Speaker 1: He our own Chelsea Daniels and This is the Front Page,
Speaker 1: a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. It's
Speaker 1: been three years since Russia invaded Eastern Ukraine, a dramatic
Speaker 1: escalation in the conflict between the two countries that has
Speaker 1: been raging for over a decade, and for three years
Speaker 1: Ukraine has fought hard to defend itself. Over twelve thousand
Speaker 1: civilians are believed to have died a similar number captured
Speaker 1: or detained, while estimates on the military deaths range from
Speaker 1: tens to hundreds of thousands. During this war, most of
Speaker 1: the Western world has sided with Ukraine and supported the
Speaker 1: country financially and with tanks and missiles, but that could
Speaker 1: soon change, with US President Donald Trump arranging peace talks
Speaker 1: with Russia without Ukraine's involvement. New Zealand freelance journalist Tom
Speaker 1: March has been in Ukraine for much of the last
Speaker 1: three years, and he returns to the Front Page today
Speaker 1: from Kiev to discuss the state of the invasion as
Speaker 1: a potential end to the conflict approaches, Tom, can you
Speaker 1: give us a lay of the land. How much has
Speaker 1: actually changed in terms of control of land in recent months?
Speaker 2: The answer is not a huge amount. There have been
Speaker 2: a bit of control. It's worth going back to that
Speaker 2: August last year because that's when Ukraine actually took its
Speaker 2: first major chunk of territory in a long time. When
Speaker 2: it captured it was around a thousand square kilometers in
Speaker 2: Russia's Cursed Oblast in a sort of a surprise lightning offensive.
Speaker 2: Since then, the Russians have managed to take back maybe
Speaker 2: just over half of that, and they have also managed
Speaker 2: to take a little bit of territory in Ukraine's Don
Speaker 2: bas Rea. So they captured a few major towns Karakhove, Velikanovasilka, Selindov.
Speaker 2: Those names might not mean much to your listeners, but
Speaker 2: they're basically medium sized towns of ten to twenty thousand
Speaker 2: people at least before the war, and some of them
Speaker 2: are being quite important Ukrainian defense of strongholds. But they
Speaker 2: haven't yet captured pert Krovsk, which is a rather large
Speaker 2: sized Ukrainian city in the south of the Dnetzk region
Speaker 2: that has been their main target for a while. And
Speaker 2: if you zoom out, it's really they've only captured about
Speaker 2: half of one percent of Ukrainian territory in that time. Period.
Speaker 2: So while it's not a good trajectory, it's very very
Speaker 2: far from them looking like they're going to capture the
Speaker 2: whole country anytime soon.
Speaker 3: I think I have the power to end this war,
Speaker 3: and I think it's going very well. But today I heard, oh,
Speaker 3: we weren't invaded. Well, you've been there for three years.
Speaker 3: You should have ended it three years. You should have
Speaker 3: never started, and you could have made a deal.
Speaker 2: Leading to an unprecedented response from President Zelensky, who accused
Speaker 2: Donald Trump of living in a bubble. It is unfortunate
Speaker 2: the President Trump, and with great respect for him as
Speaker 2: the leader of the American people who constantly support us,
Speaker 2: unfortunately lives in this disinformation space.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: I guess the big change in recent weeks and in
Speaker 1: months that there's been some big diplomatic shifts. Donald Trump
Speaker 1: held phone calls with Vladimir Puden and Zelensky and has
Speaker 1: decided to initiate peace talks with Russia, but not with Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Trump's now calling Zelensky a dictator, saying he's done a
Speaker 1: terrible job and could have made a deal earlier. How
Speaker 1: do Ukrainians feel about this?
Speaker 2: Well, the irony is that this has actually made Zolensky
Speaker 2: quite a lot more popular to just dismiss the dictator allegations.
Speaker 2: Nobody in Ukraine who's really calling Zelensky a dictator. There
Speaker 2: are certainly people who disagree with him politically. There are
Speaker 2: also military leaders who've criticized his strategic policies on the battlefield,
Speaker 2: and there are some definitely, particularly in the area of
Speaker 2: military strategy, where Zelenski can be quite roundly criticized for
Speaker 2: his decisions over the last several years. But there's no
Speaker 2: massive clamor in Ukraine for elections, and rather, actually this
Speaker 2: is giving Zelensky quite a big boost of support in Ukraine.
Speaker 2: I think one poll showed his poll numbers had gone
Speaker 2: up by about ten percent literally overnight since Trump made
Speaker 2: that comment, Because it's not like Ukrainians are opposed to
Speaker 2: having new elections. They're opposed to having new elections on
Speaker 2: the timetable of the US and Russia, who now look
Speaker 2: like they're gaining up against Ukraine. And in some ways
Speaker 2: it's also made Ukrainians sort of feel like even more
Speaker 2: like they're resisting a great enemy. They're not just resisting Russia,
Speaker 2: They're resisting both the pressure of Russia and the US.
Speaker 2: At the same time.
Speaker 1: Well, Ukraine's also been under martial law since Russia invaded
Speaker 1: in February twenty twenty two, and you don't have elections
Speaker 1: under marshal law, right.
Speaker 2: Well, yes, that's according to the Ukrainian constitution. And the
Speaker 2: thing is, though there are different historical precedents. You can
Speaker 2: argue the US had elections during the Civil War, Britain
Speaker 2: and most European countries didn't have elections during the Second
Speaker 2: World War. However, to hold an election a few years
Speaker 2: late after a period of martial war when the country
Speaker 2: is an a real you know, getting hit by rockets
Speaker 2: every day, Like imagine trying to imagine if Australia was
Speaker 2: bombing New Zealand every day and you were trying to
Speaker 2: set up polling stations in schools, how popular do you
Speaker 2: think that would be? What would people be saying? It
Speaker 2: would be considered a total joke. And so I think
Speaker 2: what people in Ukraine are really angry at is that
Speaker 2: the US and Russia trying to use that as a
Speaker 2: widge to ouse the president for who, whatever his flaws,
Speaker 2: has been democratically elected. And I will say Ukraine does
Speaker 2: have many problems with issues about the rule of law
Speaker 2: and issues with corruption. However, Ukraine has had six peaceful
Speaker 2: democratic transfers of power since independence. Russia has had the
Speaker 2: same leader for twenty five years.
Speaker 3: This is something that should have never happened, would have
Speaker 3: never happened. And I used to discuss it with Putin.
Speaker 3: President Putin and I would talk about Ukraine and it
Speaker 3: was the apple of Isaya, I will tell you that.
Speaker 3: But he never there was never a chance of him
Speaker 3: going in. And I told him you better not go in,
Speaker 3: don't go in, don't go in. And he understood that,
Speaker 3: he understood it fully. But I'm only interested. I want
Speaker 3: to see if I can save maybe millions of lives.
Speaker 3: This could even end up in a World War three.
Speaker 3: I'm mean to be honest with you. You've been hearing
Speaker 3: now Europe to say, well, I think we're going to
Speaker 3: go in, and we're going to go all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: you could end up in World War three.
Speaker 1: Well, there are reports that the US now wants half
Speaker 1: of Ukraine's critical mineral deposits to quote payback the US
Speaker 1: billions spent fighting Russia. What are these critical minerals? And
Speaker 1: is this idea even realistic?
Speaker 2: So I am I'm certainly not a geologist, so I
Speaker 2: hope any geologists listening don't tear me to pieces. But
Speaker 2: as I understand, Ukraine has quite large reserves of I
Speaker 2: believe lithium, cobalt, I believe a silica that are very
Speaker 2: deep beneath its sort of steps, particularly in the east.
Speaker 2: It also has a bit of gold, and it has
Speaker 2: quite a lot of coal as well. But Ukraine has
Speaker 2: never really been in a position to be able to
Speaker 2: extract all of these, and so originally Zelenski and Trump
Speaker 2: seemed to be talking about a partnership whereby the US
Speaker 2: would provide support and help Ukraine to extract these minerals.
Speaker 2: The US would get the effectively right to verse refusal
Speaker 2: to buy them, and then would use them effectively to
Speaker 2: both pay back the money that Ukraine had taken for
Speaker 2: them for its military defense and also to help with
Speaker 2: the reconstruction of Ukraine. So on the face of it,
Speaker 2: it didn't seem like that terrible an idea when people
Speaker 2: were first talking about it, particularly when Zelensky met Trump
Speaker 2: I believe it was November of last year. However, it
Speaker 2: turned out that Zelensky had basically been given a fake
Speaker 2: a company be like give US all the stuff and
Speaker 2: basically not really being given anything in return, not being
Speaker 2: given US security guarantees. I remember I was in the
Speaker 2: room with Zelensky when he was asked this question, and
Speaker 2: he just said, it just wasn't in our sovereign national interest.
Speaker 2: It wasn't you know, what we want to what we need.
Speaker 2: It doesn't help secure the future of our country. And honestly,
Speaker 2: I think that's why Trump is so mad, because he's
Speaker 2: kind of used to having in the US sort of
Speaker 2: putting all his opponents under his thumb, and now there's
Speaker 2: one person who's coming out with him, you know, from
Speaker 2: a small, poor, corrupt country all the way across the
Speaker 2: rest of the world, is one of the only people
Speaker 2: who's actually willing to stand up and say, no, that's
Speaker 2: not in me or my country's national interests, and I'm
Speaker 2: not going to accept that. I think that's just driving
Speaker 2: Donald Trump crazy.
Speaker 1: French President Emmanuel mccran hosted European leaders for an emergency
Speaker 1: summit after they too felt cut out of those peace talks.
Speaker 2: How are leaders across.
Speaker 1: Europe reacting to the dramatic change in the US's approach
Speaker 1: to Ukraine.
Speaker 2: They're not reacting particularly well. They've been shocked, right, And
Speaker 2: you know, there was one incident where the chairman of
Speaker 2: the Munich Security Conference was caught on cam in tears
Speaker 2: following Vice President J. D Vance's speech. Now, some people
Speaker 2: are saying that that was a clip slightly out of context, but.
Speaker 4: What it really did was sort of it's sort of
Speaker 4: regardless of how strictly it sticks to the timeline of
Speaker 4: who said what, when, it sort of captured the overall
Speaker 4: mood that the Europeans.
Speaker 2: Were shocked and appalled. And you know, the security blanket
Speaker 2: that they'd taken from for granted from the US basically
Speaker 2: since the late nineteen forties had suddenly been ripped from
Speaker 2: under them. And at least I felt that this was
Speaker 2: rather silly of them, because they've had a lot of warnings.
Speaker 2: I remember I was at a conference in Prague about
Speaker 2: three months ago and the President of the Czech Republic
Speaker 2: gave the keynote speech in which he said something along
Speaker 2: the lines of, look, Donald Trump was the wrong messenger,
Speaker 2: but he did have a message we should have listened to,
Speaker 2: which is that Europe cannot rely on the United States
Speaker 2: for its security indefinitely. And they had a warning. This
Speaker 2: is what Peter Pava, the chef President, said there was
Speaker 2: a warning between twenty seventeen to twenty twenty one that America,
Speaker 2: even if it wasn't Donald Trump, would probably end up
Speaker 2: electing a leader who was not going to see European
Speaker 2: security as worth investing it. And we've got to do
Speaker 2: it ourselves. And then another warning came, surely the biggest
Speaker 2: one of all should have said, the Clatson's absolutely firing
Speaker 2: red lights everywhere. That was when Russia escalated its invasion
Speaker 2: of Ukraine in February twenty twenty two. And yet still
Speaker 2: they didn't take it seriously. Still, they didn't start massively
Speaker 2: ramping up production facilities. Still they decided to have the endless,
Speaker 2: interminable debates over how to drip feed weapons to Ukraine
Speaker 2: in what announts and at what time periods, and where
Speaker 2: they were allowed to use them on what square kilometer
Speaker 2: of the battlefield. That rubbish. And now they're sort of
Speaker 2: looking very scared and helpless because they don't really know
Speaker 2: what to do because none of those countries have invested
Speaker 2: in their arms. And honestly, there's only really one country
Speaker 2: in Europe left with a powerful, modern armed forces, and
Speaker 2: that is Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Well, uk PM Kiir Stamer's suggested he's prepared to put
Speaker 1: troops on the ground.
Speaker 2: Is that really likely?
Speaker 1: Wouldn't that kickstart a wider kind of NATO conflict, one
Speaker 1: potentially without the US's backing.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, So this is the worry, right, So what
Speaker 2: we're trying to talk about now is that one thing
Speaker 2: is and look, it seems like the peace talks have
Speaker 2: kind of maybe even broken down before they started, after
Speaker 2: what Trump's been saying over the last few days. However,
Speaker 2: one of the ideas that was coming through is Ukraine
Speaker 2: was basically saying, Okay, look, we're willing to potentially sign
Speaker 2: up to a ceasefire to ORG recapturing the occupied territories.
Speaker 2: But what's most important to us is that we get
Speaker 2: a guarantee that this is not going to happen again,
Speaker 2: because the problem is, in nineteen ninety four they signed
Speaker 2: the Budapest Memorandum where they gave up nuclear weapons. Now,
Speaker 2: just to be clear, there's a big debate over whether
Speaker 2: Ukraine could have actually had a functioning nuclear deterrent in
Speaker 2: the nineteen nineties, but regardless, the piece of paper that
Speaker 2: was signed was to respect Ukraine's international borders. Then in
Speaker 2: twenty fourteen they effectively conceded the loss of Crimea without
Speaker 2: a fight, you know, and were forced to fight that
Speaker 2: sort of Russian insurgency in the in the eastern Donbass region.
Speaker 2: And then remember that Crimea, so they conceded without a
Speaker 2: fight in twenty fourteen, was then used as effectively one
Speaker 2: big military base to invade the rest of southern Ukraine.
Speaker 2: So they are just worried that the Russians will take
Speaker 2: any cease fire as a chance to re arm, regroup
Speaker 2: and come back and do this again in five or
Speaker 2: teen or twenty five years now. The ideal guarantee of
Speaker 2: Ukraine's security, their leaders believe, would be NATO membership, But
Speaker 2: even before Trump was elected, most people in diplomatic circles
Speaker 2: were saying, we're not willing to sign up to that.
Speaker 2: So what people are looking for instead is alternative potential
Speaker 2: security guarantees. One of those would be to have a
Speaker 2: European peacekeeping force along the line of contact with Russia,
Speaker 2: so we're talking along that it's about nine hundred mile
Speaker 2: long front line. The idea would be that that would
Speaker 2: be demilitarized, that everybody would move their heavy weapons back
Speaker 2: that they'd be like a demilitarized zone of say, you know,
Speaker 2: a little bit like there is between North and South Korea,
Speaker 2: or like there was between North and South Vietnam.
Speaker 5: If Ukraine is ultimately left out of some of the
Speaker 5: major negotiations and does not agree to any potential deal,
Speaker 5: what could.
Speaker 2: It mean for the future of that country.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean they always have the final scene, right,
Speaker 5: I mean, that's definitely the privilege that they have, and
Speaker 5: they should have and they should be involved in this
Speaker 5: and at every stage. But I think that one of
Speaker 5: the leverage points here would be what kind of support
Speaker 5: are they getting to the United States? That seems to
Speaker 5: be the leverage the same thing of what is being
Speaker 5: done to Russia.
Speaker 2: Were they given to get out of this?
Speaker 5: You know, they have huge inflation, they have a lot
Speaker 5: of sanctions against them, so there's probably some carrots there.
Speaker 5: And then again, Ukraine would be depending on the United
Speaker 5: States greatly, And this is where a lot of the
Speaker 5: talks right now about Europe and NATO being able to
Speaker 5: support them directly. That's where I think we're coming to
Speaker 5: you at this point.
Speaker 1: Now, you've met with Zelensky recently, Hey, what did you
Speaker 1: guys discuss so.
Speaker 2: I got very lucky. I was cool to a small,
Speaker 2: quite intimate meeting of journalists and here it was a
Speaker 2: couple of journalists and we were in Munich in the
Speaker 2: Bairishahoff Hotel, and I actually got a chance to say
Speaker 2: to him, Look, a lot of people in New Zealand
Speaker 2: and this is honestly true, and we both know it,
Speaker 2: have sort of switched off from this. They think it's
Speaker 2: very sad, but that it's sort of a far away
Speaker 2: conflict with which we can't do anything about, and that
Speaker 2: honestly doesn't really concern us. And it's not just how
Speaker 2: people in New Zealand feel, it's how people in Australia feel,
Speaker 2: or maybe in Canada to feel. However, and I put
Speaker 2: that question to him and I said, look, we're a
Speaker 2: small country, very far away the Lenscape. You just broke
Speaker 2: and he said, he said, yeah, you should be very
Speaker 2: very happy you are so far away from Russia. In
Speaker 2: the room sort of just burst out laughing. I'm from
Speaker 2: New Zealand. We're a very small country, we're very far
Speaker 2: away and a lot.
Speaker 5: Of people you're very happy that you're.
Speaker 2: But then he turned on on a more serious note. Look,
Speaker 2: this war is not really confined to Ukraine anymore. First,
Speaker 2: the first other nation to join the war has been
Speaker 2: North Korea, and North Korea getting a lot of missiles,
Speaker 2: They've been getting a lot of drones, and in modern warfare,
Speaker 2: these drones have ranges of thousands and thousands of kilometers
Speaker 2: and this can be used to affect the security of
Speaker 2: the Asia Pacific region, which is very relevant to New
Speaker 2: Zealand and Australia's security interests. He then goes on to
Speaker 2: say that there was a you know, there's a possibility
Speaker 2: of a wider regional conflagration with he just sad other
Speaker 2: conflicts in the region, and I understand that he was
Speaker 2: referring to China and Taiwan, but he did. I don't
Speaker 2: think he wanted to say China out loud because Ukraine
Speaker 2: does see China as a potential partner that could put
Speaker 2: pressure on Russia to de escalate its war aims.
Speaker 1: And like you said, we are far away. What can
Speaker 1: the New Zealand government do at this point. Should we
Speaker 1: be involving ourselves in the diplomatic side of things or
Speaker 1: is aid the best tool at the moment.
Speaker 2: So I was actually contacted a while ago by a
Speaker 2: representative of Ukrainian government with precisely this in mind, and
Speaker 2: he said something which was basically, look, you know, New
Speaker 2: Zealand has a reputation for being a peaceful country, that
Speaker 2: New Zealand's contribution to peace talks would actually be encouraged.
Speaker 2: She wanted me to encourage New Zealand politicians to attend
Speaker 2: the Swiss peace conference that was held without huge amounts
Speaker 2: of success a couple of months ago. So there is that,
Speaker 2: and then it's always worth noting the most important contribution
Speaker 2: that New Zealand has made to Ukraine's security, which is
Speaker 2: the New Zealand troops that have been training Ukrainian forces
Speaker 2: in the UK. They've gotten very good reviews and they've
Speaker 2: done a very important job. So I think continuing or
Speaker 2: even escalating to that support to that training mission is
Speaker 2: a very important way to do it. It's also low
Speaker 2: cost not putting New Zealand soldiers in Kalm's way, and
Speaker 2: from my experience talking to the soldiers there, they were
Speaker 2: saying it was one of the most rewarding things they'd
Speaker 2: ever done in their life. So I think that New
Speaker 2: Zealand training mission is always really important to keep in mind.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Tom, No worry, It's always a pleasure.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
Speaker 1: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 1: at enzdherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
Speaker 1: produced by Ethan.
Speaker 2: Sills and Richard Martin, who.
Speaker 1: Is also a sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to
Speaker 1: The Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts,
Speaker 1: and tune in on Monday for another look behind the headlines.