With this ring: Trump and Putin omit Ukraine

0:28The Economist M23. Our correspondent interviewed one of its leaders, Cornel Nongar.

0:39And Tomorrow marks the on-screen return of an iconic fictional character, known for her dodgy choice in men, bad cooking, and capacity to drink vast quantities of chardonnay. We take a look at the new Bridget Jones.

1:02But first… On yesterday's show, we brought you an interview with Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky. In it, he said that if Ukraine wasn't part of a deal to end the war, the deal wouldn't stick.

1:26He worried about manipulation. If America was left alone with Russia, Trump with Putin. But a lot can happen in 24 hours. Last night, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone for 90 minutes. And I think we're on the way to getting peace. I think President Putin wants peace and President Zelensky wants peace. And I want peace. I just want to see people stop getting killed. So where does that leave Ukraine and Europe? This is perhaps the biggest development towards ending the fighting in Ukraine since Russia's invasion almost three years ago. Shashank Joshi is our defense editor. Donald Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine in a single day.

2:15He never told us how he would do that. And he still hasn't. But what he has done is now open up that channel to Russia that will begin a process of very significant diplomacy. And Shashank, what do you know about what Trump and Putin actually discussed? What's the outline of that? The long and short of it is that Trump said he and Putin agreed that talks to end the war in Ukraine should begin immediately. He formed a negotiating team, and that is quite interesting because it includes Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, Mike Waltz, the National Security Advisor, John Ratcliffe, who's the head of the CIA, and Steve Witkoff, who is the Middle East envoy, who you might remember from playing a very big role in the Gaza deal that was agreed not long ago.

3:07What's interesting about that is he didn't mention Keith Kellogg, his own Ukraine envoy, who has been busy conducting diplomacy in Europe. But he also said a lot of other things. He said that he and Putin had essentially agreed to conduct visits to each other's capitals. That would be a very big development. I don't think an American president has been to Moscow since George W. Bush, so many, many years ago. And I think the other important thing, Rosie, is America also made quite a lot of concessions yesterday. We saw Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, say it was unrealistic for Ukraine to return to its pre-2014 borders, in other words, saying Ukraine's not going to get its territory back.

3:52And he said there will be no American boots on Ukrainian soil, and Ukraine's membership of NATO is out of the question. So if you put all that together, America has made a lot of concessions to Russia yesterday. Those are big calls to make on Ukraine's behalf. What has Volodymyr Zelensky said about that? Well, he sort of tried to sound positive, but ultimately he was cut out of this. Trump said he would tell Zelensky about the call with Putin afterwards. And clearly he and Zelensky then spoke. But it was clear that Ukraine wasn't part of this conversation. Ukraine was being sidelined. The mantra that we've heard for so many years out of Europe and America, which is nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine, that is being thrown under the bus.

4:41And when Trump was asked later, do you see Ukraine as an equal member of this peace process? He said, it's an interesting question. I think they have to make peace. That was not a good war to go into. So he didn't say, yes, they're an equal member of this process. More importantly, the Europeans are also not part of this. And we saw a lot of European states publish a statement later basically saying this process had to include both them and Ukraine. Otherwise, it really would lack legitimacy. And what has the Kremlin said about it? And has Putin made any comments? Putin hasn't spoken himself. But it's clear the Kremlin is pretty happy with all of this.

5:16You know, they've got the first presidential phone call since 2022. They've got the first presidential visit to Moscow in years. They've got a number of American concessions up front. So obviously, they're pretty happy with this. You know, Putin's spokesperson said that the talks couldn't just be about a ceasefire in Ukraine. They had to address what he called the root causes for conflict. And I think what they're getting at is the bigger European security order. not just Ukraine, but the question of America, the question of NATO, the question of NATO's enlargement. And I think that they will see the opportunity to get Trump one-on-one in a meeting with Putin as just a fantastic opportunity.

5:58Because, Rosie, you remember the 2018 Helsinki summit, don't you, between Putin and Trump, where Trump famously sided with Russian intelligence over the FBI and criticised his allies. And if they can repeat that kind of exercise and put a deal to Trump one-on-one, I think they're going to be absolutely delighted. And Shashak, what do you think? Has the Trump administration given away too much too soon? I think they've given away a huge amount and it's very dangerous. It's not that these concessions are all wrong. It's that you don't want to necessarily make them up front. The problem is the core of this diplomacy is going to be about security guarantees for Ukraine.

6:38How do you ensure this doesn't happen again? In taking NATO membership off the table, in taking troops off the table, what's left? What's left really is either no guarantees or what we sometimes call the Israel model, the idea that you would heavily arm Ukraine to be able to defend itself, but you wouldn't promise to directly intervene. You wouldn't get anything like NATO's Article 5. But it's by no means clear how far America's willing to go in doing that, whether continue to supply military aid. We have seen a suggestion that Trump might want to ask Ukraine to hand over some of its critical minerals.

7:18And indeed, I think the US Treasury Secretary has been discussing that with Zelensky this week. But it's clear that Europeans are now going to have to take over a lot of this burden. And Trump just wants to do this on the cheap. And Shashank, you say all of this will have bigger implications for the European security order. What do you mean by that? Well, the big news yesterday wasn't just Trump's phone call with Putin. It was also comments made by Pete Hegseth, the American Defence Secretary who was speaking at NATO in Brussels. He delivered a pretty tough message to European allies. Stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe.

8:03Now, I know we've heard this before. Barack Obama withdrew some forces from Europe. We worried about this during the first Trump administration. And it's been a stated policy across multiple American administrations that China is the priority for the Pentagon. But given everything we know about this administration, given the wider Ukraine diplomacy, I think there is a real sense that this is a more serious shot across Europe's bow than we have ever had before. And when you think about the position Europe is in, with less America, with a Ukraine perhaps forced into a bad deal, I think we're looking at a really consequential reordering of the entire European security picture at this point.

8:53Shashank, thank you so much. Thank you very much.

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9:48It's not often you get to meet a leader of a group that's just taken control of a city. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from Corne Nonga when we met in a five-star hotel room in Goma. Emmett Livingstone writes about Africa. I reached out my hand and I thanked him to agreeing for the interview, slightly nervously. Merci à vous de m 'avoir accueilli. Non, merci d 'embrasser les terroristes. And he responded in jest, thank you for embracing the terrorists. Nonga is the head of the political arm of M23. It's a rebel group which took over this city in the Congo a couple of weeks ago. He's become the public figurehead of M23, so it was quite a meeting.

10:34Emma, you reported for us on the M23 just days after they took over Goma, and you spoke of the gunfire and the chaos there where you were. Remind us what happened. The M23 is an armed group which is led by Congolese Tutsis, and it's backed by Rwanda, which is Congo's neighbour. It has been waging an offensive in eastern Congo since late 2021, steadily expanding its territory. But in late January, the M23, along with Rwandan troops, capture the city of Goma, which is the largest in Eastern Congo, and it's where I'm talking to from now. So this came as a massive surprise. I've been covering Congo for three years.

11:11I go back and forth between the capital, Kinshasa and Goma. I arrived in Goma about six days, more or less, before they took the city. And it still wasn't clear at that point that they were going to make the push and actually take it. And it was only really maybe a day or two before that it became clear that they were actually making their big move. And I'm not the only one. There are lots of people that didn't manage to escape, that they just didn't believe it was going to happen. So Emmett, as you say, it isn't every day you get to meet the leader of a rebel group that's just taken a major city.

11:40What's he like? Yeah, it was slightly surprising. He was very relaxed. He was sitting in an armchair. He was cracking jokes. He did switch to a serious tone when he was talking about serious things. So when I asked him why the M23 had taken Goma, he said that they wanted to wage a, quote, clean war. And he was saying that the M23 eventually pushed into the city after years of laying siege to it because of constant attacks from Congolese forces and their allies that were around the city. The M23, it should be pointed out, has repeatedly denied receiving reports from Rwanda. Rwanda itself tends to sidestep this question when Rwandan leaders are asked directly.

12:26And they point to what they call the deep roots of the conflict in North Kivu, in eastern Congo, and they blame the Congolese government for fomenting the violence. Rwanda's president, Paul Kagame, told a reporter when asked, very implausibly, I might add, that he didn't know whether his soldiers were in Congo or not. But no one who has any credibility at all in the region doubts Rwanda's role in this. So how is this conflict in Goma likely to affect the region? And what did Nanga have to say about that? At the moment, it's anyone's guess, but the number of armed actors involved, including the number of African state armies involved, means that this is an extremely combustible situation that could deteriorate at any moment.

13:08There were four African armies defending Goma at the time of the attack. They were defeated. And on top of that, there's regional tensions in general. There's competition for influence in the region. Now, Nonga didn't really want to address the regional implications of the conflict. He was blaming foreign armies in a way for being hoodwinked and saying that they were dancing to the tune of lies from the Congolese state. La justification de cela est que c 'est l 'absence d 'État. And he was insisting that the M23's fight is purely a local one. He said it had everything to do with what he called the absence of the state in Congo.

13:45C 'est, je te parle, l 'absence d 'État, la mauvaise gouvernance.

13:52And it's true that the state institutions in Congo are extremely weak. And he also said that the only problems they have are purely Congolese. And he was talking about corruption. He was talking about the repression of the political opposition in Congo, and as well as the exclusion of certain ethnic communities, but especially the ethnic Tutsi community. But it sounds like you're skeptical that Nonga's ambitions are really just local ones. I am, and I think many other observers to this conflict are as well. If you take, for example, specific issues in eastern Congo, I mean, Nanga is vowing to go all the way to Congo's capital, Kinshasa, which is about a thousand miles to the west.

14:34He said that repeatedly, both in his conversation with me and also in public rallies. He uses pretty violent rhetoric. he told me that his fighters would advance until the last drop of blood. And as we speak now, the conflict is still expanding. So fighting is ongoing in the neighboring province of South Kivu. And there are very serious worries about the M23 and Rwandan troops going all the way to the city of Bukavu, which is itself another large city, and either capturing it or laying siege to it like they did in Goma. And Nanga himself did comment on South Kivu. He was saying that it was an area where there was a lot of military attacks coming from Congolese forces and their allies, and particularly from Burundian troops who are in South Kivu in their thousands.

15:34And you say that the conflict is expanding into eastern Congo, but you're in Goma now, which was taken just a couple of weeks ago. Is the fighting still going on there? It doesn't seem as if the fighting is going on here, and certainly serious conflict has stopped in Goma, but there are estimated to be thousands of former soldiers and militia fighters who are hiding in the city. You sometimes still occasionally hear the crackle of gunfire, but for the most part, fighting here has stopped and life is slowly returning to normal. But as I was saying, fighting is still ongoing on the edges of the M23's territory, the territory that it controls.

16:11It's saying that it's pushing for direct talks with the Congolese government. And for a long time, Kinshasa has absolutely rejected the possibility of these talks. But it's now coming under a massive pressure to finally cave to the demand to talk directly with the M23. What's slightly confusing is that when I spoke to Nonga himself in an off-guarded moment, he was telling me that he doesn't really believe in the possibility of negotiations with Kinshasa. He said that there are lots of preconditions to any negotiations. He also refused to name these preconditions. And then he called Chisekedi, the Congolese president, a crook.

16:51And he said you can't trust a man like him. And if M23 does come to the negotiating table at some point, how do you think Nonga is actually going to deal with that? The first thing to bear in mind is that Nonga is the figurehead, but almost certainly not the one calling the shots. Rwanda is calling the shots. So the real question is how Rwanda will deal with it and nobody else is in Paul Kagame's head, so it's difficult to know. But Nonga is being pushed as the figurehead and he wouldn't be drawn in on what even the contours of a negotiation might be. He seems very much a politician type figure.

17:25He's very well spoken. As I was saying, he cracks quite a lot of jokes in a facetious way, in a way that I found sometimes a little bit inappropriate, given the severity of the situation. At the end of our conversation, he offered to exchange phone numbers, which I did. And then he kind of had a twinkle in his eye and said, everyone's afraid to call me. And again, the whole room erupted in laughter.

17:52Emmett, we'll look forward to finding out whether you make that call. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me on.

18:10Only a few fictional characters and more than three outings on the big screen in the titular role. Rachel Lloyd is our deputy culture editor. Those that do are mostly superheroes. On the whole, clumsy, heavy drinking and lucky and loved women spouting verbal diarrhea do not get their own franchises. This woman is the exception. Bridget Jones, wanton sex goddess with a very bad man between her thighs. Mum. Hi. Today, she returns to cinemas and streaming services for her fourth outing in Bridget Jones' Mad About the Boy. Everything all right, Mrs Darcy? Oh my God. Hiya. What kind of magical man tree?

18:54Hello. Despite, or perhaps because of, her inability to be on time, lack of composure and dissatisfaction with her looks, Bridget is a reliable box office draw. The first film, Bridget Jones's Diary, was released in 2001 and made almost$600 million in today's money. The second, Bridget Jones's The Edge of Reason, made$437 million. And the third, Bridget Jones's Baby,$275 million. In 2020, British women named Bridget the most inspirational movie heroine, ahead of Erin Brockovich, a real-life paralegal who exposed corporate wrongdoing, and Hermione Granger from Harry Potter. Millions of copies of the Bridget Jones books, written by Helen Fielding, have also been sold.

19:41The first was published in 1996. Thousands of editions are still bought every year. Bridget's secret? Her relatable haplessness. She strives for perfection, but invariably falls short. She wants to impress at work, but is prone to blunders. Her cooking efforts end in disaster. Fielding drew on her own kitchen nightmares for those scenes. How's it look? Great. It's blue. Blue? No, but blue is good. If you ask me, there isn't enough food. As Rene Zellweger, who plays Bridget in the films, has summed her up. She fails at pretending to be what she's not. Bridget's popularity revealed a demand for flawed female characters on screen.

20:23Without Bridget, it's hard to imagine Hannah Horvath in Girls, or Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Fleabag. 40 % of Gen Z girls say they feel pressured to be perfect as they are bombarded by idealised images on social media. But Bridget shows that gaffes are funny and part of everyday life. Yes, I did! I had a full night of utterly mind-blowing sex, and it was amazing!

20:53Another reason for Bridget's longevity is Helen Fielding's comic talents. The author has co-written each of the four films and has an eye for shrewd observations and delightfully crude jokes. The latest film is largely about bereavement following the death of Bridget's husband, Mark Darcy, as played by Colin Firth. But it is also uproariously funny. In one scene, Bridget bumps into her son's teacher while she is bulk-buying condoms. It is as exquisitely excruciating to watch as it sounds. The Bridget Jones franchise is a winning combination of reality and fantasy. Like many, Bridget finds it easier to deal with life's disappointments after a bottle of Chardonnay or some ice cream.

21:33But across four films, no fewer than five attractive men profess the adoration of her. One, 20 years her junior. How old are you? 28. No, I'm just kidding. I'm 29. Whenever Bridget falls over, which she does a lot, she finds a way to pick herself up, dust herself off, laugh and resume the search for her happy ending. Fans will no doubt flock to the cinema to watch her find it.

22:08That's all for this episode of The Intelligence. Let us know what you think of the show. You can get in touch at podcast.economist.com. We'll see you back here tomorrow.

22:44You