00:00So as more information comes in, it's increasingly difficult to frame this summit as anything other than a victory for Vladimir Putin and perhaps one that allows him to continue to buy time.
00:11Yes, absolutely. Well, when you look at the outcome of that summit, as we all know, Donald Trump loves to tout his successes, right?
00:18He was standing at that lectern and basically he announced absolutely nothing.
00:22He announced he didn't talk about a ceasefire or any kind of agreement that would reduce the fighting or step towards peace.
00:30He had promised or explained that he wanted to try and organize a three lateral summit between himself, Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky in days or weeks to come in order to move forward on a potential ceasefire.
00:44Well, that hasn't materialized either. And actually, just after that summit, he spoke to Sean Hannity on Fox News and he was asked and he did say that he believed that, you know, this summit would take place pretty soon.
00:57And he said that both parties wanted to have him there. Well, in fact, the Kremlin has basically issued a statement saying that there was no mention of a trilateral summit during the meeting.
01:09And then when it comes to sanctions or being tough with Russia for not, you know, complying in any way, shape or form.
01:16Well, he also said during that interview that he didn't see any point about thinking about potential further sanctions in weeks to come.
01:23So, no, quite honestly, it doesn't look like a victory for Donald Trump in any way, shape or form.
01:30But for Vladimir Putin, it's a great success. He's back on the international stage.
01:36He's also managed to buy himself some time. This perspective of sanctions, secondary sanctions on China, because this is kind of what we're talking about here, is now weeks away.
01:46And he is carrying on his fighting and he has most certainly come back with his maximalist demands when it comes to the war in Ukraine.
01:55And now what we are probably going to see, and this has just started with these phone calls, is potentially Donald Trump trying to impose this view of the Kremlin onto Ukraine and his European partners.
02:05Ukraine and the Europeans will probably refuse because, indeed, they want to have a robust framework for future security and to move forward in Europe.
02:11And that would potentially drive a wedge between the United States and the rest of NATO or Europe.
02:17And that, of course, is a great victory for Vladimir Putin.
02:21Much different tone, indeed, than just a few weeks ago, James.
02:25So now Vladimir Zelensky will go to Washington.
02:28I'm sure he himself and his allies will, of course, have that ambush from the U.S. president and vice presidents just last February in mind ahead of this meeting.
02:37What do you think we can happen to see next?
02:39We can expect to see next.
02:41Well, we can imagine there will be this visit by Volodymyr Zelensky.
02:46We can probably imagine.
02:47I mean, once again, this is all fiction because we do not have the parameters of what was actually negotiated during this summit.
02:53So we don't know what the actual demands are.
02:55But, you know, when you hear, for example, that Volodymyr Zelensky explains that Donald Trump told him that what Vladimir Putin was looking for is a comprehensive agreement rather than a ceasefire.
03:07Well, how can you broker a comprehensive agreement when you don't have a ceasefire?
03:11That's the first question.
03:13Then this comprehensive agreement is very probably what Vladimir Putin always refers to as the root causes of the conflict.
03:22And that translates as a demilitarized non-NATO Ukraine that would have lost part of its eastern territories and indeed with a weak leadership and no sovereignty.
03:33And this is unacceptable to the Ukrainians and to the Europeans for that matter.
03:36So what we have here is basically a summit that has placed Vladimir Putin in a situation where he is on Donald Trump's good side.
03:47He is seen as the one wanting to negotiate when Volodymyr Zelensky, who had been working very hard to be the one looking like the peacemaker here, that might just flip to the other side.
03:58And that would be quite catastrophic, not to mention the state of the transatlantic relationship between the Europeans and the United States.
04:05I'm sure we will know more then on Monday ahead of that equally anticipated then now meeting between Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump.
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