Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ruby Jones, and you're listening to seven AM.
Speaker 1: Fresh off the back of his meeting with Putin in Alaska,
Speaker 1: US President Donald Trump has held talks with ukraine'st Lord Miszelenski.
Speaker 2: While details of those.
Speaker 1: Talks are still trickling out, this time things seem to
Speaker 1: have gone well. Trump has promised Ukraine's security and is
Speaker 1: now talking about a peace deal, though not a ceasefire.
Speaker 2: Today Associate professor of political.
Speaker 1: Science and International Affairs at George Washington University David Sikoni
Speaker 1: on Trump's plan to profit from providing protection and whether
Speaker 1: we might see an end to the Russia Ukraine War.
Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, August twenty David. The last time we spoke,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and Lord Miszelensky had just had that desire
Speaker 1: fosterous meeting in the Oval Office. Zelensky has now been
Speaker 1: back for another one.
Speaker 2: How did it go?
Speaker 3: I would open by saying Zelensky clearly took a couple
Speaker 3: of important lessons away from that February encounter in the
Speaker 3: Oval Office.
Speaker 4: Almost, President, you look fabulous in that suit, I said, Yeah,
Speaker 4: Look you look good, I said the same thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah. First she wore a suit military inspired in all
Speaker 3: black but still a suit, and not only got a
Speaker 3: thumbs up from Trump, but Selensky even got a chance
Speaker 3: to banter with the Fox News journalists, who regretibly tried
Speaker 3: to call him out on it back in February in
Speaker 3: the same suit. I changed. Second, he didn't come alone,
Speaker 3: which really changed the dynamic. He and Trump met for
Speaker 3: an hour one on one, but they're joined by the
Speaker 3: French President, German Chancellor, NATO Secretary General, Finnish president, a
Speaker 3: whole host of characters that I think put Trump in
Speaker 3: a very different position where he wasn't able to die dominate.
Speaker 4: Thank you too much. I think that we had a
Speaker 4: very good conversation with President, very good and it really
Speaker 4: was the best one or so maybe the best one
Speaker 4: will be in the future.
Speaker 3: So Lensky also made a point of expressing gratitude, supposedly
Speaker 3: told Trump thank you ten times during the meeting, which
Speaker 3: again Trump really likes to hear. Now, in terms of outcomes,
Speaker 3: we don't know much about what actually happened. Trump supposed
Speaker 3: lead left for a forty minute phone call with Putin
Speaker 3: in the middle of negotiations. Has said that the US
Speaker 3: is going to provide potentially troops on the ground and
Speaker 3: full security. However, you know, water has already been poured
Speaker 3: on some of these hopes from the Russian side, and
Speaker 3: I think there's a bit of kind of maybe misunderstanding
Speaker 3: about what we should expect next between Ukraine and Russia,
Speaker 3: especially in the US.
Speaker 1: In the middle Okay, and central to the negotiations that
Speaker 1: are happening at the moment is this idea of land swapping.
Speaker 1: So that's something that Trump signaled in the lead up
Speaker 1: the talks that he had with Putin.
Speaker 2: So tell me.
Speaker 1: About the Ukrainian territory that Russia currently occupies and what
Speaker 1: we know about what Putin would like to see happen.
Speaker 3: Sure, Russia currently occupies about twenty percent of Ukraine proper,
Speaker 3: and that includes Crimea and roughly two thirds of four
Speaker 3: eastern and southern oblasts Danietskukan, Zaparija, and Hrson, collectively known
Speaker 3: as say the don Bus. Now, Putin not only wants
Speaker 3: to cement that area of control and annexation that Russia
Speaker 3: has claimed, but he's demanding full sovereignty almost as a
Speaker 3: precondition for a ceasefire over the remaining twenty five percent
Speaker 3: of danetsk Olblust. Now, this is area that Russia is
Speaker 3: claiming but has not yet captured and is still in
Speaker 3: ukraine hands, and Putin wants it transferred basically as soon
Speaker 3: as possible, as a condition for stopping the fighting on
Speaker 3: the ground.
Speaker 1: Okay, and just in terms of that region, how important
Speaker 1: is it to Ukraine.
Speaker 3: Well, the part of the Dambast that Putin is targeting
Speaker 3: is critical to protecting the rest of Ukraine. It's highly fortified,
Speaker 3: it's very strategic. Conceding it would severely weaken Ukraine's defensive
Speaker 3: posture and endanger the remaining front line. I think it's
Speaker 3: foolish to think that Putin would want this specific territory
Speaker 3: and then stop there. That kind of acquisition would give
Speaker 3: him a lot of momentum and advantages to keep pushing
Speaker 3: westward towards Kiev and potentially the rest of the country.
Speaker 3: And I think it's obvious why Zielenski is so reluctant
Speaker 3: to concede any territories, because without a firm commitment from
Speaker 3: the West as a security guarantee, giving Putin more land
Speaker 3: could embolden and even kind of incentivize further military action
Speaker 3: throughout the rest of Ukraine. And that's just unthinkable from
Speaker 3: the Ukrainian current position.
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk a little bit about a potential security guarantee.
Speaker 2: We've got Trump saying that there will be one.
Speaker 4: But we will give them very good protection, very good security,
Speaker 4: and that's part of it. And the people that are
Speaker 4: waiting for us, they are I think they're very like minded.
Speaker 2: They want to what do we know about what might
Speaker 2: happen there?
Speaker 3: We know very little in great detail about what that
Speaker 3: guarantee would look like. Trump is vacillated even over the
Speaker 3: weekend about whether or not US troops or US forces
Speaker 3: would be involved in some way in public and probably
Speaker 3: behind closed doors. He's telling different people different things, and
Speaker 3: I'm not sure that the Trump administration has really come
Speaker 3: to affirm conclusion about what they're prepared to deploy within Ukraine.
Speaker 3: It's clear what Ukraine and the European allies want, which
Speaker 3: is something like an Article five NATO asks guarantee that
Speaker 3: a Russian would ever restart military operations that the West
Speaker 3: and NATO specifically would come to Ukraine's defense. But I
Speaker 3: think it's very premature to know what the Trump administration
Speaker 3: is willing to do in Ukraine, and it conflicts with
Speaker 3: a lot of Trump's campaign rhetoric that we as America
Speaker 3: wouldn't be sending more troops to Ukraine. So I think
Speaker 3: he might be in a difficult domestic position that could
Speaker 3: conflict with some of the things he's been telling other leaders.
Speaker 1: And so how do you think that Zelenski and his
Speaker 1: allies in Europe will be feeling after this meeting at
Speaker 1: the White House.
Speaker 3: I think they're going to sleep well tonight. There was
Speaker 3: this fear that Trump could tell them something very much
Speaker 3: that they didn't want to hear and revert back to
Speaker 3: positions that are much more favorable to Russia's side. But
Speaker 3: with Trump going forward, you just never know. A meeting
Speaker 3: ends on a high note, and within twenty four hours
Speaker 3: or forty eight hours, you get a new truth social
Speaker 3: or a new statement from a Trump ally that completely
Speaker 3: contradicts what he told the last person in the room
Speaker 3: on the last day. At the end of the day,
Speaker 3: Trump's interests come first, oftentimes and mostly above the US interests,
Speaker 3: and definitely above Ukraine's. So there's so much power invested
Speaker 3: in this one person, and he is inherently unpredictable.
Speaker 1: Coming up why Trump's meeting with Putin last week was
Speaker 1: a huge victory for Russia.
Speaker 5: Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are in talks tonight to
Speaker 5: try to bring an end to the war in Ukraine.
Speaker 5: The leaders arrived in Anchorage in Alaska a couple of
Speaker 5: hours ago, greeting each other on a red carpet laid
Speaker 5: out on a US Air Force base David.
Speaker 1: On Friday, Trump met with Putin in Alaska. Tell me
Speaker 1: a bit about that meeting and what came.
Speaker 3: Out of that. And first, the fact that the meaning
Speaker 3: happened at all was already a victory for the Russians.
Speaker 3: They got a red carpet on US soil, the first
Speaker 3: Putin visit in a decade, without having to concede anything
Speaker 3: or make any type of gift to the US side,
Speaker 3: and order to make that happen. Yeah, and this is
Speaker 3: a moment. It was a real moment.
Speaker 2: And there you see President of the United States first
Speaker 2: deeplaning Air Force one. You know, let's just take a
Speaker 2: moment and listen to this moment.
Speaker 3: I also think the Russians realized early on that Trump
Speaker 3: was so focused on breaking the diplomatic impasse that he
Speaker 3: was very much unprepared for how negotiations would actually go.
Speaker 3: There was sort of no planning, no pre agreements, no
Speaker 3: real specific items. The plan was going to be built
Speaker 3: mid flight, and the Russians correctly calculated that they could
Speaker 3: give away nothing and come out ahead. I think that's
Speaker 3: what we saw. That Trump administration was very surprised about
Speaker 3: how intransigent he was during those talks, and he felt
Speaker 3: like he got this high profile summit that restored Russia's
Speaker 3: status as a great superpower. To quote some of the
Speaker 3: Moscow newspapers, Trump was embarrassed and very much wanted to
Speaker 3: change the subject as soon as possible onto the next
Speaker 3: meeting with Zelensky, rather than dwell in the fact that
Speaker 3: he had raised expectations that there could be a ceasefire
Speaker 3: coming out of it.
Speaker 4: I believe we had a very productive meeting. There were
Speaker 4: many many points that we agreed on most of them,
Speaker 4: I would say a couple of big ones that we
Speaker 4: haven't quite got there, but we've made some headway. So
Speaker 4: there's no deal until there's a deal, I will.
Speaker 3: But Putin left smiling and returned home triumphantly demonstrating that
Speaker 3: Russia had broken through the diplomatic isolation of the last
Speaker 3: four years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there was so much talk about a ceasefire
Speaker 1: going into those talks, Obviously there was no agreement made
Speaker 1: for one. Now instead the language is around having some
Speaker 1: sort of peace steal.
Speaker 2: But can you have a peace deal without a ceasefire?
Speaker 3: I think it's unlikely, but not impossible. I think most
Speaker 3: successful peace talks begin with the ceasefire and allow the
Speaker 3: sides to breathe a little bit. These two sides are
Speaker 3: bit at each other's throats since February twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of enmity between them, and I just
Speaker 3: can't imagine that you could hash out peace while Russian
Speaker 3: bombers are killing Ukrainian civili And.
Speaker 1: When we talk about strong and durable agreements, I mean,
Speaker 1: to what extent do you think Zelenski can or should
Speaker 1: trust anything that is being said about a security deal
Speaker 1: at this point or is it just too unpredictable to.
Speaker 2: Really be able to put faith into.
Speaker 3: I think he's still correctly reticent, but things have evolved
Speaker 3: considerably since that February encounter in the Oval Office. The
Speaker 3: US is still providing the level of military aid that
Speaker 3: had committed to under Biden, of course, with some caveats,
Speaker 3: major ones. Republicans in Congress have hardened their stance towards Russia.
Speaker 3: Since then, Trump's rhetoric has changed a lot, at least
Speaker 3: the public rhetoric about what Putin is guilty of in
Speaker 3: Ukraine and how he needs to stop. So with time,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't put it out of the realm possibility that
Speaker 3: the US could offer real security guarantees to Ukraine. Of course,
Speaker 3: I think this is critical exchange for material compensation, which
Speaker 3: tragically seems to drive every US foreign policy move these days.
Speaker 2: And what would material compensation be.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's clear that Trump administration wants
Speaker 3: to sell weapons to Ukraine and have somebody else pay
Speaker 3: for them. There's this obsession with cutting budget spending and
Speaker 3: anything that's not a core Conservative or MAGA priority, and
Speaker 3: this falls into that category. And I think they think
Speaker 3: there is some political value in saying that we help Ukraine,
Speaker 3: but we were paid to do so. I don't understand
Speaker 3: that logic. It really contravenes centuries of American foreign policy,
Speaker 3: but that seems very important to the Trump administration. So
Speaker 3: as long as somebody else is footing the bill, even
Speaker 3: for the troops themselves, not just the weaponry, I think
Speaker 3: it's very possible that Trump would come around to that
Speaker 3: and try to champion this as a victory because the
Speaker 3: US was not just giving away things for free, right.
Speaker 1: And Trump has been calling on Europe to spend more,
Speaker 1: to do more for a while.
Speaker 2: So has that happened. Is europe playing a stronger role.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, But the Europeans were already doing a ton before
Speaker 3: Trump said that, So he was I think very unfair
Speaker 3: in the way that he described what the US had
Speaker 3: done compared to what the Europeans had done. But it
Speaker 3: is good that this is galvanizing a European coalition that
Speaker 3: is committed to the long term economic, political, and military
Speaker 3: development of Ukraine, and that is allied and is also
Speaker 3: seemingly adept at working with Trump and salvaging the Transatlantic Alliance,
Speaker 3: which again, six months ago, Trump was still talking about
Speaker 3: leaving NATO an abandoning military bases, and there were all
Speaker 3: these rumors that the US was pulling out of Europe.
Speaker 3: We're not having those same conversations today. Meetings are happening
Speaker 3: like they get on Monday in the White House with
Speaker 3: this huge contingent, and Trump seems way more open to
Speaker 3: cooperation with the Europeans as long as he seeses them
Speaker 3: pulling their weight more than they have over the last
Speaker 3: couple of decades.
Speaker 1: Okay, and we've now heard that the next step in
Speaker 1: all of this will be a meeting between Zelenski and Putin.
Speaker 2: So what do you think we're likely to see out
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 3: I'm not a betting man, but I still wouldn't bet
Speaker 3: on this, or I'd bet against.
Speaker 2: It, against the meeting happening, against.
Speaker 3: The meeting happening. Now there are still people who are
Speaker 3: participants in this meeting coming out and saying that Trump
Speaker 3: got off the phone and Putin said that it's going
Speaker 3: to happen the next two weeks. I think there's two
Speaker 3: big reasons to be skeptical, And the first is that
Speaker 3: the Russians have already come out and said they discussed
Speaker 3: the idea of a meeting, rather than gave any type
Speaker 3: of commitment to it, so they're walking back whatever Putin said.
Speaker 3: The second is that we've had these translation issues between
Speaker 3: Trump emissaries and Putin specifically, and I think it's possible
Speaker 3: that something just got lost or misunderstood in the phone call,
Speaker 3: that Putin never promised a concrete date or setting. So
Speaker 3: and I'll believe it when I see it, but yeah,
Speaker 3: you can hold me to that prediction.
Speaker 2: David, Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me. H.
Speaker 1: Also in the news today, Defense Minister Richard Moles says
Speaker 1: the government is open to sending peacekeeping forces to Ukraine
Speaker 1: if a peace steal is agreed to with Russia. The
Speaker 1: comments come after Shadow Finance Minister James Patterson said the
Speaker 1: Coalition was open to contributing to a peacekeeping effort, a
Speaker 1: shifting stance from formal Opposition leader Peter Dutton, who was
Speaker 1: dismissive of Australian involvement. And Foreign Minister Penny Wong has
Speaker 1: called the decision from Israel to revoke the visas of
Speaker 1: Australia's diplomatic representatives to the Palestinian authority unjustified, saying well
Speaker 1: undermine AID efforts. Israel says the call was in response
Speaker 1: to both Australia's decision to recognize the Palestinian state, as
Speaker 1: well as to cancel the visa of far right Israeli politicians.
Speaker 1: Sim To Rothman, who was due to start a speaking
Speaker 1: tour in Australia, I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven AM
Speaker 1: and tomorrow on the show A conversation with journalist Joe
Speaker 1: Aston about the record ninety million dollar fine Quantus has
Speaker 1: to pay and why despite the public relations disaster, the
Speaker 1: airline still came out on top.
Speaker 2: See you that