472. Is Trump’s Peace 'Plan’ Forced Surrender for Ukraine?

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3:05Welcome to an emergency episode of The Restless Politics with me, Alistair Campbell. and with me, Rory Stewart. And this is us focused on Ukraine. You've been speaking to people who've been at the G20, where most of the leaders, except for Trump, have been. We're talking on a Sunday night when in Geneva at the moment, Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff and the Ukrainian delegation are meeting. But the reason we're talking, of course, is this plan, which was leaked, which seems to be the working draft put together by Steve Wyckoff, who's Trump's main negotiator, with Kirill, who's doing the negotiating on behalf of the Russians, which has produced some extraordinary results.

3:46Over to you. It depends what you mean by extraordinary. Extraordinary reactions. I don't think there's been any result. Yeah, I suppose apart from these meetings that are now going on in Geneva. I mean, this is a little bit of a rerun of the Gaza plan, but I think it's even worse in that we talked when Trump came up with his Gaza plan, and we should maybe point out that we're talking on a day that Israel has just been, has just taken out the chief of staff for Hezbollah in Lebanon, where more Palestinians were killed yesterday. So I think it's mythology to say that peace has been delivered there.

4:22But this one, next to no reference to the Ukrainians, some doubt even as to whether this might actually have been written by the Russians, um there are american senators who've come out and said that rubio told them that he had very little input into it he's now denied that but i think that you know if you if okay with you rory i'd quite like to do what we did with the gaza plan when it first came out which is essentially to go through the whole thing because i mean it's 28 points we don't need to do them all but i just think it as we go through and see what ukraine is being asked to take i hope that most decent reasonable people will think this is this is this is more than trump just driving a bulldozer this is basically saying i'm sick to death of dealing with this i'm sick to death of being told that i'm the only person who can sort it out for god's sake it's going to end and here's the basis on which it ends so should we should we just have a quick run through yeah brilliant let's maybe even chat a few of the points as you raise them absolutely so the point point one and you do sort of wonder why this even has to be said Ukraine's sovereignty will be confirmed who who whoever put it in doubt uh and then I think you have to go after that you have to go to point 21 of the 25 point plan which relates to territories Crimea Luhansk and Donetsk will be recognized as de facto Russian including by the United States now what the Americans can say well, the Russians aren't happy about that because they want de jure.

5:58They want to say, this is theirs. But it does somewhat conflict with the idea that Ukraine has sovereignty. Let's just come to that for a second and just expand on that a little bit. Because the big news contained within that is that Ukraine currently occupies bits of Donetsk and Luhansk. These were, of course, all Ukrainian territory before Russia's invasions in 2014 and 2022. Ukraine has been fighting very, very bravely, but at huge cost to hold those lines. And the Russians have been advancing, as people have pointed out, very, very slowly. Some people calculate it would take them years to conquer that territory.

6:39They don't currently conquer the western edge of that territory. They currently don't occupy. So the first thing to note is that this plan is not just freezing the front lines where they are. It's giving Russia more than they currently have. And then there's an ambiguous phrase halfway through about international recognition, which even makes it a little bit unclear whether they're trying to sneak in something more than just de facto Russia controls this, because there's a toy about full international recognition for a buffer zone as Russian territory. Yeah. Donald Trump has said they may have to give up on land they have not lost.

7:14So they're actually being asked to give up more than Russia has already taken. Russia will relinquish other agreed territories it controls outside the five regions. Your point, Ukrainian forces will withdraw from the part of the nets, gobblasts that they currently control. This withdrawal zone will be considered a neutral demilitarized buffer zone. Russian forces will not enter. Now, here we are. Just listen to this one, Rory. This is point two. So that's one and 21. Point two, a comprehensive non-aggression agreement will be concluded between Russia, Ukraine, and Europe. All ambiguities of the last 30 years will be considered settled.

7:53Now, I don't know if I'm the only person, when I hear comprehensive non-aggression agreement, the names Molotov and Ribbentrop sort of flow somewhat into my head. This is when the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact was made. And I think you're making a really good point here, because I was talking to a good friend from the Baltic earlier today, who said that fundamentally, this is what the Soviet Union, the USSR did to Finland. So effectively, they invaded Finland, and then they created the situation where they took away Finland's sovereignty. And effectively, that's what's happening here. The idea is that Ukraine wouldn't be fully sovereign.

8:32A fully sovereign country is a country which is free to have its own army, invite people in, create international treaties. please, this is essentially Finlandization. This is making Ukraine into a state that simply doesn't have the same sovereign rights that Russia would have. Okay, number three, it is expected, interesting choice of word, that Russia will not invade neighboring countries and NATO will not expand further. Now, first of all, it is expected, well, it was expected, not least by the United the state's intelligence services that Russia wouldn't invade Ukraine. NATO not expanding further, I assume that is them responding to Russia, your point about Finland, saying they weren't very happy about NATO expansion as a result of the invasion of Ukraine.

9:25But Rory, here's one that absolutely, and I was speaking to one of the leaders who's at the G20, who said this one really kind of got them absolutely, they just couldn't begin to believe what this meant. Number four, a dialogue will be held between Russia and NATO mediated by the United States to resolve all security issues. Now, NATO is the United States and the United States is NATO. So the thing there that's so amazing, and this is part of something you often talk about, which is the way that Trump eventually over time does things so extreme that it begins to change all our expectations. One almost has to remind people of why that is so mad.

10:08And the reason it's so mad fundamentally is that NATO was created by the United States. The whole idea of this whole thing was NATO was lining up with its liberal democratic allies in Western Europe against Russia and the Soviet Union. So for the US to then pose as a sort of neutral mediator, hey, it's nothing to do with us. This is just between you guys, is the most extraordinary kind of revelation. And that's why in what's now becoming a European counterproposal that's being put, one of the things they're saying is that ukraine should be when we get onto security guarantees which is point five so point five is ukraine will receive reliable security guarantees there's no reference to american forces doing anything on that just as reliable security guarantees so what the european counterproposal is saying is that that should include an article five type relationship for ukraine no response from the americans number six the size of the ukrainian armed forces, not just the army, the armed forces will be limited to 600 ,000 personnel.

11:18Now, why are the Russians so insistent on lower levels of personnel if it is not that later down the road they'd like to take on a weaker armed forces? So this isn't a weird element of spin in the sort of micro concessions. And you're completely right. The way to think about this is this is a repeat, basically, in many ways of what Trump did with Gaza, which is it's an attempt to create peace through giving almost everything to the stronger party. And the stronger party makes these sort of mini concessions. So the Russians would say, 600 ,000 is still a lot of people. It's more than we wanted.

11:54We wanted to limit the Ukrainian army to, let's say, 100 ,000 people. But the fundamental point is this. I mean, you're limiting the sovereign ability of a country that's been invaded to defend itself. Yeah. And the point about the armed forces is that that includes Navy, Air Force. So the army is currently, I think, about 880 ,000. The European counterproposal, which is being discussed now, they're saying they would accept 800 ,000. But the point is, if you're a sovereign country, you can decide how much you want to spend on defence, which is exactly what Vladimir Putin has done. Furthermore, if you are a sovereign country which has actually been invaded in the last two and a half years, you need to be able to increase your forces and do what you want.

12:38Anyway, let's keep running because it gets worse and worse. Keep running through these points. Right. Number seven, Ukraine agrees to enshrine in its constitution that it will not join NATO. And NATO agrees to include in its statutes a provision that Ukraine will not be admitted in the future. So again, if it's a sovereign country, it has a sovereign choice about which defence partnerships to make. And if we're serious about security guarantees, and logically, all of Europe is agreeing to security guarantees, and the United States is agreeing to security guarantees. So if every NATO member wants to provide a security guarantee for Ukraine, isn't it basically in NATO anyway?

13:17So refusing to allow it to join NATO is essentially Trump signaling that the US security guarantee will not be as firm as a normal Article 5 guarantee. Correct. We'll get on to that when we get on to point 10. In fact, point 8, NATO agrees not to station troops in Ukraine. Well, it hasn't stopped Putin putting Russian troops into Ukraine. That's another very fundamental one. So if we think about a world in which increasingly the US pulls its support out, and in which the US says to Europe, Russia's your problem, you haven't been spending enough on defense, step up and deal with it. Well, the only way that you could actually provide a security guarantee to Ukraine is by putting troops in.

13:57And we talked about what that could be. That could be brigades back, that could be brigades forward, that could be tripwires, that could be training. But how can we possibly talk about providing security guarantees to the US? to Ukraine. This American story, Europe needs to step up. If Europe is now banned from putting troops in, what kind of security can it provide? Number nine, European fighter jets will be stationed in Poland. Well, that's fine. Number 10 - No, but let me hold on that too, because I think that the small print there is twofold, as my Baltic friend was pointing out. Does this mean European fighter jets can be stationed in Poland, but no further forward?

14:33And does it mean only European fighter jets, so you can't have fighter jets from the US and Poland. I mean, why is this thing here? I mean, we have fighter jets in Poland already. So what is this clause unless it's trying to restrict virtual media? Well spotted. It's even worse than I thought. Number 10, the US guarantee. Now, you have to remember, and this is, there was a very, very good editorial in the Financial Times yesterday, which said that this is laid bare the cynical money grabbing nature of Trump's approach to everything. The US will receive compensation for the guarantee. If Ukraine invades Russia, it will lose the guarantee.

15:10If Russia invades Ukraine, in addition to a decisive, coordinated military response, again, USA not mentioned, all global sanctions will be reinstated, recognition of the new territory and all other benefits of this deal will be revoked. And then Ukraine launches a missile at Moscow or St. Petersburg without cause, the security guarantee will be deemed invalid. When have we ever heard of Ukraine whacking off a missile at Moscow or St. Petersburg? Well, there have been allegations of drone attacks and things, but I agree with you. And remember also that the only threat that Russia faces there is that if it invades Ukraine, it returns to basically the position it's in at the moment.

15:52It doesn't actually end up any worse off. It's just re-imposition of sanctions. Yeah. Now, having made clear that it can't join NATO, number 11 says Ukraine is eligible for EU membership. Okay. But then we really get on to the meat of what Witkoff, and by the way, I noticed in the picture they released of the meeting in Geneva today, who should be there in the background again, but Jared Kushner yet again, and we know what his prime interest is. Number 12, a powerful global package of measures to rebuild Ukraine, including but not limited to, the creation of a Ukraine development fund to invest in fast-growing industries, including technology, data centers, and artificial intelligence.

16:33The United States, not the United Nations, the United States will cooperate with Ukraine to jointly rebuild, develop, modernize, and operate Ukraine's gas infrastructure, including pipelines and storage. Joint efforts to rehabilitate war-affected areas, infrastructure development, extraction of minerals and natural resources, and the World Bank will develop a special financing package to accelerate these efforts. Point 13, Russia will be reintegrated into the global economy, lifting of sanctions, long-term economic infrastructure invited to rejoin the G8. Now, number 14, just get this. We have talked so often on the podcast about these frozen funds.

17:13Frozen funds, which just remind listeners, Europe was hoping that if we got these frozen Russian funds, we would be able to hand them to the Ukrainian government to fill in the holes in their budget, pay for their military, and basically pay reparations from Russia to the damage done. Exactly. And essentially, you and I, whilst accepting there are huge legal issues that flow from it, basically we're saying to Europe, for God's sake, get on and do this. Here is the plan, number 14. 100 billion of the frozen Russian assets will be invested in US-led efforts to rebuild and invest in Ukraine. The US will receive 50 % of the profits from this venture.

17:54Europe will add 100 billion to increase the amount of investment available for Ukraine. This is like a mafia deal. Explain. So the business deal here is that America puts in no money. There's$100 billion dollars from frozen Russian assets. There's a hundred billion dollars from Europe and the US gets 50 % of all profits having put no money in. Yeah. Correct. I mean, you know, you know, Chatham House foreign policy, right? And they, you know how they're normally very, very sober in their discussions. Their head of the, their Ukraine desk has put out a statement saying, this is like the mafia days of old in American business deals.

18:33This, this is, and it then says this the remainder of the frozen russian funds will be invested in a separate u.s russian investment vehicle that will implement joint projects in specific areas right number 15 a joint american russian working group on security issues american russian not the un nothing to do with europe no no europe no nato no no ukraine no no no number 16 russia will enshrine in law oh take that seriously its policy of non-aggression towards europe and ukraine utterly meaningless number 17 the u.s and russia will agree to extend the validity of treaties on the non-proliferation and control of nuclear weapons fair enough number 18 and this to me is the one that if i was a ukrainian reading this i would say i and there's there's a ukrainian mp lisa yasko was saying that if we accept this whole package it is an act of national suicide that's what you call it national suicide 18 ukraine agrees to be a non-nuclear state in accordance with yes you guessed it the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons Budapest Memorandum 1994.

19:49That's the one where Ukraine agreed to give their nuclear weapons over to Russia in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, US and UK. So why would they sort of not think of that one? Well, hold on a minute. Right, then there's more stuff about nuclear. And then there's this one. Both countries undertake to implement educational programs in schools and society aimed at promoting understanding and tolerance of different cultures and eliminating racism and prejudice this is all about language this is all about you've got to speak russian ukraine will adopt eu rules on religious tolerance and the protection of linguistic minorities i noticed it's ukraine adopting this not russia's no russia's not adopting this correct correct and get this one right get this one right all nazi ideology and activities must be rejected and prohibited well who says whom is a nazi right putin's has consistently said the ukrainians are nazis and that what he's doing is facing a special military operation against nazis that's a way of saying to russian people we've we've got in this agreement that they won't be allowed to be nazis anymore furthermore they've admitted they're nazis i mean otherwise why did they sign this deal unless they admit they're nazis right we've then got we've then got 21 which we've talked about when they're getting near the end there folks 22 after agreeing on future territorial arrangements both the Russian Federation and Ukraine undertake not to change these arrangements by force, which is pretty much what was said in the past.

21:18Any security guarantees will not apply in the event of a breach of this commitment. 23. Russia will not prevent Ukraine from using the Dnipro River for commercial activities and agreements will be reached on the free transport of grain across the Black Sea. 24. Now this is where it gets really, really ugly. A humanitarian committee will be established. All remaining prisoners and bodies will be exchanged. All civilian detainees and hostages will be returned, including children. Measures will be taken to alleviate the suffering of the victims. And here we are. All parties involved in this conflict will receive full amnesty for their actions during the war and agree not to make any claims or consider any complaints in the future.

22:04So we know war crimes have been committed. It mentions children. Children have been taken from their families and taken to Russia. No punishment. Blanket amnesty for all war crimes. Well, I mean, Alice, I think that that was really good. And I'm really pleased somebody's actually gone out in detail because it just explains how shattering it is all the way through. I think there are three main overall things that you might say. The first is that this is a peace deal that destroys Ukraine's sovereignty. That's what we talked about. It limits how an independent nation can have its army, its weapons, what organizations it can.

22:46can join, what alliances they can join. Secondly, these very hollow security guarantees, not just no detail on what guarantee America has provided, but actually no European troops allowed into Ukraine, all the stuff about planes in Poland. And the third thing is the whole wider security of Europe, because the reason why this matters to us is that if Putin triumphs in Ukraine in this way, there is a considerable risk that he will then continue to push ahead in places like the Baltic. And people keep talking about the Russians needing three to five years to build up an army capable of fighting NATO.

23:27I don't see why he couldn't actually simply move his troops, move his troops straight from Ukraine to the Baltic border. And you can see him testing already, testing the drones, testing the attacks. So there's nothing here that explains, I suppose, the big question, which is what is going on in Trump's head? Now, if I was being cynical, and I'll hand you on this, this ties in with my prejudice, which is I've basically kept saying since November that he's on Putin's side. His view of this is Putin's view of this. And this hopeful message that we kept hearing from European leaders, that they'd changed Trump's mind, they'd shown him something he didn't understand.

24:09One month we were told that they'd shown him that Russia was less powerful than he thought. Next month, we were told they'd explained the importance for Europe. And you remember all this hokey-cokey, bringing Putin to Alaska, putting out tweets saying he was cross, shouting at Zelensky, not shouting at Zelensky. But the common theme, I think, remains totally unbroken. Trump is much more consistent than people appreciate. This deal is only a hairbreadth different from the deal that Russia was asking for and that basically Trump was fantasizing about when he said he could fix it in 24 hours. Yeah.

24:46A couple of points that we didn't cover. One of them is very important. Point 25, Ukraine will hold elections in 100 days. Well, you know why Russia wants that? Because they've convinced themselves that Zelensky might lose. US wants it for the same reason. They also want rid of Zelensky. And one of the leaders that I spoke to in Johannesburg said they were very suspicious that the timing was related to the fact that Zelensky is kind of engulfed, or his team is engulfed in this corruption scandal that some of the people close to him have got involved in that. And then we've also got, Rory, just as we had in Gaza, point 27, the agreement will be legally binding.

25:22Its implementation will be monitored and guaranteed by the Peace Council headed by President Donald J. Trump. so we've got a peace plan he's on the board of peace in gaza he's on the peace council in ukraine and i think that the i think that the what what i if you're you if you're zelensky there and that guy he's got so much kind of resilience and courage so his initial reaction was to say this is the most difficult moment in ukraine's history we're either going to have to surrender our dignity, or we're going to have to lose a very, very important ally. Since when, and this is a sort of, this is a repeat of previous patterns of behavior, since when the Europeans have now come out, and to be fair, they seem pretty united, they're saying the right things.

26:10But I just think sometimes, because we all have to bow down to Trump in the way that so many leaders do, and even Zelensky was doing it tonight, Trump put out this most ridiculous social media post where he said, Ukraine is showing zero gratitude for the efforts that we're making. And Zelensky put out a statement saying, I'm very grateful to everybody who's trying to save our country and save the lives of our people. But one of the mysteries here, which is, I guess, a mystery that we got to with the ceasefire deal that he pushed through in Gaza, is why other countries sign up to this. And this is basically about American power.

26:46So if you say to the Palestinians, or indeed a lot of the Gulf states, why on earth did you accept that particular ceasefire deal? They say, in the end, we had no choice. We'd run out of room here. So the question is, will he be able to pull it off again? Because Trump's gamble is always the same. It's that if I don't care about including the other side and I just get behind one side in this, I can force through an end to the fighting, at least temporarily. I didn't fix any of the underlying problems, but I get a bit of space where I get to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Now, this is a bit different.

27:27Here, he's not dealing with small Gulf monarchies who are very wealthy, but are nevertheless relatively small countries compared to Europe as an economic size. In fact, their economic size is a fraction of Europe's. And he's not dealing with Hamas. He's dealing with Ukraine that was invaded. So what leverage has he got? How's he going to make this happen? Why are European leaders being polite? Why is Zelensky saying, I'm very grateful? Why are we hearing people saying, well, look, this could be the beginning of a negotiation? What do they mean by that? Well, all they mean by that is we're scared witless that we're going to really annoy Trump.

28:02And what we're really worried about is he can do things he hasn't done. so he can suspend all intelligence and satellite cooperation entirely which he did very very briefly before didn't he he did exactly sorry you you put me up there i think sorry that that's worth bearing in mind that actually some of the things i'm about to list he has done and then stop doing them but that probably means that if somebody says well he's never going to do that you could turn around and say well actually he has done that so stop uh intelligence and satellite sharing, stop the sale of key weapon systems like Patriots, stop the sale of European weapon systems which have American components in them.

28:41So there's a complicated American law that allows them to block things made by the British, Germans, and French that have American components in them. And ultimately, he could push ahead and start doing more aggressive things, sanctions, pressure against the Ukrainians and anyone who's supporting them. And Trump Trump is capable of doing those things, which is why I guess even though everybody looking at this agrees with you, agrees this is a terrible deal, this is a Russian deal, you're hearing people say, well, this could be the beginning for a negotiation, we're very grateful. apparently the discussion that the european leaders were having in in johannesburg and including canada and including japan and including you know some of the others who were there and the people i spoke to said there was no dissent about this there was the only discussion was whether actually to reject this outright or and to say we will bring forward our own or to do what they've done which is to say this is a point of departure but it's going to need radical change before Ukraine or Europe can accept it.