Is a Trump-Putin meeting the only way to Ukraine peace?
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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, Tom Noonan and Toby Seeley. Since yesterday's phone call with Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump's insisted that conversation went very well, that they made progress, and he believes the Russian president wants to stop his invasion of Ukraine.

The Kremlin was similarly positive, saying both sides are on the right track. But there were little details. There was no firm timeframe and there was no suggestion of whether the two presidents would in fact one day meet. Now that was something the White House had said before the call that Donald Trump was open to. And last week, his Secretary of State Marco Rubio went even further, saying direct talks between the two men would be the only way to make progress to peace.

But is that actually true? Our guest today is Emily Ferris, a specialist in Russia and its security, who works at the Royal United Services Institute think tank in London. Emily, let's just start with yesterday's phone call, shall we? Do you think that it moved the dial at all in terms of Ukraine peace talks?

I don't think so substantively. It's one of those meetings, I think, that the significance is more in the fact that it happened at all. This is the first meeting between Trump and Putin. It's a huge acknowledgement of Putin's international position. It's a good opportunity for him to get in front of one of the most powerful people in the world. So for Russia, it's a huge sort of prestigious event. In terms of whether they came to any dramatic conclusions, I don't think we can say that at this point.

It's interesting you refer to the phone call as a meeting. Is it on a par with having an in-person meeting, or are there things which you just cannot replicate in a phone call between two world leaders?

Well, I think if any of us have learned anything from the COVID pandemic, it's that the in-person interactions mean a whole lot more than if we kind of do things in an electronic way. So it's one thing to have a phone call, but what you miss is sort of the nuances and a handshake and kind of the personal aspect of it. And that's why the in-person meetings are so important. There's other things around the meetings, you know, whether you do official dinners, whether you meet other aides, whether there's a sort of, I'm not suggesting this is going to happen, but you know, a

family events as well if you kind of bring spouses along. So there's a great deal of relationship building that goes into it, which you really don't get from a phone call, which is probably just more to the point. So

They haven't talked about whether there'll be a face-to-face meeting. That feels like the logical next step in terms of where the relationship will go. But crucially, that kind of hasn't been outlined yet. You don't see from either side any statements saying, and the next stage is that we're going to be meeting in X, Y, Z number of months. So that's not been concluded yet. How likely do you think a face-to-face meeting is?

Oh, well, I wouldn't rule it out. I mean, just because they haven't said it, just because they haven't committed to it, it doesn't mean that they haven't, you know, thought about it. What I think probably is happening is that they're trying to see how the meeting is going to land in both the States and in Russia, to see whether people are kind of taking this positively. And so far, it seems to be certainly from the Russian side, I suppose the absence of negativity is the best way of describing it. There doesn't seem to be an assessment that this was a failure. It doesn't seem to be

framed in a way that's negative towards the Americans. They've kind of framed it as Putin and Trump are the ones that are kind of getting together to sort out the war and to come to some conclusion and Ukraine is, well, the sideline. So that seems to be the conclusion so far from the Russian side. Usually, Emily, when you have big in-person bilateral meetings, there's actually quite a lot of work that goes on between lower level officials to lay the groundwork beforehand. And that's where a

Do you think that a meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin would actually move the dial for Ukraine? Do you think they ever really move the dial on anything? Or are they more just about the choreography and the photo opportunity?

It's a good question whether they really move the dial on things. I think they kind of have to happen. I think these meetings have to happen as a precursor to the finer details. And crucially, neither Trump or Putin actually seem to have come to any conclusion on the back of these talks about what a settlement could look like.

When it comes to Putin, you know, perhaps it doesn't hurt to try something a little different. The previous American administration's position not to negotiate with Russia, not to speak to them and to kind of issue rather ultimatums and sort of punitive sanctions doesn't seem to have worked in the way that the

that was intended. It doesn't seem to have backed Russia down from the war. It hasn't pushed them towards peace and it hasn't made a safer security environment. So the idea of trying something new and engaging with Russia does have a place as a part of national security, unpalatable though it might be. Diplomacy is a really important part of how to engage with Russia.

And last week, when Russian and Ukrainian officials met in Istanbul, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio seemed to play them down before they'd even got going, saying you won't actually get any progress without Trump and Putin getting in a room together. Do you think that meeting is a necessity to get peace in Ukraine? Well, it certainly seems to be the Russian perspective, actually, that without Trump in the room,

the Russians and Ukrainians are unlikely to come to some kind of conclusion together. And that's partly due to Putin's insistence on talking about things like what he calls the root causes of the war. I mean, that can refer to lots of different things. But what I think he's talking about is Ukraine's closer security relationship with the West,

with NATO, potential membership of the European Union, all of those things that in their mind was a sort of legitimate enough security concern to prompt the war, questions about Crimea, all of these things. I think it can refer to lots of different things. And the fact that Putin is kind of returning to those

Old questions, again, makes it very difficult to see where there's any new ground for them to cover with the Ukrainians. I think you'll notice what Putin's doing when he comes to Trump is they're talking very, not very much about Ukraine. They're talking rather about the bilateral relationship with the Americans.

it's not so much about rehashing old ground. So I wonder if it's much more palatable for the Russians to be seen as going forward and sort of moving towards a new phase of their relationship with the Americans rather than going back with the Ukrainians to talk about a war where their position hasn't really changed and they sort of don't seem to be very interested in a particular compromise.

Is what Donald Trump is offering going to entice Putin and actually get him to change course? It's kind of difficult to know where Moscow's red lines are and what is actually appealing to them. It's not also really clear what's on the table. So things like American investment in Russia seems in principle like a very attractive option. But when you look at that from a practical perspective,

just the very difficult business environment that there is in Russia, not least the fact that there's very few even American legal firms that are there to sort of protect businesses. The fact that

since the war, a huge amount of Russian businesses have been nationalized and now sort of part of state structures. It's quite an unattractive business environment to operate in full stop. So I'm highly skeptical of a lot of the conversations that are going on about American investment in Russia, whether that's even possible, and especially any investment that's

geographically located near to the front line or any of the territory that's been fought over, not least because of the practicalities of trying to operate in an area that is full of unexploded ordnance. If you look at sort of previous conflicts, the years that it took to demine those regions and make them safe, even for local inhabitants, was significant. So the idea that suddenly there would be sort of an American business boom that would be

Russia and America mutually, I find highly doubtful. And Emily, aside from the possible practical benefits, ultimately, does Putin just want acceptance or even approval from the United States? I think this is a long historical debate.

dance between the Americans and the Russians. I think the Russians and the Soviet Union at that time often sort of sought recognition from the Americans as one of the most powerful countries in the world as being on our par. So, you know, Russia believes that because of its geography, its huge landmass, its hydrocarbons, its nuclear power,

its military might, that it has some sort of Russian exceptionalism, and that it should have a seat at the table, it should have a role internationally, and that it deserves to play perhaps a more interventionist role in other countries. You know, we're talking about spheres of influence, I suppose we've kind of gone a bit beyond that now when it comes to countries like Belarus and Ukraine that Russia has kind of tried to subjugate. So,

Russia, I think, has always sought not necessarily the approval of the Americans, but I think the acknowledgement that Russia is a similarly great power in its own right. And so when you have a president like Trump who is interested in meeting Putin, in talking to him, hearing what the Russian perspective is, even if they don't perhaps agree with it,

I think that is of quite significant value to the Kremlin. And it does sort of suggest that the Americans believe Russia to be perhaps maybe not an equal player, but one at least that deserves to have a seat at the table. And I think that's a really longstanding historical relationship.

OK, Emily, thank you. That is Emily Ferris from the Roosie Think Tank in London. Obviously, how Donald Trump is shaping the world order has been a key focus of the podcast since he returned to the White House. But we're also now seeing the global security effects of his administration's decision within the US. In yesterday's episode called How Hegseth's War on Woke Could Backfire...

We looked at whether decisions by his defence secretary Pete Hegseth to scrap DEI or representation programmes in the Pentagon could actually have the opposite effect to what he claims and make the US less effective as a fighting force. Do go back and have a listen. 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.

Did you know that foreign investors are quietly funding lawsuits in American courts through a practice called third-party litigation funding? Shadowy overseas funders are paying to sue American companies in our courts, and they don't pay a dime in U.S. taxes if there is an award or settlement. They profit tax-free from our legal system, while U.S. companies are tied up in court and American families pay the price to the tune of $5,000 a year.

Thank you.

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