Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: After last week's summit in Alaska between US President Trump
Speaker 2: and Russian President Putin, Ukrainian President Zelensky and more than
Speaker 2: half a dozen European leaders traveled to Washington.
Speaker 3: Getting a group of European leaders to come in anywhere
Speaker 3: in August is sort of a tough task, much less
Speaker 3: in a few days, and I think it underscores the
Speaker 3: level of concern there was coming out of that Alaskamedian
Speaker 3: among Ukraine and Ukraine's allies in Europe over what President
Speaker 3: Trump's plans were.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg's Justin Sink says, this group of presidents and prime ministers,
Speaker 2: NATO's secretary General and Germany's chancellor wanted to make sure
Speaker 2: Ukraine and the rest of Europe are included in the
Speaker 2: peace process, and that Trump understands what's at stake, not
Speaker 2: just for Ukraine but for the whole continent. First is
Speaker 2: a Lensky met with Trump at the White House, and
Speaker 2: that meeting unfolded much better than another one they had
Speaker 2: a few months ago in the Oval Office.
Speaker 1: I think that we had a very good conversation with presidents,
Speaker 1: very good and it really was the best one.
Speaker 2: Next Trump held a roundtable discussion with a group that
Speaker 2: included Francis Emmanuel Macron, Italy's Georgia Maloney, and the UK's
Speaker 2: Cure Starmer, and each of them emphasized the importance of
Speaker 2: security guarantees for Ukraine in any peace deal.
Speaker 4: We're talking about the security not just of Ukraine, We're
Speaker 4: talking about the security of Europe and the United Kingdom
Speaker 4: as well.
Speaker 2: There is a lot of discussion over the course of
Speaker 2: the day of next steps of President Zelenski and President
Speaker 2: Putin potentially meeting one on one and if there being
Speaker 2: a trilateral meeting with Ukraine, Russia, and the United States.
Speaker 2: But according to Justin Sink, there is nothing on the
Speaker 2: schedule and getting Zelenski and Putin together to talk is
Speaker 2: far from guaranteed.
Speaker 3: The way that the White House and the way the
Speaker 3: President Trump framed it was that the meeting seemed like
Speaker 3: a sort of inevitable outcome. I don't think that that's true.
Speaker 3: When the Kremlin read out the same phone call between
Speaker 3: Trump and Putin following his meeting with Celenski and the Europeans,
Speaker 3: they merely mentioned that there had been a discussion of
Speaker 3: the possibility of a meeting didn't confirm that they were
Speaker 3: working to make it happen, So there's a real question
Speaker 3: of if this meeting even happens, though I think Europe
Speaker 3: and Ukraine have to be happy that they've at least
Speaker 3: hot potatoed this back into Putin's lap.
Speaker 2: Right now, I'm David Gera, and this is the big
Speaker 2: take from Bloomberg News today on the show. After separate
Speaker 2: bilateral meetings with the US and Russia and the US
Speaker 2: and Ukraine and a show of forest from European leaders
Speaker 2: at the White House, what's next in the peace process,
Speaker 2: what would be on the table at a trilateral meeting,
Speaker 2: and what a peace deal would mean for Ukraine and
Speaker 2: Europe as a whole. Last week, President Trump literally rolled
Speaker 2: out the red carpet for President Putin in Alaska. It
Speaker 2: was the first time the Russian president had set foot
Speaker 2: on US soil in a decade. Well thousands of miles away.
Speaker 2: Ukraine's president and other European leaders were paying close attention,
Speaker 2: and Justin Sink, who oversees Bloomberg's coverage of the Trump
Speaker 2: White House, says that summit stirred them to action.
Speaker 3: So we went from Putin and Trump leaving Friday in
Speaker 3: Alaska to Monday afternoon a basic mini G seven convention
Speaker 3: held at the White House, and that kind of underscores
Speaker 3: what they saw as a real moment of possible peril
Speaker 3: for Ukraine. But then out of that, we've now added
Speaker 3: this possibility of a first meeting between Zelenski and Putin
Speaker 3: and another meeting between Putin, Trump and Zelenski, with leaders
Speaker 3: saying that could happen the next couple weeks. Potentially the
Speaker 3: entire thing wrapped up in three weeks. I think that's
Speaker 3: obviously the most optimistic version of how this could play out.
Speaker 3: But considering how long these talks have installed that the
Speaker 3: war has been going on for more than three years,
Speaker 3: we have seen this real sort of rapid acceleration.
Speaker 2: Pyotr Skolamowski, who overseas coverage of government and politics in
Speaker 2: Central Europe for Bloomberg, also kept a close watch on
Speaker 2: the meeting between Trump and Putin and what happened next.
Speaker 4: The visuals from the summit were really scary for European leaders,
Speaker 4: and they're really concerning. I mean, the fact that he
Speaker 4: rolled out the red carpet and the fact that he
Speaker 4: basically didn't even push back and immediately after it more
Speaker 4: or less adopted the talking points that Putin was having
Speaker 4: and raised concerns that, first of all, Zelenski going forward
Speaker 4: will be forced into territorial concessions, which is a big
Speaker 4: concern there. And you know that Pudding is basically has
Speaker 4: Trump on his side, So for them, it was a
Speaker 4: serious matter just to go there and turn this narrative around.
Speaker 2: Justin let's talk about what was a busy day at
Speaker 2: the White House yesterday. There was this one on one
Speaker 2: between President Trump and President Zelenski as well, and it
Speaker 2: wasn't difficult to draw contrast to the previous meeting between
Speaker 2: those two leaders. Could you just describe the atmospherics of
Speaker 2: this one, how it was different than the last time
Speaker 2: they sat down together in the Oval Office?
Speaker 3: Sure, I mean the difference was sort of immediately obvious
Speaker 3: from when Zelenski pulled up at the White House wearing
Speaker 3: a suit and Trump immediately kind of slaps him on
Speaker 3: the shoulder and says, oh, you know, you wore a suit,
Speaker 3: which seems, of course, like an incredibly trivial thing. But
Speaker 3: for a president who so focuses on image, on style,
Speaker 3: on the sort of pageantry of the office, it was
Speaker 3: an immediate signal from Zelensky that he was setting a
Speaker 3: different tone for this meeting, and the reception from Trump
Speaker 3: signaled that as well. They moved quickly to the Oval office.
Speaker 3: And you see there are different points in that meeting
Speaker 3: that could have gone south. There's a point where Zelenski says,
Speaker 3: is asked by a reporter, what do you need to
Speaker 3: agree to a peace deal? And he says everything. He
Speaker 3: wants security guarantees, he wants assistance from Europe, all of
Speaker 3: these different asks. And he's making that ask in front
Speaker 3: of a US president that has basically gone the campaign
Speaker 3: trail and through the first eight months of his presidency.
Speaker 3: He said, time and time again, I think Ukraine has
Speaker 3: asked for too much. But Trump doesn't sort of take
Speaker 3: the bait and attack Selensky. And then there's this one
Speaker 3: sort of amazing moment to get back to the suit
Speaker 3: where Trump points out a reporter who had been the
Speaker 3: one who asked Lensky about the suit.
Speaker 1: Yes, all this President, you look fabulous in that suit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: look you look good.
Speaker 5: I said the.
Speaker 3: Same and says, you know, this is the guy who
Speaker 3: gave you a hard time before time. I remember that.
Speaker 1: I apologize to you.
Speaker 3: Look you look one, and Zelenski quickly quips back and says, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, I changed my clothes. This guy's wearing the
Speaker 3: same suit.
Speaker 1: No, my first question for you President in the same suit.
Speaker 3: Trump loved it. He was one of the first genuine
Speaker 3: laughs that I think you can point to from Trump
Speaker 3: and off it's just cackling and and I think it
Speaker 3: showed that he was not only in a better mood,
Speaker 3: but understood the gravity of the situation and understood that
Speaker 3: if there was a repeat of what happened the last
Speaker 3: time around, Trump himself would face a lot of those
Speaker 3: same criticisms that dogged his first term about how he
Speaker 3: just rolled over time and time again.
Speaker 2: There was this other meeting that followed that one with
Speaker 2: these European leaders, and President Trump gave each of them
Speaker 2: an opportunity to speak. How unified was the message from
Speaker 2: these European leaders who came to the White House.
Speaker 4: I mean it was unified in one sense that they've
Speaker 4: really tried to lay it on thick in terms of
Speaker 4: charming him and trying to say all these good words
Speaker 4: about how he broke to that log.
Speaker 1: I really want to thank you, President of the United States,
Speaker 1: Theodnalds for the fact that you, as I said before,
Speaker 1: it broke the deadlock basically with the President starting that dialogue.
Speaker 4: And so that's been something that's definitely sort of a
Speaker 4: charm offensive was clearly in the process. What we saw
Speaker 4: when sort of the message strating breaking up a little
Speaker 4: bit is was the moment where British mets the new
Speaker 4: chancellor from Germany. He basically came back to this whole idea.
Speaker 4: Of of course the peace plan is important. This is
Speaker 4: something that came out of the meeting from in Alaska,
Speaker 4: but we need to have ceasefire first. And I think
Speaker 4: he even got to the point where when we get
Speaker 4: the next meeting, we need to have a ceasefire by then.
Speaker 4: Clearly Trump was slightly taken aback by that, but it
Speaker 4: didn't really ruin the atmosphere. It seems they tried to
Speaker 4: stay on message, justin.
Speaker 2: Where do things stand now? So there's this desire from
Speaker 2: President Trump to have a bilateral meeting, to have President
Speaker 2: Putin and President Selenski sit down with one another and
Speaker 2: then have this trilateral meeting. I guess it would be
Speaker 2: another summit involving President Trump as well. What's the expectation.
Speaker 2: How widely shared is that expectation of where things go
Speaker 2: from here.
Speaker 3: European leaders said that they expected that it could be
Speaker 3: set within hours or hours later, and it hasn't happened.
Speaker 3: And yet, and this is something that's actually happened.
Speaker 4: A couple times.
Speaker 3: Throughout this process, there's been an international push to put
Speaker 3: Putin and Lensky in a room. Putin has said I'm
Speaker 3: interested in talking, but only after sort of get to
Speaker 3: the end of a piece deal on favorable terms that
Speaker 3: Russia wants. We heard Zelenski even after the meeting say,
Speaker 3: I think it's really important that there not be conditions
Speaker 3: on this meeting, anticipating that the Kremlin and that Putin
Speaker 3: might try to scuttle the talks putting stuff forth. But
Speaker 3: what I'd say is, despite all the optimism and sort
Speaker 3: of excitement out of the summit in Washington and how
Speaker 3: it seemed like the US and Europe were largely unified
Speaker 3: or at least on the same page, again, there's this
Speaker 3: real question of if you're Russia, do you have this meeting?
Speaker 3: And when you think long term, Russia's objective number one
Speaker 3: may be to get a sweeping deal that ends the
Speaker 3: conflict on their terms, but short of that, to get
Speaker 3: the US to get fed up and tired with this process,
Speaker 3: and get Trump fed up and tired with this process
Speaker 3: to the point that he walks away, he withdraws support,
Speaker 3: and then Russia can kind of use its larger size,
Speaker 3: greater resources to push through and to get the gains
Speaker 3: that they wanted in the first place. So you have
Speaker 3: to kind of consider whether this was a success or
Speaker 3: where this is going, both in the context of the
Speaker 3: immediate term of will there be another meeting, will there
Speaker 3: be a progress towards peace, but also that longer question
Speaker 3: of is this way of just delaying and delaying and
Speaker 3: delaying for Putin to get to his eventual gains anyway.
Speaker 2: One of the biggest sticking points for President Putin and
Speaker 2: President Zelenski has been so called security guarantees. Another one
Speaker 2: is land swaps. After the break, we'll get into what
Speaker 2: each leader wants from negotiations if they happen. On Tuesday morning,
Speaker 2: President Trump told Fox News that while he could see
Speaker 2: the US playing a role in guaranteeing Ukraine's security, it
Speaker 2: would not involve US troops.
Speaker 5: President, what kind of assurances do you feel like you
Speaker 5: have that going forward, and you know, past this Trump administration,
Speaker 5: it won't be American boots on the ground defending that border. Well,
Speaker 5: you have my assurance here, I'm president and I'm just
Speaker 5: trying to stop people from being killed Jarli.
Speaker 2: Look, that was a big indicator of what would be
Speaker 2: a key sticking point in negotiations. Ukraine and its European
Speaker 2: allies are seeking to involve the US in providing security
Speaker 2: guarantees for Ukraine, which would deter Russia from violating a
Speaker 2: ceasefire agreement. Bloomberg's Pyotr Skolamowski says that while we don't
Speaker 2: have many specifics, there are a few ways this could
Speaker 2: shake out, and the first option involves sending weapons to Ukraine.
Speaker 4: So that's basically their best bet, just to arm them
Speaker 4: to the teeth and hope for the best more or less.
Speaker 4: But you know, the next step is much more harder
Speaker 4: for them. It's the concept that's been discussed for at
Speaker 4: least a year now. It started with mccron who raised
Speaker 4: this issue of putting foots on the ground there. If
Speaker 4: you think about the Europeans, obviously we have the Coalition
Speaker 4: of the Willing and the Group of Countries and most
Speaker 4: of the leaders who joined Trump yesterday are part of
Speaker 4: that group, and they are discussing a potentially sending troops
Speaker 4: at some point. If you look across the EU, a
Speaker 4: lot of countries are against that. Take poland they've said
Speaker 4: already they're not going to send troops, even though they're
Speaker 4: ready to support. So a lot of countries are willing
Speaker 4: to support, they're willing to send more weapons, but when
Speaker 4: it comes to troops, that's basically a step too far.
Speaker 4: Zelenski said yesterday that one of the potential security guarantees
Speaker 4: is actually membership of Ukraine and the EU. But then
Speaker 4: again here you know with the EU Younique consensus, and
Speaker 4: there is no consensus on that. And one example is
Speaker 4: Victor Orban Hungary is prime minister who's dead against that idea.
Speaker 4: And joining you is, in normal circums as a very
Speaker 4: long process. In this case it can be even longer.
Speaker 4: So that deals us with sort of the third option,
Speaker 4: which which basically means how much US is going to
Speaker 4: be committed into that process. And at the end of
Speaker 4: the day, it's very hard to imagine that if we
Speaker 4: get to a situation, whether it's trilateral meeting or bilateral meeting,
Speaker 4: there is some kind of form where West secures or
Speaker 4: guarantees security for Russia. We've heard from Putting so many
Speaker 4: times that he talks about the root causes of this war,
Speaker 4: root causes, NATO being very close to Russia, NATO as
Speaker 4: he sees it, being a threat to Russia, and any
Speaker 4: form of security guarantees, any form of troops or boots
Speaker 4: on the ground from Western countries in Ukraine will just
Speaker 4: be seen by Putting as another example of West just
Speaker 4: trying to to get into what he considered his sphere
Speaker 4: of influence.
Speaker 2: You know, we have seen for more than a decade
Speaker 2: now Russia trying quite doggedly to gain control of this
Speaker 2: eastern part of Ukraine. Can you just explain for someone
Speaker 2: who's been watching this with some remove why that territory
Speaker 2: has been continues to be so important for Russia.
Speaker 4: There are number of reasons. First of all, obviously it's
Speaker 4: part of the country that's at least to some extent
Speaker 4: Russian speaking, so that's where they see where they can
Speaker 4: have influence, and they've been trying to control that country
Speaker 4: even before the full scale invasion, where we have to
Speaker 4: go back to twenty fourteen. But there are other factors,
Speaker 4: and one of them is obviously it's the place where
Speaker 4: there is, or there has been, at least the industry
Speaker 4: until it was completely destroyed during this war. And it's
Speaker 4: the industrial heartland of Ukraine. And what we have to
Speaker 4: remember strategically, this territory is very key for them. And
Speaker 4: Zelenski said that if he gives up down Bas, this
Speaker 4: will just be a springboard for pouting to start again.
Speaker 4: And I think that's the biggest concern for him, that
Speaker 4: if they give it up from strategic point of view,
Speaker 4: from tactical point of view, he will just come back
Speaker 4: again in a couple of years. And now he's wrote
Speaker 4: towards reaching Kiev and actually capturing will be much easier.
Speaker 2: Justin what would happen if this process were to fall apart.
Speaker 3: Well, it's hard. It's always hard to predict the future,
Speaker 3: but what I would say is that it gets into very,
Speaker 3: very dangerous territory for Ukraine. President Trump has already slowed
Speaker 3: down or essentially stopped many of the pure aid deliveries
Speaker 3: that the US was offering. In moments of frustration, He's
Speaker 3: cut off some of the intelligence sharing. A lot of
Speaker 3: that's come back, But if Trump feels that Ukraine was
Speaker 3: the impediment to the talks going forward, which undeniably will
Speaker 3: be Putin's narrative and something that he laid the groundwork
Speaker 3: for in Alaska. As Trump and Putin were sitting on stage,
Speaker 3: Putin said that he was committed to peace and that
Speaker 3: he hoped that Ukraine and the European capitals wouldn't interfere.
Speaker 3: And if that's something that Trump believes he has been
Speaker 3: sincere about, it's a moment of peril for Ukraine. The
Speaker 3: alternate is we have seen Trump increasingly frustrated with Putin
Speaker 3: throughout this process. He said he thought this was going
Speaker 3: to be the easiest ward a broker. He said in
Speaker 3: a hot mic moment yesterday' summit that he thought, as
Speaker 3: crazy as it sounded, you understand that Astras Putin was
Speaker 3: really sincere about trying to strike a deal with him.
Speaker 3: And if he feels that Putin was string him along,
Speaker 3: if he feels that Putin was lying to him and
Speaker 3: in fact has sort of embarrassed him as a president
Speaker 3: who has largely defended outreach in conversation with Russia, then
Speaker 3: it's possible that we could see the US rally around
Speaker 3: and restart support for Ukraine. But there is this sort
Speaker 3: of fear that underscores all of this, which I do
Speaker 3: think that Trump understands that if there was a catastrophe
Speaker 3: in Ukraine where he was seen, you know, it seemed
Speaker 3: like Trump was at fault for Ukraine falling that it
Speaker 3: could reverberate politically in the way that the withdrawal from
Speaker 3: Afghanistan reverberated ically for President Biden and was the real
Speaker 3: sort of precipice from which his approval ratings fell, that
Speaker 3: sort of thing, and so he's Trump was going to
Speaker 3: have to navigate it.
Speaker 2: Peter up the last question to you, and we've talked
Speaker 2: about the fear in Europe broadly of this ending with
Speaker 2: that worst case scenario. So we see Russia get the
Speaker 2: territory that it's tried to claim, Ukraine's not allowed to
Speaker 2: join NATO. If this war ends in that way, with
Speaker 2: what seems like a victory for Russia, how will Ukrainians
Speaker 2: tell the story of this war, of their fighting it,
Speaker 2: of it lasting as long long as it did, if
Speaker 2: it ends in a way that they don't want it to,
Speaker 2: how are they going to tell the story of this war?
Speaker 4: Well, for Ukrainians, this war is just another episode of
Speaker 4: them trying to break with Russia. And you know, if
Speaker 4: you look at throughout the history of Ukraine, it's the
Speaker 4: stug of war in the country that's sort of stuck
Speaker 4: between Europe and its bigger neighbor, much bigger neighbor that's
Speaker 4: trying to just control them and sometimes did so. Being
Speaker 4: abandoned and losing that war will be a huge disappointment,
Speaker 4: obviously for the country and for the young people who
Speaker 4: have been hoping that that will finally kind of bring
Speaker 4: them closer to Europe.
Speaker 2: This is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gerrat.
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