The Puzzling Diplomacy over Ukraine's Future
37:34 Share

Ryan Evans: You are listening to the War on the Rocks podcast on strategy, defense, and foreign affairs. My name's Ryan Evans. I'm the founder of War on the Rocks. You may have noticed that there's been some pretty strange and, well, let's just say it feels unpredictable diplomacy surrounding Ukraine and its future.

I got together three friends to help us understand exactly what's been happening and what might be happening next. I'll let them introduce themselves.

I'm Justin Logan. I'm the Director of Defense and Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. I'm Leanna Fix. I'm a fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations. Mike Ovman, Senior Fellow at Carnegie Endowment. So we're going to try to make sense of all this diplomacy, for lack of a better term, that's been going on surrounding Ukraine ever since Trump took office here in Washington.

So thanks for joining to help me sort all this out. I'd like to talk through some sequencing, just to impose a little bit of a narrative on us. Personally, I found where we've ended up confusing. There was a period where I thought I understood what was happening, and I don't really understand. Although, Justin, you made a good case earlier than I think you'll, before we start recording then, I'd like you to make again. So...

Trump takes office, immediately starts talking with Putin. As we discover later, he's had multiple conversations with Putin. I think Zelensky feels left out of this. And after the Munich Security Conference, at which JD Vance gives this bracing speech criticizing Europe's not just

military capabilities and strategy, but also internal politics. Zelensky makes this call for Europe to band together and go it alone, which Europe is not super enthusiastic about. Zelensky then criticizes President Trump for living in a bubble of misinformation. Trump responds on Truth Social with this post that I'm sure you've all read, in which he accuses Zelensky of being a dictator, which of course he's not, and blaming the war on Ukraine, saying Ukraine actually attacked Russia, I believe, or blaming the war on Ukraine. I forget which one it is.

And then that's where these negotiations for lack of a better term again, this minerals deal seemed to have gone south. Trump is many things. He's not complicated. So as soon as I saw that quote from Zelensky about misinformation appear, I'm like, well, I think we know where this is heading next. When you insult Trump publicly like that, he doesn't take it well. You don't have to like it. It's just, it's a law of gravity. I don't like when I fall to the earth when I jump up in the air, but I do.

So I've thrown a lot out there and I'd like to get you all, very brilliant friends of mine, to react to it, starting with you, Liana, as our resident European. Thanks so much. Well, I was actually quite optimistic for the first two weeks after January 2 because I felt there was a strategy by Trump's advisor being pushed on Russia, a kind of maximum pressure strategy, as our colleague Alina Puyakova put it.

But then Trump has lost patience. He wanted results immediately and rushed ahead with his talks in Saudi Arabia. Bilateral talks with Russia without Ukraine. Bilateral talks between US and Russia. And this is not just an exemption. And I think what really helps me to understand what this is all about is to look at it through the lens of US-Russia normalization.

What Trump wants is a normalization of U.S.-Russia relations. And you see this in the structure of the talk. It's about the United States and Russia and about getting the relationship back on track. They've clearly outlined a path towards that, including sanctions relief and so on. And Ukraine is one of the working groups.

It's one of the subset of questions. It's a caveat. It's a problem to get over with in the normalization of U.S.-Russia relations. And I think this explains a lot of what we see, plus that Trump actually thinks that Ukraine kind of does belong to Russia's sphere of influence. This helps to understand why he says that Ukraine provoked Russia or started the war because they didn't give up. They didn't accept, right? And from his perspective, Ukraine could just have accepted

accepted Russia's claim to Ukraine and then this war would have never started. So

You made an important point is that I think a lot of us, including me and listeners, you heard me say this on the podcast. There's a chance that Trump cuts Ukraine off, but there's also a chance that he actually ramps up pressure on Russia and does this kind of maximum pressure thing on Russia to try to bring them to the table under more favorable terms. I thought there was a good chance that he was going to do that. I was totally wrong. He did not do that. And to be fair to Trump, and this is against my analytical prediction,

abilities. Trump did tell us he would move very quickly on Ukraine, and he has. Justin, what do you think? Well, there's a lot on the table. I'll just say to maybe play the resident complexifier here, I think it's important not to separate Ukraine from the broader Trumpian Europe policy. In your extensive and detailed opening to this podcast, one thing that you left out was the Hegseth speech in Europe, both at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group and later that week

at which there was a real sort of pounding the table on the traditional Trumpian themes of Americans getting a raw deal from NATO. And I think that the Trump people probably view their pretty provocative policies on Ukraine. I mean, I think that's just objectively true that they have been provocative and probably designed to provoke.

is part of a broader Europe policy of trying to sort of fundamentally re-engineer the balance of effort in the transatlantic relationship. And I think you've seen a tremendous amount of rhetoric out of European capitals

about not just Ukraine, but this broader initiative. So I would just sort of, again, to sort of like screw up the conversation if I can. That's always why I bring you by. That's why I'm here. Yeah, it's the first time, I think. But that's a big part of this is that they view Ukraine as a part of a broader sort of set of European problems that they want to re-engineer.

And so I think that's a big part of what's happening. Okay. Well, where to begin? I was in Ukraine for some of it and then at Munich security conference. You left Ukraine the same day that Ukrainian officials left for Munich and you also went to Munich for the Munich security conference. Pretty much. Yeah. So I was there the morning after Zelensky had a phone call with Trump and when kind of the first of tweets came out before things turned rather pear-shaped. So my view of it is that first Trump seems to have given,

folks a 100-day deadline to achieve an agreement, which I think is going to be rather difficult to attain. It seems that he's also split teams, right, where Kellogg's handling Ukraine, Wyckoff's handling Russia. And it's not quite obvious how any of that's being coordinated and managed. So far, it doesn't really look like it is. As best I could tell, actually,

Some of the negotiation or process of negotiation got a bit derailed by this whole minerals deal. And it's worth for us to get into where did this mineral deal come from, why this becomes such a hot mess. But the overall direction, as I can tell, is Trump wants to end the Russia-Ukraine war. I don't think he cares that much about how it ends in the specifics. He wants to attain a ceasefire.

I suspect that he also wants to get a Nobel Peace Prize for it. I mean, his officials have said that openly. Yeah. And then the other parts of it is he wants to hand this off to Europeans as much as possible, both in terms of financial material assistance and also any security guarantees. And they've been very clear about that. And some European colleagues are sort of like, no, we can't do it alone. We need the U.S. backstop. And the U.S. says, yeah, you're doing it alone. Sorry, you're going to have to move out of the house and just give it a shot. And...

Lastly, we have a couple issues. First, yeah, Russians seem kind of eager, prepared, or throwing frameworks, ideas, demands at the Trump administration, and also look like they're trying to engage in a bit of a bidding war, right, in terms of these opportunities. A lot of this to me is vaporware. It's actually vaporware kind of on both sides in the sense that businesses are not that excited or interested to come back to Russia. There aren't a lot of great opportunities there. Putin has told the bureaucracy to be ready to receive Western businesses again. That

That assumes Western businesses want to go back to Russia. Yeah, I don't see that happening. Lastly, I think there's still a lack of clarity of whatever Ukraine's minimum requirements, what is the Ukrainian vision, the Ukrainian plan. And so far, I have not seen that publicly. I have not, to be honest, really heard of that behind closed doors so much. And

I think that's one of the challenges you get if the Trump administration is rushing to try to make a ceasefire. The Russians have some kind of framework plan, ideas, demands, requirements that they're making. On the other side,

isn't quite there yet, no sort of playing catch up. All right. Now let's tackle this, for lack of a better term, minerals deal. Justin, you and I were talking before we started recording about how, in a way, you have to understand what might be driving the president through his past comments about why didn't we get the oil from Iraq or oil in Syria. Do you want to expand on that?

Yeah, I think that Trump is not a details guy. Trump likes deals. He likes announcing deals. He likes waving around pieces of paper and saying the deal that nobody else could do. I did because I'm a deal guy. Deals, deals, deals. He wants a deal. And I don't think that there's been a tremendous amount of substance here.

The reality is that this emerged in the sort of public media discussion as a rare earth minerals deal, which there's a whole amount of sort of theology and witchcraft around rare earths in general.

They're not that rare. There are lots of them in the United States, et cetera, et cetera. But the reality is there aren't huge deposits of them in Ukraine. The deposits that are in Ukraine are very difficult to get out of the ground. Let's go, because none of us are mining engineers. Hey, hey, hey, how do you know that? You are a lot of things, Justin, including a former restaurateur and all other things. Let's leave that to the side. Ryan, if everyone can be a military expert, I can be a rare earth minerals expert. So my understanding-

These are not rarest, but Ukraine has significant deposits of lithium, graphite, and titanium-bearing minerals. It also may have, and these are more estimates, the six largest graphite reserves in the world, larger than all other Western states combined.

And there may be six large deposits of rare earth minerals such as beryllium and gallium. I don't even know what those do, but I'm just telling you this is so like I know that these are important for sort of advanced industrial production and things like this, batteries, things that we use every day and advanced electronics. But a lot of this, you don't really know what you have until you get it out of the ground. And it can be hard to get it out of the ground, especially when there's a war going on. Yeah, especially when that main lithium mine is in Pokrovsk. Right. So but there was a concerted effort by U.S. policymakers and Ukraine to

to get the Trump administration interested on the basis of these things. But I want to suggest to you that U.S. policymakers are not mining engineers either. Correct, which is how we got here. But let's talk about that effort to get Washington interested on this basis. We don't have to become engineers. It doesn't matter what Ukraine actually has or not. This is really not about minerals. Who cares?

The whole idea was an idea by Lindsey Graham to put forward to get Trump interested in staying engaged in Ukraine. And the idea, the initial idea was now that U.S. military aid will have to go to Congress again at some point in spring.

to make sure that in return for access to Ukraine's under-earth wealth, Trump will continue weapon deliveries to Ukraine. And that's the crucial point, right? Ukraine needs those weapon deliveries. And there has been no commitment from the Trump administration that they will help get this through Congress again. And that's the problem. So whatever we can sell to Trump, I don't know, Ukrainian sky is in an agreement.

As long as Ukraine gets U.S. weapons in return, and that's the tragic of the whole deal. It's super vague. It's less about middle world and what this means for Ukraine's future that Ukraine didn't get those weapons in return, but at least a kind of business interest commitment into Ukraine by Trump. I'm not sure if that's enough. He could also be fine with carving up Ukraine.

in terms of business interest between the United States and Russia. So it's a disappointment that it has not worked out in the way for Ukraine as they hoped for. So I think there's two parts to this. Lindsey Graham is one, where he basically said that Ukraine is a gold mine and what have you. But also Ukrainian leadership, when they came here in the fall with a victory plan, met with Trump and suggested that free construction resources would be one of the incentives to try to get them enticed.

There is a reason why Trump started talking about rare earth minerals in Ukraine suddenly in the last couple of months, whereas before he seemed to have known nothing about it. So these ideas were received from somewhere. And I don't think it was just Lindsey Graham. Now, that being said, I do agree that the thinking was probably how do you explain why Congress should pass additional funding? Now, Ukraine actually is receiving funds.

steady levels of support from the United States. There are quite a few things that were drawn down and put on contract that are planned over the course of this year. Ukraine is not going to run out of weapons tomorrow, right? We're actually not necessarily going to run out of them this year.

And Congress is clear that they're not going to do another supplemental on Ukraine. They might do one on defense industrial base with some money set aside for Ukraine as part of that, but there isn't going to be another major Ukraine supplemental, no matter what kind of unobtainium was sold to us as the thing that we could get from there. But so my sense of it is that this got a bit out of hand, right? This was a scheme.

some extent to try to explain to the domestic body politic of why we're still vested in Ukraine, why we're supporting Ukraine, even though a lot of that support has already been paid for by the Biden administration. It wasn't paid for by the Biden administration. Not to get too constitutional on you, but no president pays for anything. No, but what I mean is that both the PDA, the drawdown was done under the Biden administration and also the USAI was obligated, even if not fully put on contract. So this took place under the Biden administration, right?

And basically, the Trump administration does, I think, need to look at additional supplemental funding because there's no replacement funding right now for the Pentagon. I don't think the politics are going to be there. I don't think the whole idea of creating a U.S. interest in Ukrainian resource extraction was terrible.

if it was done in a sort of non-colonialist, non-exploitative way. It just went off the rails. And I think it's worth also running through, because we've all seen different drafts of these deals over time. The one that Zelensky was asked to sign in Munich actually wasn't that bad, because the money was supposed to come up to the $500 billion in the shared fund that the US would control, but a certain percentage of it would be invested in Ukrainian reconstruction. But the revenues were only to come from

licensing fees, not from the sale of the resources themselves. The next draft was $500 billion up to the sales of resources. And the draft that apparently they're going to sign, they seem to have given up on this idea of up to $500 billion. So I don't even know where... It seems like it just...

As you said, as a scheme that's gotten completely out of hand, it's turned into a completely symbolic act, whereas it could have actually been something. Yeah, now there's nothing in there for either party, actually. But I think it's very important from a good portion of the Trump administration's point of view. That's fine. You know, the Ukrainians were pushing very, very hard for security guarantees in some form or fashion. And from the last draft that I've seen,

The phrasing is the United States supports Ukraine's pursuit of security guarantees. So good luck, fellas. And they have dug in really hard on that. And Zelensky is signaling now that if and when he does, in fact, come to D.C., which I guess is still supposed to be happening, right?

That he is going to ask about another arms package. You know, are you going to turn off this bigot of weapons to Ukraine? And I think we're going to come to a real loggerheads there because I don't think there's a tremendous appetite in the Trump administration to do that. And I mean, the funny thing is that Zelensky and actually you peens are asking for the same thing, which comes back to what you said at the beginning, Justin, that this is part of a larger issue.

mixture of US waning interest in Europe because the other element of security guarantees, and that's where the Trump administration has been consistent, is to say that they're not going to provide security guarantees and this is Europe's issue. I think Seth used the word conventional specifically in Europe, which I thought was interesting. In Europe, but also for Ukraine, they're not going to give security guarantees. And fascinatingly, Europeans are kind of upset about that. They are like, oh, we have to foot the bill of what Trump negotiates.

Which is hilarious because Trump is not asking Europeans to put troops into Mexico, right? I mean, he's asking Europeans to secure their neighbor and Europeans have said that this is an existential war. But, of course, for Europeans, the problem there is if they put boots on the ground into Ukraine, Putin challenges that, attacks that, they want this guarantee from Donald Trump that he politically...

protects this European mission with his word, with American cloud and so on. And that is where they are at the same point with Zelensky. Zelensky wants security guarantees for Ukraine. Europeans want security guarantees from the United States for a European mission in Ukraine to give security guarantees to Ukraine. And so we end up in a circle. I find the European reaction kind of befuddling there. Like a few days after Munich, Starmer comes out, the British prime minister comes out and says, okay,

We're willing to send troops to Ukraine, but there has to be a US backstop, as if he's the one that has a powerful negotiating position. Look, this is the classic lets you and him go fight approach that the Europeans have had to the United States for a long time. The problem here is the same problem that we've had since before the war started. Everybody wants Putin to believe that they will fight Russia over Ukraine, and nobody is willing to fight Russia over Ukraine. Until we sort of grasp this problem forthrightly,

We're all going to be doing this ridiculous, to my mind, dance of saying, we'll put peacekeepers in Ukraine, but they're not going to keep peace and they're merely a tripwire to bring in the Americans if something goes sideways. And I just think that this is just the height of disingenuousness. And you even heard Zelensky in January saying, you know, I'm really starting to wonder whether the Americans really ever wanted us to get into NATO, to which I'd say, I don't even think you need to wonder. So my view is that from...

A resource perspective and a force perspective, this is something that Europeans can do. And I've said that publicly. You're talking about a peacekeeping force. Yeah. And I wouldn't even call it a peacekeeping force, an assurance or deterrence force that's fairly small on a rotational basis. They can do it if they want to resource it.

It will require some political wrangling because they're going to have to revisit commitments to regional defense plans and NATO, what have you. But if this is a priority, they can do it. They can do it without the United States. They can do it with U.S. support from UConn or the rest of NATO in Europe. But nonetheless, it is within their power to do.

we're kind of getting to the point where Europeans are going to have to decide if they're going to actually resource their political rhetoric over the last three years and if they're willing to be an independent actor with responsibility for security on their own continent. That's where we're getting to. It's daunting on a lot of folks. I know that, you know, there's no need to belabor this,

But there is not going to be a backstop, as best I can tell, or a chain ganging of the United States as a security guarantee to a European deployed force in Europe. But there also, from my point of view, it doesn't have to be. This force is not going to be the principal deterrence or defense force. The Ukrainian army will. And a limited force can achieve quite a bit.

It doesn't have to man a 1,200-kilometer front. Some folks have thrown out their insurmountable requirements, I think, to generate requirements paralysis. It can be done. It is with the means of major Western European countries to do this. It does not require anybody that's principally bordering Russia to have to deploy their forces either. And I do like the direction that France and Britain are going.

But I'm always worried that these are initial numbers they've thrown out as a proposal. Are people actually going to get on board and they're going to make this a part of what could be a ceasefire on arms? Liana, help us.

understand the way the incoming German chancellor is talking about this? Well, the good thing is that no German voter could have placed his votes in the elections on the basis of what do they think about German troops in the Guantan Ukraine or not, because German politicians just entirely ignored the topic. The whole election campaign, they basically entirely ignored foreign policy. There was no foreign policy discussion. And the

The evening after the election outcome, suddenly German politicians, Friedrich Merz, the soon probably likely to be chancellor, comes out and talks about independence from the United States, then nuclear sharing from the UK and France for Germany, only for Germany, not for the rest of the EU, and so on. So that's just from a democracy perspective, it's kind of disastrous that German voters could not take that into account before the elections.

But from Friedrich Metz, we have so far heard not a lot about a mission in Ukraine. So he wants to play a leadership role in Europe. He wants to work with France, with Poland and so on. But he has been very cautious, which is a typical German wait and see approach. Let's see what the others do. And then we contribute like a little bit to what they are planning. There is, in German opinion polls, German public is divided on this question. But the problem that many sort of in the narrative ask is, will it not undermine Article 5 of NATO?

if the United States does not come to the help of a European mission in Ukraine. And technically, Mike looks at me like, are you crazy? Well, technically, obviously it does not because this is not Article 5. Not Article 5 territory is going to be NATO. But for Europeans, the question is, will this not tempt Putin to say, oh, Americans didn't come now. They will not come for the Baltics.

The other question that they don't ask is if they don't secure Ukraine, will this strengthen Trump's belief in NATO? Will it weaken Trump's belief? And I'm pretty sure the Trump administration is going to ride the free rider argument forever if Europeans pass this opportunity to secure Ukraine and say, oh, sorry, we just

A lot of European leaders and commentators have also said about the United States negotiating directly with Russia, they say, "Well, if you lock us out, us being the Europeans, why should you expect us to then participate in some sort of whatever you call the force, peacekeeping deterrence assurance force?"

if we're locked out of the political settlement and it's basically being imposed on us. What do you think about that argument? Well, sure. I mean, Europeans should have been at the table, but they've not done a lot to be at the table. They could have done much more. They could have seized Russian frozen assets. They could have increased their support for Ukraine. I mean, they could have increased their leverage to a huge extent so that they had to be at the table. Now their only leverage is sanctions, and there's huge risk that Orban in the next round in a few months

will kill sanctions and the Russian frozen assets will go back to Russia. I mean, it's a huge risk that we are not talking enough about, I think. But fundamentally, this is Europe's security interest. Someone has to secure something in Ukraine or otherwise we had just accepted a couple of years there's another war that we have to fight to support in Ukraine. So you might be unhappy with what Trump is doing, how he imposes things on you, but you can't just push this away. This is not Iraq. This is not where Europeans are like...

oh, do we have interests in Iraq or not? This is your neighbor. This is like to the east of Poland. I mean, I think it's hard to overstate the Trump administration's indifference to Europe's prerogatives and to Ukraine's prerogatives. Mike mentioned the minimum Ukrainian requirements in a notional deal. I don't think the Trump people care awfully much about the minimum Ukrainian requirements, for good or ill. I just don't think they care very much at all. And in response to the idea of the Europeans being upset and saying, well, why should we sort of catch the hot potato

If the Americans cut a deal with the Russians, I think the Trump people's response will be to say, then pursue your own policy. And again, I'm not, you know, you could say I agree or disagree with that, but there is a certain naked realist logic here of states can pursue the policies that they have the power to back up and

And beyond that, you're sort of out of the party. So I think, you know, you really want to view the Trump policy on both Ukraine and Europe in the most sort of not even realpolitik, but like mockpolitik, just brutal realism. On Europeans, we very much agree with you. I think...

The challenge of having Europe at the table, right? And they should be there. But the first challenge is that Europe's not a country, right? It's like the old Kissinger comment, if I want to talk to Europe, who do I call? Second, to be part of the table, Europe needs to have some quotient things that's bringing to a potential settlement. One of those things would be, in fact, a security or an assurance or a peacekeeping force of some kind and a clear financial commitment, right, to sustain Ukraine militarily.

Then it becomes very visible what is the European end of this deal. And that makes it much easier to work with them rather than the way the Trump administration is going around right now, which is

Having an outcome in mind, that outcome is very simplistic in terms of let's get a piece of paper that says ceasefire on it. We all understand the problem with that, that you can get that piece of paper, but it won't end the war. Russia could break the ceasefire the day after or a year after or wait exactly four years. Or just chip away at it in small ways like they have a habit of doing elsewhere. Sure. This is the big problem that Ukraine has, that Trump can get a deal and maybe try to get a Nobel Peace Prize while Ukraine gets reinvaded by Russia, doesn't get any security commitments, and then is abandoned in a third war.

right? This is the predicament to Ukrainism. Lastly, I think the main challenge of administrations you can see is that while centered on outcome and a particular deadline, there's absolutely no process in terms of Ukrainians, Europeans, staffing. And this is why you see a lot of

statements by folks like Hegseth where Outline is sort of laying out a clear policy one day and then getting up the next day and saying, you know, let me walk some of that back. And you have a principal Asian problem where essentially some folks are putting out what they think is the policy and then looking over the shoulder

to try to make sure that what they said is in fact the policy or maybe it's not. And so there's these challenges of folks trying to understand who are the right interlocutors and who's truly representing the policy of the principle. So I think Europe's main problem, and this is how they deal with Trump on lots of things, is they are too busy being aghast for reasons that I understand. There is a cruelty problem.

There is a rudeness. There is a brusqueness. But the Trump administration has also been very clear with Europe on what it would take for them to start taking European countries more seriously. And Europe consistently refuses to do these things. You could see this train coming from miles and miles away. And we're all acting surprised that it's now plowed through the car and appears to be going into the fuels refining plant.

Two things that I would just say about some of the subjects that have been discussed. I didn't see there was a big sort of sensibility that the Hegseth remarks had been walked back. I don't think they were walked back. Hegseth said, well, obviously the president can do whatever the president wants to do. And then the president was asked, what do you think about Hegseth saying that Ukraine's not going to get into NATO? And he said, I think it was a terrific comment. So I think there was a certain amount of you're tiptoeing around the czar here.

as has been the case for a long time. But I think they've been pretty consistent. And then Trump came out and said yesterday, it's not happening. The NATO thing, the talking points on the NATO thing have been very confusing to me because the Biden administration was actually extremely clear that Ukraine would not be let into NATO as a part of a settlement. But it was important to keep the door open. We're going to have to have another episode on this, the sort of weird theater on NATO accession with Ukraine over the years. The last bit of this I want to talk about is

How would you all rate how Zelensky has managed his relationship with Trump since Trump has once again become president?

How would you encourage our audience to think about this? I think he did great. And you might all disagree, but everyone in the media is talking about the tit for tat and Zelensky is ungrateful. But Zelensky, as always, he is, Trump was right with that. He has no cards, but he plays them well. He's not selling himself cheaply. He still is a figure on the world stage that is admired. And that's something he can leverage.

He has standing and that is something that Trump is impressed by. Right. So if he would just cave in and try to play nice with Trump, I don't think that Trump would take him more seriously than he does right now. And so I think from this perspective, one might call him undiplomatic and so on and so on. But I think he's being he's doing this Lenski and he's doing it well. Give probably a bit more of a big.

mixed or maybe balanced view of it. I think that in this particular deal, he handled pretty well the fact that he essentially removed all the onerous terms that were unacceptable to Ukraine. He played in such a way that he looked to be the defender of Ukraine and domestic body politic. His approval ratings went up. He can now come to DC and sign the deal that essentially to me is largely vaporware with domestic public approval. And he looks like he stood his ground and got quite a bit out of it.

However, as to the process of how it was handled, I don't think the Trump administration approached it right from the very beginning with Bassett sort of showing up there and saying, sign this. But I also think that his interpersonal relationship with Trump probably took a significant hit from what I saw. And I think that going back to your opening comments on this podcast, that could have been played differently. And the way I see things going, there's to some extent a risk of overplaying one's hand.

And so my honest view is I think Zelensky did a pretty good job, but I am wondering where this is all going, because if there isn't a ceasefire agreement by what looks like end of April.

Trump is going to blame someone besides the folks he first put in charge in his administration to try to reach a deal in the first hundred days. And the Russians are going to work very hard, very hard to try to position Ukraine as the party to blame. I think it's very important for Ukraine to try to avoid that happening to the extent that's possible without also giving into concessions or what will look like to some extent extortion. I think what's the old commie saying that the personal is political?

It's hard to overstate the extent to which for Trump, the political is personal, right? It's just the most primordial animal power relationship in question. And so the real question is, is coming to Washington and giving Trump a piece of paper to wave around and saying, we're doing deals, deals are good. Nope, Biden couldn't do a deal. We did a deal. Is that going to outweigh the disinformation bubble thing that I don't fault Zelensky for having a fit of pique?

He's got a really bad hand to play. I think it's just objectively true. But I think that's the question, right? Is that residual resentment that no doubt exists in Trump's spleen somewhere going to be outweighed by whatever pleasantries can come from this deal, which I agree with Mike substantively, there's not a lot there.

Beyond the pomp and circumstance and the smiles and handshakes on the dais. Yeah, I think per what you said, Justin, Zelensky came into this with a deficit, with a handicap because of the role that Ukraine played in Trump's first impeachment. And that is something that he can't shake off.

Having said that, publicly insulting Trump was, I think, just catastrophic and very unwise. Maybe it had the effect, second and third order effect, of increasing Zelensky's popularity in Ukraine, but it certainly didn't make it any easier. And I think the bill will actually come when it comes to the debate about reauthorizing future military aid for Ukraine, which I think Ukraine probably won't get. But will the bill not come anyway?

Let me respond to that. Because other people have said this on social media too. It's like nothing Zelensky can do will help. And I think that's sort of a nihilist look at analysis. It's like he's always going to have that deficit. But I tell you what's not going to help is insulting the extremely thin-skinned guy that you're negotiating with publicly. That's definitely not going to help. And Zelensky often has fits of pique. He did this with Biden, the NATO summit in 2023 when he was shocked to discover that he would not be invited to NATO, which the administration had told him many times.

I do think there is this exasperation in Washington, and it's not just the Trump administration, it was the Biden administration too, although they were a lot more diplomatic and quiet about it with Zelensky and how he behaves publicly. And I think that's what the UN vote was about. And we don't have time to get into the details, but not the policy approach I would have chosen, but...

I think that was mostly about the White House saying to Zelensky, you're not controlling the public narrative anymore. You can't blame this UN vote on Zelensky and on the Ukrainians. I'm not saying you have to like it. I think that's what was motivating the White House. The White House is pursuing a strategy of normalizing relations with Russia. They like Putin. They don't like Zelensky. That's the main problem here. So Zelensky has very little room for maneuver. And the UN vote was completely on the... I just think we shouldn't...

demand from Ukraine more than it can do in this situation. I think Zelensky could refrain from insulting Trump. I think that's not beyond the scope of the reasonable. So I think that in the last week and a half, at least what I learned watching this, I appreciate your interaction, is that Zelensky took this public and hard position in part because of how few cards he has to play, because of the fear that if they easily cave on this deal, they're

then Trump administration will make a deal with Russia and then force Ukraine into that deal as well, right? And so I think there's a wariness there. And the other part of it, let's be honest,

is he wanted to get a meeting with Trump. He wanted to come to DC to sign this agreement, not just about what's in the agreement, but also about getting a meeting. I think he wants a repeat of his successful Paris meeting with Trump, which seemed to go quite well, as he wants to get in the room with him again. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's a part of it. So he's going to come here Friday. And the question is, we don't know what's going to happen, how that's going to go. I suspect that if there's any further haggling and if anything happens other than this deal getting signed, then this might not go so well. But on the other hand, what I think we also learned, to your points, Ryan, is...

that the approach that the Zionski administration had taken with the Biden administration for three years publicly is not going to work with the Trump administration. And that came out very clearly in the last week. They're not people that are going to turn another cheek. They're not people that you can publicly pressure. And I say all this as someone that wants Ukraine to be defended, that wants Ukraine to get arms. I want Ukraine to prevail and win. But

The pushback I'm getting from you and also others on social media, I would just say, would you have advised Zelensky to say the same thing? But I would also not advise Zelensky and Ukrainians to just cave in and to be like the nice guys around Trump. Would you have advised Zelensky to say publicly that Trump lives in a bubble of disinformation? Let's step out for one moment out of the Trump politics. I know we're in Trump world now and Trump land now here in D.C., but

For the fact that Zelensky was right, that Trump lives in a Russian disinformation bubble. I'm not here to defend Trump, but I think it's really telling that you can't give me a yes or no answer to that question. And a lot of people defending Ukraine can't either. Well, I think it's not about yes or no. It's really about let's keep in proportion Ukraine.

Who is to blame? I mean, Trump does outrageous things. I think playing the who is to blame game will not get Ukraine anywhere. If Ukraine, Zelensky, and also, I mean, Trump forgets things again, right? So he now, he will be fine with seeing Zelensky in the White House. I don't think it's, I just don't want us to overstate this because otherwise Ukraine looks like, you know, otherwise we put so much blame on Ukraine, which is having such a hard time anyway. I mean, they're fighting against everyone. They are on their own, right? With a little bit of Europeans on their side.

The major part of the problem is Trump and his pro-Russian policy that he's pursuing, and not that Zelensky has insulted Trump. I agree that that's Ukraine's main challenge. And I'm trying to say, what's the best way to actually deal with that? Mike mentioned this question of, you know, the sort of dolchdoss, or like, I think Zelensky is going to need a stab in the back narrative eventually. I don't think there's any way out of it. He's not going to end up in NATO. He's not going to end up, to my mind, I think the security guarantees question is very a long shot still at this point.

I hope Mike is right. I hope the Europeans pull themselves together and put forces in being in Ukraine. But I think he's going to need domestically to say Trump pulled the rug on us, right? We were going along fine. And at whatever point he's going to say the Americans pulled the rug out from under us and the heroic sacrifice of all of our patriotic countrymen was not for naught, but the Americans in fact stabbed us in the back.

I think that's coming, come hell or high water. I think you see this in every major war. Across history, you see this to some extent. So I think you're right. But I also think something that you've all touched on, and you and your last answer, Liana, Zelensky is also a person who's been under tremendous stress and is not a robot that can always make the most rational decision. And maybe it was a slip up. I hope it was. And I hope we don't see it repeated for Ukraine's sake.

I think in many ways that European leaders don't appreciate the ball is in their court in ways that I think they have more agency and power here than they understand. And so what would you recommend that European leaders do next? So my recommendation would be European leaders have to pursue a double track approach with what they see now coming from the Trump administration. And that is, on the one hand, increase the leverage and talks.

try to work with the Trump administration, try to make sure that the people in the Trump administration understand that the Istanbul talks are perhaps not the best basis to move forward.

Because they had restrictions on Ukraine's military, on domestic elections, which is a red flag for any agreement that we want to see. That's on the one hand, work with them. But on the other side, they also have to strengthen Ukraine in a way that if we really have a deal that is completely unacceptable to Ukraine, that involves elections in Ukraine, that involves reducing the size of Ukraine's military to a fraction of what it is right now, that they can help Ukraine stand up to

to this deal. They will have to risk the eye of the Trump administration for that if they do it. But if the worst case comes to pass, Europeans need to support Ukraine to say no to a deal and give it what it needs to do that. Thank you for listening to this episode of the War on the Rocks podcast. Don't forget to check out our membership program at warontherocks.com slash membership, which of course features Michael Kaufman's show, The Russia Contingency. Stay safe and stay healthy.