The Future Of Ukraine After Trump Meeting With Putin

0:01Hey, it's Todd, your host for this episode of the podcast. Just a quick heads up before we start the show. News is rapidly changing and things might be different by the time you hear this episode. Stay up to date with all of the latest by listening to your local NPR member station and visiting NPR.org. Thanks for listening. Enjoy the show.

0:28Just days after literally rolling out the red carpet for Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, President Trump sat down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House to talk about the conditions of a peace deal. I believe a peace agreement at the end of all of this is something that's very attainable and it can be done in the near future. with all of the wars that I got involved in. We only have this one left. Of course, as I walk out the door, there'll probably be a new one starting and I'll get that stopped too. But I thought this was going to be one of the easier ones.

1:02It's actually one of the most difficult. This time, Zelensky wasn't publicly berated by a tag teaming Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. Instead, Ukraine's leader gestured and dressed in a way that seemed to please the president. And this time, leaders from some of the largest European countries, and the EU itself, joined Zelensky at the White House in a show of solidarity and presidential personality management. The talks are pivotal to Ukraine's future, three and a half years after Vladimir Putin's unprovoked invasion. Pressure from the United States is mounting for Ukraine to cede territory to Russia to end the war, even without a ceasefire deal that just last week Trump said was non-negotiable.

1:47He's since changed his mind. Today on 1A, what happened at Monday's meeting and what the roadmap looks like for Trump, Putin, Zelensky, and Europe to lay out an end to the war, and what Trump has said since yesterday's meeting that might have European leaders on edge again. I'm Todd Zwilich, in for Jen White. You're listening to the 1A podcast. We'll get to All of the latest and much more after this short break. Stay with us.

2:19Joining us from Kiev is NPR's national security correspondent, Greg Myrie. Greg, great to talk to you again. Hi, Todd. Good to be here. And also with us from London, Catherine Belton. She's an international investigative reporter for The Washington Post. She's also author of Putin's People, How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took on the West. Catherine, thanks for joining us. Hi, thanks for having me. All right, for both of you just to start, Catherine, why don't you go first? What was your biggest takeaway from Monday's meeting at the White House and what you saw? Well, I guess just as you described right now, it was a lot more successful for Zelensky than the previous disastrous meeting in the Oval Office in February earlier in the year, which descended into acrimony very rapidly.

3:06Now you had this great show of solidarity with the European leaders. Trump was smiling. Zelensky was joking about his suit. And, you know, and you had this apparent understanding between Europe and the US that together they are going to work to provide security guarantees for Ukraine, which is really key to assuring Ukraine that it's not going to be attacked again. But this is also perhaps going to be a sticking point with Russia. So this is where the focus is going to be in the days going ahead. Greg Myrie, what about you? What did you notice most from your perspective in Kiev there? Evolving Trump positions, you know, the way he changes so dramatically and not just the talk of a ceasefire on Friday and then dropping that altogether.

3:58But think back to the beginning of his term. He comes in. He says, this is not our war in Ukraine, speaking about the United States. This is Europe's war. We're going to get out of it. We're going to stop aid to the Ukrainians. Now, here we are seven months later. Trump has appointed himself lead negotiator. He's meeting with Putin. He's meeting with Zelensky, the European leaders. He has cut off military aid, as he said, but he's devised a plan or signed on to a plan to allow NATO members to buy weapons and give them to Ukraine. He's fully engaged, fully involved. Now, we'll have to see how it goes.

4:39Trump is certainly not talking about the details. He just says, I want to end the war. And that is a huge, difficult problem as they get into the details. But Trump is this wild card, this unpredictable actor who changes his positions, changes the level he wants to be involved or not involved, really struck me yesterday. how far we've come, but there's no guarantee that that's where he will be tomorrow. I wonder if European leaders have the exact same questions, Greg Myrie, that you have. Why did seven European leaders, UK, France, Germany, the EU itself, other ministers, appear so quickly at the White House yesterday at Zelensky's side?

5:20It was remarkable. Nothing like that has ever happened before. You can't find a diplomat who has ever seen anything like it. Why do you think they felt compelled to show up? Well, I think Europe is definitely stepping up. Now, you'd have to say Trump has done some prodding by saying that the U.S. is not going to pay for more aid to Europe, that it's Europe's problem. He has got Europe to step up. European countries, NATO countries have said they'll spend more on defense. And, Todd, you're absolutely right. You can't overstate how remarkable and dramatic this was. remember Trump and Putin met on Friday in Alaska.

5:58It wasn't even known publicly until Saturday morning that Zelensky would be coming. So here it is in August, a really pretty sleepy month in Europe, much of Europe, much of the world for that matter. And these European leaders just cleared their schedules, dropped their plans, organized, got together and all came over and were there with Zelensky. And it certainly showed that the solidarity and the unity, which I think puts a very different face on how any diplomatic efforts will go. It's not just Zelensky sitting there next to Trump and J.D. Vance being berated. There are all of these European countries there, close allies of the U.S., saying they are not going to see Ukraine be steamrolled.

6:44Yeah, Catherine Belton, here's what our Nicholas Burns, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, had to say in the New York Times. Zelensky and seven European leaders rushed to Washington for one reason, Burns said. They don't trust Trump's commitment to a free and independent Ukraine or his mystifying infatuation with Putin and his authoritarian persona. That's a stark statement. Is that the operating principle here? I'm still trying to figure out the remarkable scene of seven European leaders dropping everything and getting to the White House. Yes, it was incredible. But I think, yes, Nicholas Burns has hit the nail on the head.

7:21I think everyone was so horrified and worried about the spectacle of Putin receiving this red carpet welcome in Alaska, apparently for not making any concessions at all over the war. Or there's this great show of back-slapping and bonhomie at a time when, you know, Putin is facing an international arrest warrant for war crimes. And he's had three years of Western isolation and condemnation over his pursuit of the war against Ukraine. And all of a sudden, he's sitting down in glad-handing with the president of the United States. And there is this effort by Russia and there has been enormous efforts going on behind the scenes to kind of pursue back channel kind of charm offensives with the United States.

8:13And what Russia would really like would be for Donald Trump to actually forget all about the war and just pursue improved bilateral ties with Russia. What we hear time and again from Russian analysts is that Russia really wants to peel the United States away from its traditional allies in Europe and pursue a close alliance with Russia. So this is really what had the European leaders rushing to Washington, because if Putin were to succeed in that and Trump were to decide, oh, well, perhaps the Ukraine war isn't so important. I'm not going to agree to supply any more weapons, even if Europe is saying they're going to buy them.

8:58and he's going to force Zelensky into some deal in which he has to cede a big strategic chunk of eastern Ukraine to Russia then that leaves Europe extremely exposed to any future Russian aggression even if Russia is trying to say we promise we won't invade again we won't invade any other countries or Ukraine we might enshrine that in law where in reality, Russian laws have not prevented Russia from violating Ukraine's international borders in the past and certainly won't do so again. Well, European leaders appear to have left the White House on Monday feeling a little bit better about Donald Trump and his position vis-a-vis Ukraine and Russia.

9:46But then Donald Trump was on Fox News just this Tuesday morning on Fox and Friends discussing his conversations with Putin, his conversations with European leaders. And he seemed to suggest you'll hear it right here that indeed the Donbass, eastern Ukraine, which Russia has taken over now belongs to Russia. Listen, I assume you've all seen the map, you know, a big chunk of territory is taken and that territory has been taken. Now, they're talking about Donbass, but Donbass right now, as you know, is 79 percent owned and controlled by Russia. Ownership is 90 percent of the law, Greg Myrie. If European leaders were feeling good yesterday, I'm not sure they are today.

10:30Yeah, Todd, I think a good a good litmus test in diplomacy is how do things feel the day after? Because it's very easy to have meetings and have lots of happy talk and back slapping. How does it feel the day after? And again, now we're sort of back to the real world problems and the Donbass is certainly one of them. It's the territory in eastern Ukraine that Russia first seized in 2014. They've taken more of it in fighting the last three and a half years. And Russia is now seeming to claim all of it, even the parts they don't control. They want Ukraine to give up parts of the Donbass that they haven't been able to win by fighting.

11:12So this is where the nitty-gritty of the negotiations come into effect. Ukraine doesn't want to give up that territory. It's valuable, well-fortified positions. And so here we are a day later looking at some of the hard realities. Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin met in Alaska, of course. Now, going in, Donald Trump demanded that Russia agree to a ceasefire and warned of severe consequences if Putin didn't agree. Listen for a moment to Jackie Heinrich of Fox News, Fox News's senior White House correspondent, on the scene in Alaska on Friday describing that meeting between Putin and Russia. The way that it felt in the room was not good.

11:54It did not seem like things went well and it seemed like Putin came in and steamrolled, got right into what he wanted to say. By the end of that meeting, Trump reversed his position completely, dropped his demand for a ceasefire and put pressure on Ukraine to cede territory in the eastern Donbass region, which we just heard about before the break. Catherine Belton, going back to that meeting and Jackie Heinrich's description, what happened? Well, it looks like actually, you know, even if Trump reversed course on demanding an immediate ceasefire, I'm not sure Putin got absolutely everything that he wanted.

12:34Because remember, the summit was meant to go on for two times longer than it did. I think there were meant to be meetings with business leaders. Putin was very keen to move on the topic onto issues on the bilateral agenda of economic cooperation, space cooperation and arms talks, but he didn't. And Trump actually cut him off. I think Putin's goal in that summit, even though, you know, he did have this sort of return to the international stage and was greeted so warmly, which certainly he played up for his own propaganda purposes. But he wasn't able to get Trump's immediate agreement to this forced seeding of territory, even though Trump is applying pressure on Ukraine.

13:23He didn't say, Trump did not say during the summit that this is what they had agreed to. He said there's no deal till there's a deal. And I have, he was quite clear in saying that he had to talk to Ukraine first. So not everything went Putin's way. And this is where Europe moved in to try and seize the opportunity to try and kind of shape what Trump's view of any security, future security guarantees for Ukraine could look like. And obviously try and ensure if there is any territory to be involved in any deal that it's on fairer terms for Ukraine. All right. Ukraine's territory in the east. Ukraine does not want to give up 20 percent of its country that's been taken by Russia.

14:09and security guarantees that Catherine just mentioned. Here was United States Special Envoy Steve Witkoff on Fox News on Sunday talking about what a security guarantee for Ukraine could look like. The United States is potentially prepared to be able to give Article 5 security guarantees, but not from NATO, directly from the United States and other European countries. that is big i mean really big so a nato security guarantee article 5 security guarantees but not from nato greg myrie what is steve whitkoff describing there it sounds like nato but not nato at the same time yeah he's right it would be big if true i i just have to say i'm extremely skeptical here um you know it's either nato membership in article 5 or not it's something else.

15:07And remember, Ukraine got guarantees not only from the United States and Britain, but also from Russia way back in 1994 when they agreed to give up their nuclear weapons in exchange for the U.S., Britain, and Russia agreeing not to defend Ukraine's sovereign territory. That was meaningless. So I think anything short of an Article 5 NATO guarantee is going to be treated with real skepticism here in Ukraine. And beyond that, it's hard to imagine what Putin might be willing to agree to. He invaded Ukraine not just because he wanted Ukrainian territory. That's certainly part of it and wants to control Ukraine.

15:51But he also wants to keep NATO as far away from Russian borders as he can. So that was a big part of it. So now, after this very difficult war for three and a half years, you know, is Putin willing to allow NATO troops into Ukraine or have a guarantee that they will rush to Ukraine's defense if needed? I mean, that's really hard to believe until you hear it, you know, Putin say that kind of thing publicly. It just doesn't seem like something that's been a realistic prospect and one three-hour meeting in Alaska didn't seem to change all that. Catherine, do European leaders have a similar concern to Jim, even if they put it a little more diplomatically?

16:35I think they're worried, of course. And I think, you know, Putin's goal in the summit was sort of really to try and rush Trump into viewing things Putin's way. I think he was deliberately vague about what Russia might be ready to perceive as a kind of an acceptable security guarantee. Russia has discussed security guarantees for Ukraine before during talks in Istanbul in March 2022. But then the way the security guarantees Russia said that it would accept were ones that it would have veto rights over, that it would have veto rights over any defense arrangements for Ukraine, which, of course, makes a mockery of the notion that Ukraine could rely on any type of Western defense.

17:25So I think Putin was really trying a kind of typical sleight of hand, like betting on ignorance among his American counterparts that he would be able to squeeze something through. So I think the Europeans have been, you know, trying to make sure that that type of subterfuge does not work, that Trump has a clear understanding of what a security guarantee for Ukraine should mean. But that just kind of runs the whole process into yet another brick wall because there is no way, as you pointed out, that Russia is going to give way to proper, strong and robust security guarantees for Ukraine from the West, especially after he's just fought three and a half years to precisely to remove that opportunity.

18:15Let's look forward. Trump has advertised the possibility of a trilateral meeting between Zelensky, Trump and Putin. I think the Russians have all but shot that down. They've endorsed a meeting between high level officials, but not between principals. What are you looking for next? I think Donald Trump is in a hurry to get the three leaders together here. Yeah, I mean, I think you're right. Russia is going to try and drag out the process. Putin's foreign policy aide last night basically said, well, we might be willing to discuss the possibility of higher level delegations meeting. And so that means they're just going to continue to drag out the process.

18:55One Russian analyst I spoke to today said, well, maybe it's possible that the foreign ministers of both countries can meet and talk. And if they can agree on what the president should speak about, then maybe it's possible that Putin and Zelensky could meet. But really, Putin's going to have difficulty agreeing to any meeting one-on-one with Zelensky because Russia sees that as conferring legitimacy on Ukraine as a state and on Zelensky's rule. And they have always argued that he's an illegitimate leader. They want elections in Ukraine, even though there's a war raging in the country, which makes elections impossible.

19:39So I think, you know, we're going to be in this game for quite some time in which Russia is still trying to deflect the danger of stronger sanctions from Trump and trying to sort of play out this pretense that it wants to negotiate, that it wants peace in order to defer any sanctions. And the fact that strongest sanctions haven't happened is really surprising to many European leaders because they think that Trump really has a strong hand right now because the Russian economy is suffering after three and a half years of sanctions. Inflation is really high. Russian businesses are warning about bankruptcies because central bankers had to impose really high interest rates so no one can pay off their loans or raise any more money.

20:29So, I mean, if Trump wanted to, he would have quite a strong hand in imposing tougher sanctions. Greg, I'll give you the last word. There's a wild card in this entire process. Donald Trump has made clear he wants a Nobel Peace Prize. He's got his officials lobbying world leaders for nominations for a Nobel Peace Prize. He's reportedly phoned the finance minister of Norway to talk tariffs and included a Nobel Peace Prize for himself in those discussions. How important is Donald Trump's trophy to this process right now? Well, if it keeps him engaged, I think it's significant. This would look a lot different if Trump is not engaged.

21:07Now, what Trump's going to do, I can't tell you. He may be deeply involved one day or one week and then pull back on the other, say, I'm going to let the Europeans sort it out themselves. So look very closely at what Trump is or isn't doing. At the moment, he's very much engaged. Let's see if that continues. That's Greg Meyrie, national security correspondent at NPR. Greg, thank you. My pleasure, Todd. Also heard from Catherine Belton, international investigative reporter for The Washington Post. Catherine, thank you. Thanks a lot. Back with more in just a moment.

21:45All right, let's move now to deeper policy discussion on the shifting ground between Russia, the United States and Ukraine. Joining us now is Angela Stentz, senior advisor to the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies and professor of government and foreign service at Georgetown University. She's also a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of Putin's World, Russia Against the West and With the Rest. Angela, that's a long resume. So you're definitely credentialed to be here. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate you. Samuel Cherup is here as well. He's chair in Russia and Eurasia policy and a senior political analyst at the RAND Corporation.

22:28They're a nonprofit policy think tank. And he's the co-author of Everyone Loses the Ukraine Crisis and the Ruinous Contest for Post-Soviet Eurasia. Samuel, welcome back to 1A. Thanks for having me. All right. Who could forget the confrontation between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, President Trump and J.D. Vance six months ago in the Oval Office? Let me refresh your memory. You're gambling with World War III. And what you're doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country. that's backed you far more than a lot of people said they should have. Have you said thank you once? Now, at the White House on Monday, President Trump greeted Zelensky without the public berating and humiliation of that visit five months ago that we just listened to.

23:15Now, Zelensky was also backed up by European leaders, as we've mentioned, France, Germany, the UK, EU, and elsewhere. Samuel, European leaders seem to have learned a lot about how to manage Donald Trump, his desires and his personality. What did you pick up from watching the meetings at the White House in Alaska and in Washington with Vladimir, the Alaska meeting with Putin on Friday and the White House meetings? What'd you pick up from observing those? Well, I mean, I think we've seen that foreign leaders generally have developed a modus operandi to engaging with President Trump that works for them.

23:58And a lot of it involves sort of coming to kiss the ring and demonstrating deference. And Zelensky yesterday certainly avoided the pitfalls of that February Oval Office meeting. And in a way, that might be the best outcome that Ukraine got from yesterday's set of meetings, whereby, you know, Zelensky's relationship with Trump has, to a certain extent, been restored from that sort of catastrophic encounter back in February. And Angela Stent, I'm interested in your view on the difference between five months ago in that horrific scene in the Oval Office and what we saw on Monday with a much better attitude all around, and Zelensky flanked by European leaders.

24:46What have they learned? So Zelensky has obviously learned how better to interact with President Trump. He did speak English yesterday, which surprised me a bit because one of the problems in February was that he didn't have an interpreter. And although his English is fine, you know, if you're in such delicate negotiations, it's more problematic. But anyway, He said all the right things. And, you know, in the interim, Ukraine has signed this minerals deal with the United States. This is something that President Trump really wanted. The Ukraines have gone out of their way to be very respectful to President Trump and to watch their words.

25:26So I have to say, I turned on the TV with trepidation yesterday. Also, Zelensky was wearing a suit last time. He was upraided by a reporter who was there yesterday for coming in his war fatigue. So certainly the atmosphere was better. But you just you never know when President Trump can change his mind. But so far, Zelensky is going along with everything that President Trump has said and hoping that this will lead to an outcome that's better for Ukraine. But as all your guests have said so far, it's really unclear whether that's going to happen. We got this message from Guy in Pensacola who says, isn't Ukraine already under the protection of the signers of the Budapest memorandum?

26:12Unfortunately, one of the signers that pledged to protect Ukraine is now the invader with no protection provided from the other parties to that very agreement. Why would anyone give any credence to yet another pledge of protection from the same source? Fool me once, shame on you, holds true here. Samuel Cherup, what about Ukraine's ability to trust security guarantees, whether they're NATO-like or from some other source? I mean, I think that it's important to note that the Budapest Memorandum itself was not a security guarantee like NATO's Article 5. It was essentially about the intentions of the signatories.

26:52In other words, Russia committed not to, you know, attack Ukraine, as did the United States and the UK. and clearly Russia violated that agreement. But the United States did not commit to come to Ukraine's defense if it were attacked in that document. And that is essentially what is included in Article 5. So, you know, we are talking about, when we talk about a security guarantee now, something different than what was included in the Budapest Memorandum in 1994. The question, of course, is whether at the end of the day the political will exists if Russia were to reinvade after a ceasefire in the United States and other Western allies to come to Ukraine's defense using our own military capabilities.

27:37And if the current war is any evidence, we're clearly not willing to do that. So then we get into the sort of ditty-gritty of, is there something between an Article V-like commitment and a Budapest memorandum, which is really about the intentions of the signatories with Ukraine? And there are in-between models, but they are complicated and they would rest to a certain degree on the extent to which Russia is deterred from attacking. And, you know, first and foremost, Ukraine is going to have to rely on its own military capabilities to deter a potential future Russian attack. Samuel, I'm no diplomat, but from what you're describing, it feels to me like Putin believes time is on his side.

28:21He's not going to agree to a ceasefire now. But even if he does, he can wait and wait and wait and maybe pry and pry and pry and see if he can continue to succeed in separating the United States from the European allies, weakening NATO enough that he can flow back in like water. in a potential it all really depends on the terms of the deal one can imagine a political settlement that he's happy with right it's hard to imagine how that's also one that ukraine's happy with but putting that to the side you know i think if he achieves his objectives in ukraine he might agree to a ceasefire but right now i don't think that kind of deal is on the table and as a result as you note he has momentum on the battlefield he thinks that his position will be better in six months or 12 months than it is today.