Frontline special - Prof Scott Lucas, foreign policy analyst
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Welcome to The World in 10. In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security. I'm Alex Dibble and I executive produce the podcast. The World in 10 is partnered with Frontline, the interview series from Times Radio, available on YouTube, with expert analysis of the world's conflicts. At the weekend, we bring you Frontline interviews in full. Here's one from this week. I hope you find it interesting.

Hello and welcome to Frontline for Times Radio. I'm Louis Sykes. Today we're joined by Scott Lucas, Professor of US Politics at the University College Dublin's Clinton Institute and also founder and editor of EA Worldview. Scott, thank you very much for joining me today. Hey, thanks for having me back, Louis.

Well, just before we started speaking, there are reports of ballistic missile strike on the city of Dnipro in Ukraine. Trump has suggested the U.S. would provide more air defense missiles to Ukraine when he was speaking at the NATO summit. Is there any sign out of that summit this week you think that Ukraine can take some hope from?

Well, first, just to mention that breaking news that the Russians have hit Dnipro, a fairly large city in south central Ukraine. It's the second time this week that they've gone after Dnipro. They hit it a couple of days earlier, caused significant casualties and damage. It's a sign, you know, for those who don't believe it, that the Russians are not letting up, that there's no real space for negotiations anymore.

at least in the sense of a compromise here. Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin are dedicated on breaking that will to resist, even though Ukrainians have not broken after 40 months. Now, can they get support from Donald Trump in that? After what he said at the NATO summit, which you just summarized, which is maybe there will be Patriot air defense systems that can help guard against these daily or should say nightly missile and drone attacks.

I think context is important here. It was Trump said that in response to a question from a Ukrainian journalist. And I've got to give Trump credit. And, you know, I don't do so often. It was actually a very human moment for Trump that instead of grandstanding at that point, instead of making some sweeping, oftenly fact free declaration, he

He actually asked the Ukrainian journalist about herself, you know, actually asked where she's from, asked about whether her husband, where he was and, you know, found out he was on the front lines fighting against the Russians and then established that she was indeed a journalist, which kind of took him aback. Right. So you didn't have that very antagonistic, defensive, bombastic Trump. You had a Trump who was engaging.

And because you, you know, this story had come out that Ukrainians are having to defend themselves, which was their question. You said, yeah, you know, maybe we can we can go for the patriots. They're effective. And in that moment, you think, wow, the problem is, is that in that very human moment, will it last? You know, will Donald Trump actually take the lesson from that, that this is what Ukraine faces? Not in the case of one journalist and her husband. Every Ukrainian has been facing this for years.

And that it's not going to stop, that if the Russians come up and flatter him or if they say that Zelensky is not very nice, you know, that that he won't suddenly listen to them. You know, Trump's notorious listening to the last thing that he hears. This happened, a thing that he heard. It gave a soundbite for the media and off it runs. Now, in a wider context, I don't want to downplay that summit, however, in Ukraine.

especially because a lot of the media were being really negative going into it. They said, all right, all the attention's on Israel and its war on Iran and Trump being involved in that and everybody's losing focus on Ukraine, which I never believed. That was a really silly media line. And so it proved. In part, because Trump was occupied with Iran and Israel, and in part because NATO made a very conscious effort to

to make him feel like the most important guy in the room, Vladimir Zelensky got 50 minutes of FaceTime with Trump. And that's really, really important. We know that from that episode at the Vatican back this spring, when after J.D. Vance, Trump's attack dog, and Trump had assaulted Zelensky verbally in the White House, this was part of the recovery process.

to back Ukraine and Europe in terms of, if not a security guarantee, at least military assistance, financial assistance, and not accepting the Russian ultimatum. Here we are again, a few months later, Zelensky gets the FaceTime, this time not for 15, but for 50 minutes. He walks Trump through the damage that the Russians are causing. And when Trump comes out of that, he makes the statement, Vladimir Putin has to end this.

Now, he does say, I think Putin will want to end this. I think he will want to do so because, you know, that kind of fantasy in his head that Putin wants to stop, which isn't true. But at least the sign here is, is that the onus is on the Russians. Now, does that mean direct U.S. military aid to Ukraine? No.

We don't know. And Trump was evasive when he was asked that, by the way. But it opens up the space for the Europeans and the other countries who are providing that aid. Trump's not going to come in there and trash that. Trump's not going to come in there and try to say this is really awful. Ukraine has to concede. So as we have seen really since the start of the Trump administration,

Making sure that Trump isn't in the Kremlin's pocket and giving the space for others to step up the aid to Ukraine, even if it can't cover everything the Americans can provide, that's what you need in the short term. Now, down the road, you'd like to have the Americans pulled in to be assisting as well. But you have to accept that that's a gradual effort getting not just to Trump, but getting to other people in the Trump administration.

And as you say, it hasn't necessarily gone out of the minds, certainly of European leaders, but there has been very little that we've heard about support for Ukraine or the US's involvement over the last few weeks. Do you think that meeting we've seen at this NATO summit will change that?

It's very little that the media is paying attention to in terms of the support for Ukraine, and that's far different, right? You know how news agendas work, Louis. I'm not here to trash the media. When you get the whole series of unrest that we've had, I mean, what's been happening out of the United States, and especially what's been happening out in the Middle East,

Then it's like, where do we go next in terms of our coverage? So to give you one illustration of this, and I'm not sure most people even noticed it in someone, but the EU convened yesterday to talk about an 18th package of sanctions on Russia. Now, it's not just the fact it's the 18th package. This is a really serious set of sanctions, in particular, the proposal to reduce the oil cap.

Right now, you're talking about $60 per barrel on Russian oil is the limit. Zelensky would like it to go to $30. The EU is discussing it, bringing it down to $45. Now, they didn't pass that yesterday because Hungary and Slovakia, in part because they both got leaders who are pro-Kremlin, but in part because they really want to keep that Russian oil and gas flowing to them. They blocked for the moment.

What they're doing is, I won't go too deep into it, but what they're doing is they're holding that immediate set of sanctions hostage to the EU's, over the EU's goal of getting rid of all Russian oil and gas imports by 2028. And so what the Hungarians and Slovakians are saying is get rid of that 2028 goal for now and maybe we'll agree to the cap. The broader story here is the EU hasn't

left Ukraine behind. That's the broader story. And that's true also of NATO, because the point here is the summit is,

the reason why you're keeping Trump sweet. And I mean, they were saying stuff that was just like cringeworthy at certain points. Probably the, you know where I'm going with this. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte say, yeah, Trump's our daddy, which really exposes some issues with Mark Rutte, if you want me to be honest.

And then Trump going back to the United States and the White House making a meme of daddy's home. Right. It's like, you know, anyway, that's the price you pay. As we know, across a whole range of issues, you flatter Trump to keep him on side. And again, you know, NATO did that not just to to make Trump like them. They did it because they want Trump.

U.S. support for Ukraine and for European security. So, no, Ukraine hasn't been left behind. And I, in a way, in a really strange way, I was kind of happy for a few days where Ukraine was not leading in the headlines with the respect of what has Trump said about it.

Ukraine should be in the headlines because the Russians are committing mass murder on a daily basis. And I'm not so thrilled that hasn't noticed. But that whole idea of where Trump's soundbites are in Ukraine needed to take the temperature out of that. And that was successful this week. Do you think then we could see any movement on the U.S. sanctions coming back into play? Trump was increasingly, as you mentioned, talking about Putin as being the obstacle to peace. His his

modus operandi is to use tariffs and sanctions and economic pressure. Do you think he's willing to do that at this point? That's where the cost of Israel, Iran came in because it, not because of Trump, because of the US Congress. The proposal to toughen US sanctions has been tabled for months, notably co-sponsored by Trump's friend and ally, Lindsey Graham.

So it's from South Carolina, but the Senate won't put it on the agenda to move it towards a vote. And, you know, and before the flare up with Israel and Iran, John Thune, the Senate majority leader was talking about, OK, maybe we can start to consider to advancing this. And then, of course, Israel and Iran intervenes. And Lindsey Graham, for example, was prominent yesterday trying to cover Trump's backside over the election.

over the U.S. intelligence that there was only limited damage to the Iranian nuclear sites. So if Lindsey Graham is conscious of running cover for Donald Trump over whether or not the strikes, you know, have damaged Iran's nuclear program, he's not going to focus as much on tabling the sanctions bill. So that is, I think, a setback. I think even in a best-case

To be honest with you, even a best case scenario, I couldn't see those measures getting before the Senate until the autumn. We're coming up towards summer recess fairly soon. Trump's big, beautiful, or actually not so beautiful bill, which has passed the House, but the Senate is still squabbling over it. That was going to dominate the agenda over the next few weeks anyway. Yeah.

And how do you think Russia will have read the last week or so of events? Do you think they'll consider the conflict in the Middle East and this NATO summit any sort of victory? I don't think so. I mean, and there was a lot of speculation here. I mean, for example, some speculation was as if you had a protracted Israel-Iran war, it drives oil prices up significantly. If it drives up oil prices significantly, maybe the Russians get a higher price for their oil that they're using to circumvent that $60 camp.

through a shadow fleet, but there was a lot of ifs in that, including the fact that

the rest of the oil producing countries had kind of safeguarded themselves against an Iran shock for years. If the war had expanded beyond Iran, say if the Houthis in Yemen started attacking oil installations across the Middle East or attack oil tankers in the Red Sea, then you get the knock on effects. So, you know, that was kind of just a ripple. The other, you know, the other ripple was Dmitry Medvedev who had had too much vodka. And I don't think you're going to get sued for this.

getting onto social media and say, oh, we're going to send military aid to Iran to stand up to Israel. And then someone in the Kremlin got a hold of him and said, look, that's not really very helpful because we don't want to antagonize Trump by siding with the Iranians. And then Dmitry walked that back when he was sober a few hours later. You know, so that was a ripple. I think the Russians were very much in wait and watch mode on the Middle East rather than trying to take advantage of it.

Because, of course, the other part of wait and watch is that if Iran, Iran has been seriously damaged. I mean, 21 of 22 top military commanders killed, top political officials who've been assassinated, internal turmoil with even questions over the regime's survival. And, you know, the immediate issue is, can Iran keep supplying the drones, the attack drones to Russia? I think they still can because you've got other military figures who are there.

But of course, that would have unsettled the Russians a bit. Broader point here, Louis, is whichever way Israel-Iran was going, Russia's problem is twofold back in Ukraine. One is that they're not making huge advances on the front line in the east. They keep trying to edge forward in the Donetsk region in the east. They keep trying to get a buffer zone, as they would call it, seized territory up in the northeast in Sumy. But they're not making...

there aren't that many gains there and ukraine's even saying they're holding the line and then the second problem is russian economy uh there was a spat just before the israel iran episode flared up and that is the economy minister had a pop at the central bank and he said look the economy is is stalling out uh you know we we've got the possibility that we're going to go into recession uh you need to drop the interest rate significantly

the central bank had reduced the interest rates only from 21% to 20%. But of course, the central bank's response is we dropped the interest rates. We've got an overheated economy, wartime economy. It's going to drive up inflation. Now, I'm not saying that the Russian economy is going to break. We've been down that road for 40 months. But what I'm saying here is, is that they're facing strains now on keeping the invasion going. It is having effects domestically. Those factors, the battlefield,

the economy and the fact that Ukraine continues to hit the Russians where it hurts with those strikes behind the front lines, I think the Middle East was sort of a sideshow to all of that and continues to be a sideshow to all of that. And as you mentioned there, Ukraine is reporting, the head of the army, General Sersky, that they've essentially managed to halt the Russian offensive in Kharkiv and stop those advances towards the city of Sumy. What does that tell us about the nature of Ukraine's capability to slow down the Russians when it counts?

It says that in terms of a war which is seeking a, quote, victory, and Putin is still seeking a comprehensive victory because, just to remind the listeners, the Russians are not negotiating. They are demanding not only Crimea, but the four regions, two in the south, two in the east, where they hold parts of those regions. They're demanding all of them. And what they're doing with Kharkiv and Sumy is saying is if you don't give us the four regions, we're going to demand Kharkiv and Sumy as well.

So they wanted not just a real victory, but a symbolic victory in advancing in Kharkiv and Sumy, which are right on the border. And they haven't gotten it. You know, that's the point. And so that's in terms of a huge shift that has not happened, but it's still a war of attrition. And I think you have to be conscious of that. Ukraine, Russians are taking heavy losses, but the Russian play here is we can afford to take heavy losses. Ukraine can't because they don't have as many personnel to put on the front line.

And so Ukraine has to continue to rely on the fact, not just holding the Russians back with drone power, but they have to hold them back with drones. They have to hold them back with a wider range of resources, which they are doing.

But you've got to make sure they keep getting the battlefield drones. You've got to make sure they keep getting artillery shells. You've got to make sure they get the drone and missile capability to go behind the front lines, which takes us back to European support. You know, in other words, this is a war across multiple fronts. And at this point, the Russians can't get a breakthrough on the battlefield front because

But you can't say they won't if you don't continue to fight on those other fronts where you make Russia pay for its invasion.

And on top of that, the Institute for the Study of War reports that North Korean troops could soon be deployed into Ukraine proper. How severe is the consequence of inaction here? Because there doesn't seem to have ever been any real in-force response from Europe, the US, any of Ukraine's allies to kind of try and shut down that support from North Korea for the Russian invasion.

What Zelensky has done, what Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has done ever since the North Koreans intervened last autumn in the Kursk region in Western Russia to roll back sanctions.

the Ukraine cross-border rate that had taken territory there. Zelensky has used this as a marker of how far Putin will go and therefore how wide the threat is to the rest of the world, not just in Ukraine, but the threat in Asia and in Europe. And that has been effective in bolstering Europe's resolve and indeed the resolve of other countries. Think about Australia, think about Japan, think about South Korea in terms of, if not military aid, then humanitarian aid, economic and financial aid.

So he's benefited in that indirect way. Now, the reason why you don't get, as it were, a direct response to the North Koreans is because they were fighting on Russian soil. You know, that and Russia has taken back almost all of that territory that Ukraine took since last August.

In the Kursk region, it is very different if you put those North Koreans into Ukraine, right? Because you now have crossed the line of using them not to hold or regain Russian territory, but to try to seize Ukrainian territory. Now, first of all, I think you're crossing a military line because it is one thing to train the North Koreans to fight on the front lines in Russia. It is another thing to put them on a front line in Ukraine with the type of training you need there because that's a different type of battlefront that we could talk about.

But politically, that's a huge shift, right? Because what Putin has done is he has actually shown the world that he will not stop with what is basically an expansionist war, not as he portrays it, a defensive war. And that's going to unsettle countries, not just in Europe. It's going to unsettle countries in Asia as well. And it's going to unsettle countries even that are supposedly neutral on this, like China.

China doesn't want to see the North Koreans. They don't want to see the North Koreans get battlefield experience. They don't want to see the North Koreans getting a lot of Russian technology in return for putting the North Koreans in there. So I personally and I respect the Institute for the Study of War because they bring out a lot of information. But I do think sometimes they put out scenarios rather than confirming exactly where we are. And I think this scenario is one I'd be very surprised to see play out in the near future.

We talked earlier about the US sanctions being somewhat stalled. Do you think we can see the talks that have been going on in Istanbul and the idea of talks generally over ending the wars as being a bit stalled at the moment as well? I mean, there was this idea that there might be a Trump-Putin meeting in the works, but there's not been much said about that recently. Yeah, I mean, that's a huge question. I mean, from the standpoint of...

Ukraine and indeed Russia, there's no mileage in this except for the specific measure of exchanging prisoners of war and other detainees. And we had yet another exchange yesterday. And that, you know, that was accelerated by those two sets of talks they had in Istanbul in May and then at the start of June.

But beyond that, it's not in the interest of Ukraine because they know that Russia is not going to come to the table to accept a ceasefire. And Ukraine has said 30 day ceasefire. Now, if Ukraine could get them to the table alongside the Europeans and they could show up the Russians for being intransigent and being hostile to this, then perhaps so. But the risk that Ukraine has in renewing those talks is that Trump's going to get in and try to steal the show.

And so you don't keep the focus on, you know, the Russians being very good. From a Russian point of view, they would prefer to have the direct talks with the U.S. rather than with the Ukraine. They'd rather get it back to where they were in February, get Ukraine and Europe off the table, flatter Trump, get him to accept their ultimatum. So I don't see the Russians going for this. Real question is whether Trump wants to do this. But right now,

Trump is shinied by being the peacemaker or thinking he could be the peacemaker over Iran. Now he can't. You know, the Iranians haven't just been pummeled by Israel and then struck by the United States are not going to come to the negotiating table to surrender and give up their nuclear program. But Trump still thinks they might. And so for the next few weeks,

he's going to keep flagging up the idea of, in fact, and indeed, even, you know, the Trump administration have already signaled to Oman they're willing to come back to the table. The Iranians have not. That occupies the U.S., I think, for the rest of this month and into July.

And then we have the risk, which pushes Ukraine-Russia talks back even further, that if Trump doesn't get his talks over Iran, that he greenlights the Israelis to have another pop at Tehran because he gets frustrated with the Supreme Leader for not being his buddy and giving him a photo opportunity. Well, there's much for us to keep track of, and I'm sure we'll have you on again soon to discuss it, Scott. Thank you very much for joining me today on Frontline. Thanks to you, Louis. Thanks to all the great viewers and listeners out there. Thank you.

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