Trump’s Ukraine plans cause chaos in Munich
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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 Alex Dibble. The Munich Security Conference has begun with the US and its NATO allies pulling in seemingly different directions and officials already scrambling to keep up. Before meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the US Vice President, J.D. Vance,

suggested that contrary to the suggestions of Donald Trump and indeed the US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, there is actually a world in which American troops are deployed to Ukraine. Meanwhile, Downing Street says the UK Prime Minister Zakir Starmer has told Volodymyr Zelensky that Ukraine's path to NATO membership is still irreversible. That's contrary to what Trump and Hegseth has said over the last few days.

So what is going on in Munich? The Times' defence editor Larissa Brown is at the conference and is our guest today. Larissa, it looks a bit chaotic, it sounds a bit chaotic. Can you tell us what is actually going on?

It is complete confusion because everybody I'm speaking to has no idea what the American position is. And even something that seems quite simple, like Donald Trump last night said that there was going to be a meeting of Russian officials and US officials.

Even that nobody seems to know about. Everybody's been scrambling around to work out where this meeting is, who's in the meeting, what's the meeting about. And actually somebody just told me that they think that Trump might have even made it up. In fact, one official compared it to the Washington plane crash where Trump was suggesting that a diversity push was behind the crash.

And so, I mean, that in itself is pretty astonishing that he's got the Europeans, the Ukrainians, even the Russians scrambling around to work out what on earth he's talking about. And clearly allies here are thinking that he's made this up, which just seems completely bizarre. And I think that's kind of setting the whole tone here that nobody really knows the American position at all. Yes. So what do we know about the American position right now?

A couple of days ago at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, Pete Hexer, Trump's defense secretary, was saying that there definitely wouldn't be U.S. speeds on the ground in Ukraine. He completely, you know, emphatically ruled it out.

And then there's been some rowing back from all of that. As you say, J.D. Vance has now said, well, you know, if Russia don't agree to a deal, then we might threaten them with putting U.S. boots on the ground in Ukraine. And actually, I was told by one British senior government source that the Americans could also potentially provide air cover to any peacekeeping forces on the ground in Ukraine. So...

As Hegseth himself has said, all options seem to be on the table at the moment. And this comes after, you know, 48 hours previously. The US seems to have already given up huge concessions to Russia before the talks had properly began. And do you think that reflects divisions between different people in the Trump administration having quite different views about how involved the US should be in Ukraine? Or is it more just confusion?

I'm not sure it's divisions in the sense that they don't agree necessarily. I think they just haven't quite worked out what the US position is. And they are, you know, I think they've sort of had to row back from the earlier comments by Hegsir because everybody was saying, well, you've already made all these concessions to Putin. That needs to be part of a negotiation. And, you know, Hegsir's new to the role. He's not been...

in any of these positions before, he's a former Fox News host and a military veteran. And then he goes to this, you know, this NATO meeting, or Ukraine Defence Contact meeting at NATO. And he says these really tough remarks, but

actually did he you know if they worked out the detail of what what's going going on and what the US position is I don't think they have and clearly he's then had to step back from all of that and JD Vance has come in and said actually you know we could do this and we could do that and I think that I've not got a sense of any row I think it's just that no they just haven't got to grips with the policy yet. Larissa what are you hearing from the Europeans at the conference?

I think the Europeans are just reeling from what they've heard so far. They're worried that they're not going to have a seat at the table. Obviously, they think that their views are extremely important, given this is all about the future of Europe and what could happen next. The Europeans have...

have been saying, you know, that this is a trap, it's a deadly trap, any talks between Putin and Trump. And actually, I've just interviewed the chair of the NATO military committee, who's an admiral and only just started the job, and he was saying that we can't really trust Putin and that he won't just stop at Ukraine. There's this fear that he could move into, you know, the Baltic states and other allied nations.

The Europeans have got themselves in a real fluster at the moment. They've also compared his behaviour to the appeasement of Hitler, obviously. That's worrying. The idea that Czechoslovakia didn't have a seat at a table and now Ukraine isn't having its voice heard.

So everybody's really, really worried. We've obviously heard already quite a lot from Zelensky, but he's going to be really keen to push forward his viewpoint today and make sure that Ukraine's voice is really heard in all of this, because at the moment it just seems that it's all about

and Putin's love in their sort of weird relationship where they seem to really, you know, complement each other and each of them seem to get along. And actually there's no real detail about what the peace deal could look like. And so talking about Zelensky, what will he be telling the Americans and the Europeans for that matter?

I think Ukraine's just really clear that they want, you know, they need to have a seat at the table. This needs to be...

They need to be properly part of any discussions. They can't be cast aside. They are the big players here. Their future is at stake. They've had millions of people in Ukraine that could be affected by any outcome. They've had tens of thousands of soldiers die. And they need to have their voice heard. They want to be part of NATO. They don't want that ruled out completely, as Hegseth appeared to do on Wednesday.

They also will want some sort of security guarantees and they don't think Europe will be able to give them that because they don't think we've got enough troops, they don't think Putin will be deterred by just Europe alone and therefore they want US buying in all of this, they want protection from America and they want something like air cover, like Patriot missile systems, like aircraft. They need something from the US to ensure

to ensure that Putin doesn't in future try and take the rest of Ukraine, which everybody thinks he'll try and do. And nobody actually genuinely thinks that Putin would enter into these talks in good faith and negotiate something that he'll stand by. Because realistically, Putin's always wanted to take back Ukraine. And I think that is his end goal. And I don't think anything's going to change that.

One of Vladimir Zelensky's discussions today has been a call with Zakir Starmer, the UK Prime Minister. What do you make of this line that we've had from Downing Street that Starmer emphasised Ukraine's path to NATO being irreversible?

This is a clear dividing line here. As you say, the Americans kind of think it's not realistic at all, whereas the Brits and NATO generally and Europeans are like, they will have a path to membership and this must happen and that must be on the table.

And actually, just looking at some of the differences as well, Shug was saying last night that he wanted Russia to be part of the G7 or, you know, what would be the G8. Again, I'm told that the British foreign officers are very worried about those remarks and do not think that Russia should be part of that club at all whilst Russian troops are in Ukraine.

And obviously, while we focus on what happens on the stage, the big speeches, a lot of the work of conferences like these go on behind the scenes in, you know, bilaterals off to one side of the main meeting. What should we be looking out for this weekend? I mean, is there anything that might be of interest to us outside of the talks with American officials?

It seems a bit depressing to say, but I really think there is one show in town. Everyone just wants to hear what the Americans have to say. And everybody else's voice sort of, you know, sadly kind of merges into one angry sort of medley, I guess. And, you know, Zelensky and Vance is going to be key, you know, from a sort of...

British suspect as well, David Lammy, the foreign secretary is here and he's meant to be at some point maybe meeting his US counterpart Marco Rubio and can Lammy try and persuade the Americans to really sort of listen to the Ukrainians? I don't know but

I think they're going to be the key things. But of course, what everyone's also going to be mindful of is that as people wake up in America, as the US president wakes up, he could just start messaging, writing things on his truth social media platform. And then that's what everybody is going to be looking at.

Larissa, thank you. That's Larissa Brown, the Times' defence editor, speaking to us from the Munich Security Conference. We would very much recommend listening to yesterday's episodes, which look in detail at the US and the

the European perspectives on this situation. Jim Townsend, who held senior roles in the Pentagon for decades, and Philip Ingram, the former NATO planner, were our guests. For now, 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.

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