Does the US really care about peace in Ukraine? – The Latest

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:12Just an unprecedented volume of drones and ballistic missiles. People are pretty stoical and resilient and angry. Meanwhile, we've got talks happening between Russia, Ukraine and the United States. This is a play being performed for one person in the audience, and that person is Donald Trump. He's put enormous pressure on the Ukrainians, none on the Russians. And actually, it's bizarre. My strong prediction is the war will continue this year and probably well beyond. As Ukraine approaches four years since Russia's full-scale invasion, are the latest round of peace talks anything more than a cynical political performance?

0:48From The Guardian's Today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Hoth. I'm joined by Luke Harding, who's a Guardian foreign correspondent. Luke, thanks so much for dialing in from Kyiv. So first of all, just describe what it's like where you are. It is freezing by the sounds of things. Yeah, it's been an incredibly cold and long winter. We saw temperatures in January going as low as minus 22 degrees. It's a bit warmer. I mean, that's comparative. It's, I think, minus 13 today. And there's been heavy snowfall, which has blanketed Kyiv. So it's a city of car crashes and skids. And of course, Russian attacks.

1:26what we've seen over the last couple of months, just an unprecedented volume of drones and ballistic missiles, really very cynically and systematically destroying what's left of the Ukrainian capital's energy infrastructure. So we saw a thermal heating and power plant completely smashed on the left flank of the Dnieper River, leaving half a million people without power. And electricity is down to about three or four hours a day. The pavements are humming the generators. And the strange thing is that the tactic is clearly to make Ukraine capitulate by Vladimir Putin. But people are pretty stoical and resilient and angry.

2:02And even though it's very cold now, they feel that spring is probably pretty close and they've survived the worst. So what's the mood on the ground? Are people able to stay in their own homes or are they being forced out to shelters given the lack of electricity and power, as you say? Well, there's been a huge response by the authorities here. There are emergency tents which have been set up around high rise apartment blocks which have no power heating at all. Some people are using those. Wealthier residents are booked into hotels where you can get a hot shower. the problem is for people who are poor and old and can't move because if you imagine you live on the 11th story of a power block and you're not very good at walking there's no lift no electricity means no lift and it means that the temperatures inside these apartments are about four or five degrees so i've talked to people who've been wrapping their plants and their walls with sort of bubble wrap um who are doing other kind of hacks to keep going heating up bricks or even stones, using camping equipment.

3:02So, you know, the city is resilient, people are doing their best. But we know that at least 10 people are frozen to death, died from hypothermia, and several hundred have been hospitalized. And this is the same situation across the entire country. It's not just Kiev, it's Odessa, it's Kharkiv, it's Boltawa, it's all of the major cities. Yeah, and it's in many ways a test of endurance, isn't it? Because we are now approaching the fourth anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. That anniversary is next week. So this is you know, not the first time that Ukrainians have had to endure a winter like this with no power, limited fuel, etc., limited food.

3:38But meanwhile, we've got talks happening on European soil, trilateral talks between Russia, Ukraine and the United States, talks that seem like they're not going hugely well. What do we know? Yeah, I mean, I think talks is a misnomer. It's a category error. The language, the vocabulary we're using to describe this process is basically off. It's not really negotiations. It's not really a process. This is actually, I think the best analogy is with theater, maybe even the theater of the absurd. This is a play being performed for one person in the audience, and that person is Donald Trump. And on the Ukrainian side, the idea is to keep Donald Trump happy so that the Americans, I mean, they've already cut direct military support to Ukraine, but they keep providing intelligence and a degree of political support.

4:27And the Russians, meanwhile, are trying to get the Trump administration to deliver what they've been unable to get on the battlefield, which is control of the whole of the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine, which is one of their key demands. They want Ukraine to seed cities that Russian troops have been unable to capture in 11 years of war and just hand them over. And Donald Trump seems okay with that. And so far, we've seen him apply lots and lots of pressure to Ukraine, to President Volodymyr Zelensky. and demanding no concessions of Russia whatsoever. So it's a strange game. And you're right.

5:01These talks actually are going nowhere whatsoever. Yes, it's a difficult week for Wladimir Zelensky in Geneva. He's saying that these talks were very tense and that these talks cannot result in victory just being handed over to Russia. But what's the mood music coming from Trump at the moment? Because he said whilst boarding Air Force One yesterday that Ukraine needs to move. I mean, this has been a consistent pattern ever since Donald Trump came back to the White House just over a year ago, that he's put enormous pressure on the Ukrainians and none on the Russians. And actually, it's bizarre.

5:39I mean, we have to remember what happened. I mean, Russia covertly took over parts of eastern Ukraine in 2014 and the next Crimea. And then in February of 2022, started a full-scale invasion, the biggest, bloodiest war on the European continent since 1945. And under Joe Biden, of course, the Americans supported Ukraine and provided weapons and so on. And that's all start with Donald Trump. And I think there's one pretty blunt conclusion, Lucy, which is that either Trump supports Russia or he doesn't care really what happens to Ukraine. He just wants a deal and possibly the Nobel Peace prize or both.

6:17And we're just in this kind of repeating cycle where nothing is going on, where there are very few meaningful American sanctions against the Russians. The Europeans, meanwhile, who, by the way, were involved to some degree, they were in Geneva for these two days of peace talks. They are supporting Ukraine. But the bottom line is the Russians don't want to stop. They think they can win either militarily or politically via a sympathetic American administration. And so my prediction, my strong prediction is the war will continue this year and probably well beyond. And Luke, what does it tell us that these talks are happening on European soil?

6:58Because the last round of so-called talks, as you say, happened in Abu Dhabi. But does it mean anything? Does it tell us anything that these talks are happening in Geneva? I don't think the location of the talks in Switzerland tells us very much. What we do know is that Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has sent another Vladimir, one of his senior aides called Vladimir Medinsky. And Modinsky is a historian who we think wrote the notorious essay that Putin published in the summer of 2021, which said basically that Russians and Ukrainians were the same. They were one people. They came from a common civilizational historical origin back in the 19th century.

7:39And I really read the fact that Modinsky is leading the talks for the Russian side as a form of trolling. He sort of sits there and delivers a kind of pseudo-historical lecture to the Ukrainians, telling them that they are not a people or a state. They're basically Russians or sub-Russians. And the goal from the Kremlin side is to sort of to increase conditionality, put more conditions on this process. And really, the Russian demands are unchanged. They want territory. They want a new government in Kiev. But they also, on top of that, they want NATO to withdraw. They want to turn the clock back until the kind of 1990s so that NATO pulls back from the Baltic states, from Central and Eastern Europe and so on.

8:22They're almost fighting for the past, revision of the past. And so far, their demands are as impossible and maximalist as ever. And that, of course, is why the war will continue. And Luke, just lastly, you're in Kiev and you'll be in Ukraine in the days running up to the fourth anniversary. What kinds of conversations are you having with Ukrainians as they face this kind of existential trolling, but also drone strikes, airstrikes from Russia? What sorts of conversations are you having with Ukrainians as they endure that? The strange thing here in Kiev is I would say the mood is perhaps slightly more optimistic than it was a few months ago.

9:03And, yeah, there are massive Russian drone and missile attacks. You know, we've seen this week 400 drones fired across the country. But at the same time, you know, what's been happening in the east of Ukraine is that Russia has been burning through huge numbers of troops. I mean, we're talking in January, they lost 35 ,000 soldiers killed or injured. And this isn't just a sort of propaganda figure. I mean, the point is the Ukrainians have got video. They can see soldiers, enemy soldiers dying on the battlefield. and that you can discern the sort of strategy from the Ukrainian side, which is to make really the cost of this war, economic, human, so high that Russia, you know, at some point in the future kind of stops and reconsiders.

9:47And also the Russians have recently lost access to Elon Musk's Starlink system. He's turned it off, which has kind of affected them on the battlefield and has seen Ukraine in the south of the country go forward for the first time in a while and make very kind of modest tactical gains. So no one thinks Ukraine is going to win tomorrow. No one thinks this war is going to stop. But there is this sort of strategy on the Ukrainian side, which they hope, think, may lead somewhere in future. But of course, everything depends on Don Trump and everything depends on the Americans continuing for now with some form of limited support for Ukraine.

10:27Well, Luke, thank you so much for your reporting and take care in the coming days. Thank you. Thank you, Lucy. Thank you. That's it for today. My huge thanks again to Luke Harding and do keep up with his reporting over at theguardian.com. We'll have more from Ukraine on Today in Focus next week as we mark the four-year anniversary of the start of the war. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Latest, the new evening edition of Today in Focus. Today in Focus will be back with you as usual tomorrow morning and the latest will be with you tomorrow night. This episode was presented by me, Lucy Hoff.

10:57It was produced by Bryony Moore. the senior producer was Ryan Ramgobin and the lead producer was Zoe Hitch.

11:06This is The Guardian.