Putin digests Trump fury
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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. Today with me, Alex Dibble and Stuart Willey. Donald Trump is angry. In fact, he says he's very angry. His quest to end the war in Ukraine has hit a speed bump as Vladimir Putin stalls on a ceasefire. In response, the US president has made his strongest threats yet against Russia, now warning of secondary tariffs on oil exports.

These tariffs wouldn't just target Russia, but would also penalise countries still purchasing Russian oil, including major players like China and India. Our guest today is Emily Ferris, a Russia specialist at the defence think tank, Rusi. Emily, how will Putin and the Kremlin be considering the economic threats that Donald Trump is making here?

Well, they probably should take those rather seriously. It seems that Trump has actually done that on other countries, and it's perfectly possible that he would do that to Russia as well. But what I think that really illustrates is how quickly that relationship can kind of turn on a dime. So if at the beginning we're saying, well, look how well the Americans and the Russians are cozying up to each other, suddenly, if you're dealing with such a volatile personality, it

in Trump, that can change so quickly, which is why I can very easily foresee a situation in which Russian and American interests suddenly completely diverge. And then a ceasefire deal such that it is will be in tatters quite quickly. And it's clear, isn't it, that China and India would face challenges too if this happened. How would Russia's wartime economy, though, be hit by the sort of measures that Donald Trump is talking about? Yeah.

It probably depends. I mean, the Russians, I know that's a very surface little answer. The reason I'm thinking about it is the Russians have reasonably well sort of moved around sanctions. It's not so much sort of sanctions evasion necessarily, but part of it is sort of obviously the substitution domestically with some of the products that they needed. Some of it is just finding another backdoor into Europe.

they have sort of been under some form of sanctions now for over 10 years, since 2014, really. So having additional sanctions could possibly, it depends which sector, there's very little left to sanction, frankly, from the Russian side. The sanctions actually that the Biden administration put on Russia as a sort of departing shot before he left office were one of the most serious. And they did have an impact on Russia because they were targeting oil and gas, which had been kind of left off the register for a while. Those have an impact.

Where you see sanctions kind of biting in Russia at the moment, interestingly, is in the coal sector, where you see huge amounts of bankruptcies, difficulty exporting it, global demand for coal generally is down as well. So that probably doesn't help. And difficulty sort of moving it around, finding clients for it, disagreements with China about how you manage that. But Russia...

As you probably know, Russia's tried pretty hard to reorientate all of that trade towards China and the Far East. So I'm not sure from a sort of trade perspective how much additional American sanctions might have an impact. But as we've seen really since this war, the Russian economy is rather more resilient and less sort of hollowed out than I suppose people expected. Yeah.

This feels, Emily, like the toughest talk we've heard from Trump about Russia. What's your assessment of the hold up and getting to a ceasefire? I think this was probably a bit inevitable. I know there's been quite a bit of...

perception that Russia's been quite gleeful about a Trump presidency and that that might suggest that things are finally looking up for Russia in terms of its position internationally. But the reality is Trump's and America's national interests and Russia's national interests sometimes converge and sometimes they really fundamentally diverge. And what you really see have

at the moment is the Russians are just trying to buy time with this ceasefire. I don't think they're particularly serious immediately about a ceasefire. There might be the view, I think, they're going to see what they can get, what concessions they can get from the Americans, from the Europeans and the Ukrainians as well. And I think they're evaluating, waiting for their options. And the way to do that really is just to mire everything in bureaucracy. And the lack of swiftness, I think, is what's frustrating Trump here at the moment. Yeah.

If Russia is buying time, as you say, Emily, frustrating and angering Trump there, is there a sense in Moscow they can get away with us, with kicking the can down the road to delay or even avoid a deal?

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's the main strategy, really. And I think that was pretty apparent from the beginning, because one of the things that the Russians do rather well is to mire things in bureaucracy. And that's why you hear Putin talking about the importance of these details, the importance of going back to the root causes of the war. I mean, that's really just taking us down a road that is very difficult to see a way through. A ceasefire is all very well, but I think

what the Russians are really interested in is seeing, first of all, how far they can push into Ukrainian territory, because obviously they've been doing rather better on the battlefield recently. They want to make sure

that any kind of ceasefire doesn't include bits of Russian territory. So obviously its southern border is still not quite fully under Russian control. And I think they want to just see how far really Trump might break with Europe. So some of the conversations that we've heard coming out of Moscow in the last few days about the conditions for a ceasefire and peace in the Black Sea region are all contingent on quite strange suggestions like specific banks that they'd like sanctions eased on,

and specific industries like fishing or agriculture, some of which actually haven't been particularly hard hit by the sanctions in particular, can still kind of operate rather well without the sanctions. And some of it actually is not even under...

jurisdiction. So trying to connect, for example, one of the banks that Russia's suggested sanctions be eased, connect it up to the SWIFT banking system. But that's a banking system that's frankly run in Brussels and headquartered there. So of course, Washington could do that, but it wouldn't make a difference. So I think what the Russians are doing is probing a little bit to try to see what the Americans will try to push the Europeans to do, if the Americans even have the power to do that. So for now, a lot of what you can see from the Russian side really is just waiting and watching. Yeah.

Um,

Back here in Europe, leaders are also calling out the stalling tactics that are going on in Russia. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, says we're still talking with Washington. We might have another call between Trump and Putin, etc., etc. Is this all, though, just part of Russia's plan? Well, of course, they want to keep the lines of communication open. There's lots of very good reasons to talk to America, not least, you know, from a sort of prestige perspective from the Russians. They've always kind of sought, I think,

the attention and acknowledgement of the Americans that they are indeed a great power that's worthy of coming to the table. So the link in and of itself is important. Then there are things they actually do have to talk to the Americans about. They have areas of commonality. So you can see there's links going on between the two intelligence agencies, which had sort of died down since the war. I don't believe they fully stopped, but...

But certainly this is at least public knowledge now that they are talking. And it seems that what the Russians really want is to be seen as an equal that's perhaps willing to be even part of a security architecture in future. Russia has always been quite derisive of the G8 as it was, and now the G7 have been sort of removed from that. But...

Really, I think what the Russians would probably want most of all is a seat at the table when it comes to sort of major political decisions and things like forums like the UN, Russia sees as just completely running counter to Russia's own interests and a place where it just tries to further its own national interests, but other countries are against them. So I think what the Russians are keen on doing is trying to build a security architecture around itself where they can sort of project their own opinions. Yeah.

Do you think Vladimir Putin would think that seat at the table, the great power, the status, the spheres of influence, that it's worth getting that in return for signing up to a peace deal? I think it's worth it.

I think there are some concessions that Putin is probably more willing to make than it seems. You know, we can talk about how to carve up bits of Ukrainian territory, you know, unsavoury though it is. I think there are parts of that territory that probably Putin would be willing to cede. You know, he's giving these maximalist demands at the moment, similar to the way that Trump is operating. But I think they're probably willing to walk back a little bit.

from some of that. It matters kind of less now, to be honest. What they're most interested in is a sort of defanged Ukraine that doesn't have any kind of sort of military potential that leaves a backdoor open for Russia to influence its political scene. So that's why you see Russia calling for elections, particularly important because Putin has made a great big deal about how he sees Zelensky. And I won't repeat the language that he uses to talk about him, but he's been quite clear that he won't deal with him as a leader. And

that is probably one of the most important things to Putin at the moment to try to push elections. The Americans have been a little bit circumspect about it. I'm not sure the extent to which they really feel they can pressure the Ukrainians into holding elections, but it will happen eventually. And for Putin, that will be a big win that maybe...

not the administration immediately after Zelensky, but perhaps the one after that might sort of yield a president or some sort of leader that is in some way not pro-Russian because, you know, the sentiment of Ukraine at the moment, I can't see changing anytime soon, but, you know, maybe not against a relationship with Russia. And I can very much foresee that happening in the next sort of five, 10 years. And I think Russia's really thinking long-term when it comes to Ukraine and they won't sort of let this lie. Yeah.

they've made clear that they see Ukraine and Belarus, frankly, as not even spheres of influence, like you were saying. It's beyond that. They see it as an integral part of Russian territory. That doesn't mean, by the way, that they have those same designs on other countries. But certainly, Belarus and Ukraine are very specifically in that sort of Moscow mentality, an inextricable part of Russia. Emily, thank you. Emily Ferris is from the defence think tank RUSI.

To discover more on the calculations going on in the mind of Vladimir Putin, listen back to our episode on March 6th entitled Putin Faces the Zugzwang Chess Move. But for today, that's it from us. Thank you for taking 10 minutes to stay on top of the world with the help of The Times. We'll see you tomorrow.

And now, a next-level moment from AT&T business. Say you've sent out a gigantic shipment of pillows, and they need to be there in time for International Sleep Day. You've got AT&T 5G, so you're fully confident. But the vendor isn't responding, and International Sleep Day is tomorrow. Luckily, AT&T 5G lets you deal with any issues with ease, so the pillows will get delivered and everyone can sleep soundly, especially you. AT&T 5G requires a compatible plan and device. Coverage not available everywhere. Learn more at att.com slash 5G network.

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