for
the president of Ukraine it's not easy
to communicate all these messages
from the meeting in the white house to
our population. Everybody is asking what
is the real demand of Russia in this
conversation.
>> All right we're going to leave it there.
Thank you very much indeed for coming on
the program.
Thank