Frontline special - Russia specialist Professor Sam Greene
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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.

I'm James Hansen, and today I'm delighted to be joined by Sam Green, a professor of Russian politics at King's College London and director of democratic resilience at the Centre for European Policy Analysis. He's also the author of a must-read sub-stack. Sam, welcome to Frontline. Thank you for having me on. We have so much to discuss. It's been a very, very eventful few days or so. I wanted to start by getting all the answers to these talks between the US and the Russians and

The Trump administration would say this is a seriousness test for the Russians, but of course, President Zelensky, the Ukrainians and indeed the Europeans were not represented. So is this a seriousness test or is this the US selling out Ukraine? Well, it's certainly a seriousness test, although I suppose whose seriousness is being tested is up for some debate, right? If we take the Trump administration at his word, and clearly that's an if that I imagine we'll come back to over the course of this conversation. But if we

If we do, the purpose of the conversation in Riyadh was to talk about talking. So it was to lay the groundwork for a process that would then get everybody around the table. Rubio said about 36 hours before he got to Riyadh that, of course, when we got to what he called the real negotiating table, that the Ukrainians and the Europeans would by all means need to be there and would have the opportunity to be there. But this was an opportunity for...

you know, the two administrations, particularly the two foreign ministers, so him as Secretary of State and Lavrov as Russian foreign minister, to begin to suss each other out and to lay the groundwork for what might come next, as well as to talk about some bilateral issues, unspecified, that might be

you know, that might help this process along the way or that otherwise might, in fact, hinder the process. And, you know, that in and of itself is not an entirely unreasonable way of going about things. But it needs to be seen in the context of everything that had happened in the several days prior to Riyadh around Munich in particular. And of course, in the context of things that have happened since, which, you know, are really leading a lot of people to question not the seriousness of the Russians,

but to question the seriousness of the Americans in this case. Well, on that note, we had some remarkable comments from President Trump. Just to read you one quote, he said, during a press conference, Ukraine should never have started it, as in the war. They could have traded land. It's been a long time since Kiev had an election. Zelensky has a 4% approval rating. Now, leaving aside the fact that

I mean, there is a lot factually inaccurate in that, not least this idea of having a 4% approval rating that somehow Ukraine started it. But just the very fact that President Trump is using that kind of language so freely, what are we to read into that?

Well, first of all, I'm really struggling to leave aside all of the factual inaccuracies. In fact, I'm struggling to find a factually accurate aspect of that statement. Ms. Olenski's approval rating is somewhere between 57 and 62%. Trump, I think, is 47 or below. So we could go on from there. It's revisionist history from start to finish. But

I think kind of the most troubling aspect of that statement, the fact, I mean, look, we know that Trump likes to be provocative. We know that he likes, in his view, to shake things up. And he sometimes thinks that means that the chips will land in places that are favorable to him. But, you know, the reality was that his secretary of state

48 hours before that statement had said, of course, Ukraine will have a seat at the table. And this was by way of asking, of answering a question from a reporter about, you know, when Ukraine would get that seat at the table and whether in fact Ukraine would get that seat at the table. And so, you know,

You know, what he's done is he's pulled the rug out from under the man. And in fact, the institution is the Department of State, his entire diplomatic apparatus that is there to represent his interests as president of the United States and the national interest of the United States as such. How that is meant to inspire confidence in anybody, including the Russians, if at the end of the day, what he wants is for the Russians to trust him is not clear to me.

A lot of people say that Donald Trump likes to see himself as this master negotiator, this brilliant dealmaker. And yet it seems to me that Trump's team in the past week or so has essentially offered or certainly mooted giving in to all of Putin's major demands. I mean, saying that Ukrainian territory will not return to pre-2014 and probably neither pre-2022 borders, saying there'll be no NATO membership for Ukraine, no US soldiers in Ukraine, the withdrawal of US soldiers from Ukraine.

other European nations, notably the Baltics, and also sanctions relief. I mean, if you're Vladimir Putin, that is pretty much everything you want, is it not?

Well, it's certainly a lot of things off of his wish list. I'm not sure that it's quite everything. You know, what Putin is certainly hoping to do is to use these negotiations to achieve what he could not achieve on the battlefield. And that is a number of those things that he's been unable to achieve. But I think there's a bit more to it than that. I do think, though, it's useful to sort of unpick a little bit of those statements. And again, the context around those statements, right? So Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, head of the

Munich security conference did say, uh, that, uh, you know, as you quoted, or as you referenced that, uh, NATO was off the table, the territory, uh, was off the table, um, that, uh, in fact, NATO protection for any European troops who the Americans have said would need to go in to enforce the ceasefire would also be, uh, most likely off the table. Uh, that is, uh,

not the way you want to go into a negotiation, right? Having already forfeited everything. And I think they recognize that very quickly because within the 12 hours or so, Hegseth had walked that back. Uh, uh, um, uh, vice president JD Vance, uh, said that in fact, uh,

You know, everything, including ramping up sanctions and potential American military involvement was on the table if the Russians didn't play ball. And so they've been on both sides of the NATO issue. They've been on both sides of the U.S. involvement issue and they've been on both sides of the sanctions issue. I suppose you could see that as...

telling the Russians that there is both everything to play for and everything to lose, and thus keeping them interested in the negotiations. And that would be in keeping with the way that Trump seems to seek deals across a variety of different domains. But I think what will have the Ukrainians and the Europeans very nervous is that this is all well and good if what you're looking to do is a short-term transaction.

You're looking to walk into a room and walk out of that room with maximum gain in the moment that allows you to then pivot and focus on something else, which clearly I think is what the Americans are trying to achieve. But that's not what the Europeans and the Ukrainians are trying to achieve. This is a war on the European continent and given Russia's form right now.

with the Minsk two, Minsk one and Minsk two agreements, both of which were violated by the Russians, given Russia's form in violating ceasefires with Georgia and, and, and elsewhere. I think we, you know, the Europeans and the Ukrainians need an agreement that deters Russian aggression in the long run. And, and,

That does not seem to be the focus. That is something that requires a very careful, a very thoughtful and a very coordinated diplomatic approach. And that is exactly what the American administration at the moment seems not to be pursuing.

And is that because the Trump team don't recognize the threat of future Russian expansion in Europe and the threat that Putin will go again in a few years time for Ukraine or the Baltics or wherever? Or is it that they don't care? Well, that requires, you know, access to head spaces that I don't have. I suppose where I Trump psychotherapist, I might be able to give you an answer, but I'm

I'm not. I mean, I think there is certainly reason to argue for both sides of that equation. The Republican foreign policy establishment has been itching for a long time to pivot away from Europe and pivot to the Indo-Pacific, to pivot to China in particular, as well as to Iran. And so not worrying about Europe and letting Europe worry about itself has been an agenda item for successive Republican presidents. And in fact,

you know, for even a lot of people sort of on the center and the center left of American foreign policy. So that is not where the Biden administration was, right? But it's not entirely surprising that, you know, a post-Biden administration would have gone in that direction, perhaps not as hard and as fast. But there's also, as you know, given what you just quoted from Donald Trump, you know, from overnight, the...

There's certainly reason to believe that Trump's view of reality is one that aligns much more closely with the Kremlin's view of reality. We also saw Vice President Vance's really quite extraordinary speech. I call it a campaign speech for AFD and to a certain extent for Reform UK speech.

in Munich, right? Which also, you know, despite some references to the US and Europe sharing common values, was really quite about, quite, you know, vociferous about the degree to which this administration is going to pursue very, very different values than any previous administration. And really then than any government is pursuing in Europe at the moment, minus maybe Viktor Orban in Hungary, right? So,

So I think there is reason to worry that this is an administration that may see more common cause with Russia. And certainly, you know, Russia wants to portray that idea as well. It demobilizes, it discombobulates Russia.

the Europeans and makes it much more difficult for them to galvanize around a strategy that would defend simultaneously against Moscow and Washington. So what, in your view, Sam, is the minimum level of security guarantee that needs to be offered to Ukraine to make both the Ukrainians and the Europeans more broadly feel secure, feel like Vladimir Putin faces an effective deterrent against future expansion? Sam Dutton

Well, I'm afraid that an effective deterrent against further aggression is not a minimal thing. We've been unsuccessful. Europe and NATO and the US have been unsuccessful or demonstrably unsuccessful at deterring Russia from going into Ukraine in 2014 to begin with and then from going much harder in 2022 and from continuing to escalate.

We have seen, however, that the Russians have been unwilling to countenance a direct escalation that would involve or risk military conflict with Europe and with NATO and with the United States itself. Clearly, direct military confrontation with the United States is not something they feel they need to worry about at the moment, and they're probably right. But I don't think that means that they would like to risk an all-out war with the European allies. And

And I think that sort of points in the direction of where things need to go. So Keir Starmer has already talked about putting troops on the ground as part of a peacekeeping deal in Ukraine. The French are talking about something very similar. The Danes are talking in that direction. Clearly, not everybody in Europe is going to go in this direction. But I think that the...

The ethos behind that, the idea behind that is that you create a situation in which the calculation for Russia of violating whatever ceasefire emerges from these talks is one that inevitably involves the risk of quite significant consequence, including military consequence. Whether...

um uh you know that the exact number of troops that that requires exactly where they need to be the extent to which they need to be immediately in harm's way i think is something that the military analysts will be able to uh to think about much more clearly than i can as a political analyst but at the end of the day it's a political question right uh putin needs to fear that um

A renewed war from his side will not just put him back at war with Ukraine. It will put him at war with Europe. I think that's the kind of deterrence that can be effective. It's the kind of deterrence that we can provide if it wants to. But I think that European leaders need to be clear with themselves and with their publics that that's not a minimal thing. That is about putting, at the end of the day, European troops and European countries

societies and economies and states on the line in the defense of Ukraine and in defense of peace and security on the continent.

And in fairness to the Trump administration, are they not right to say that Europe for too long has actually lived off the largesse of American defense spending and probably hasn't woken up to the fact, despite repeated warnings, to the fact that Europe needs to be spending more on its own defense? It's one thing for Europe to come to terms with the Americans really not being part or a critical part of the solution, a central part of the solution to European security.

And even that is somewhat problematic because there has historically been a division of labor in NATO, right? So American heavy lift capacity is very important for Europe's ability to defend itself. And that's been something that European governments and the Americans have agreed on for decades. So to suddenly say, okay, we're going to take that away, right, does really kneecap the European allies in a very problematic way.

But what Europe has been unprepared for is the prospect that the US would not simply be not part of the solution, they could actually be part of the problem. And that's an equation that I think nobody in Europe has countenance, nobody in Europe has really thought about, and that they're very rapidly having to come to terms with. Is NATO still relevant anymore? For the moment, NATO is relevant.

I think this will be a critical test for NATO. We should be very clear that while the Trump administration is asking for NATO, for the European NATO allies to do more, and while it is asking for rebalancing, again, things that successive American administrations have asked for in NATO, and has been provocative in some of the things it says, it is not threatening to withdraw from NATO.

What it is threatening to do is to limit the scope of what NATO might get involved with and to say that NATO will not itself participate in the resolution of the conflict in Ukraine. That's a political position that, for better or for worse, as a NATO ally, the United States is empowered to take. And it's certainly not the only NATO ally there.

that has taken that position. Again, we've seen it from the Hungarians, we've seen it from the Slovaks, and there is a range of approach to this war within the alliance. It is an alliance at the end of the day of autonomous sovereign states that do get to make their own decisions. And again, for better or for worse, that includes the US. What we're seeing, however, is an American administration that

more interested in transactions than in institutions. So successive American administrations historically since the end of World War II have seen institutions like NATO as a way of in fact reducing the security costs that the US faces, of sharing the burden and of really multiplying American power in the world. It allows it to align its interests. But that does impose certain things on the US. It means that

They can't act purely in their own interest. Otherwise, they risk alienating their allies and losing that multiplier effect of American power around the world. What we're seeing now is an American administration that says fundamentally we don't care. What we want to be able to do is to transact in the short term. And if that means we have to

undermine our allies, demand bits and pieces of rather large bits and pieces of Denmark, for example, or maybe the entirety of Canada, right? That, you know, we're willing to have that conversation because we want to pursue our political interests the way that we see them in the here and now and in the short term. I don't think that's the consensus opinion in the Republican Party. I don't think that's the consensus even within the administration.

But it is the opinion that's captured the White House, at least for the moment. And that can be incredibly destructive for NATO. So the question now is,

What can the Europeans do to hold NATO together, to Trump-proof it to a certain extent? Or do they in fact come to the conclusion that they cannot pursue European security in the framework of an institution that is being systematically undermined by whatever rebalancing occurs, by its largest player. There will never be anybody bigger than the US in NATO.

There's obviously, understandably, been a lot of focus on the idea of European troops on the ground in Ukraine as some kind of peacekeeping force. You mentioned Sam Kirstein were proposing British troops there over the weekend. But actually, could it not also be broader than that? I mean, there's talk now potentially that Britain could send Typhoon fighter jets to police the skies over Ukraine. Is that actually not a more realistic way of deterring Russian aggression?

Well, first of all, troops on the ground is a metaphor, right? Boots on the ground also implies planes in the sky and defensive capacity. The British military would never send troops in the ground without air support, for example, and all the logistical capacity to support it. And, you know, I think that the exact sort of modalities of the mission are

will be again up for militaries to decide what they can do most rapidly and what they can do with maximum force and minimized risk, which isn't to say no risk and minimal risk. You're absolutely right. People are talking about a no-fly zone, something incidentally the Ukrainians have been asking for for a very long time.

And, you know, other sorts of guarantees. What the Ukrainians will not feel safe with, right, is written guarantees from the Russians and written guarantees from the Europeans, right? They had a guarantee in the form of the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 that did not protect them in 2014, did not protect them in 2022. And, you know,

You know, given that, you know, we as a collective West will very shortly, if we're not already be asking the Ukrainians to make very significant sacrifices on top of the tremendous sacrifices they have already made over the course of this war in order to achieve, I would say, not peace, but at least an end to the fighting situation.

To then say, and we're not actually going to protect you after that. We're going to ask you to make these sacrifices and put yourself in a position where you are going to be continually sacrificed to the Russians for the maintenance of peace between Europe and the West on the one hand and Russia on the other is not just morally untenable. It is a recipe for the next war.

Sam, we could talk for hours. I'm afraid that's all we've got time for today. But thank you so much for joining us on Frontline. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you.