US President Donald Trump hinted on Wednesday at fresh Russia sanctions if Moscow fails to end its war in Ukraine, saying "you'll see things happen" if he's dissatisfied with Russian President Vladimir Putin's response. FRANCE 24's Sharon Gaffney speaks with Lyubov Smachylo, head of the Analytical Department at the Media Initiative for Human Rights.
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00:00This is Apropos. The Ukrainian president has arrived in Paris ahead of a gathering of the
00:07so-called Coalition of the Willing on Thursday. Vladimir Zelensky and European leaders will
00:13speak by phone with Donald Trump during the summit, which will be focused on security
00:18guarantees for Kiev. Striking a defiant tone as Russia fired more than 500 drones and two
00:24dozen missiles on Ukraine overnight, Vladimir Putin has vowed to carry on fighting if a peace
00:30deal cannot be reached. With the latest, here's Emerald Maxwell.
00:36This charred sight is what Helena and her husband came home to after spending the night in an air
00:42raid shelter. The residents of Lutsk say their outhouses caught fire during Russia's overnight
00:47attack on this town in western Ukraine, despite it being miles from the front line.
00:53We returned when our neighbors called and told us that the garage was on fire.
00:58It was my husband's workshop and two garages. Everything burned down completely.
01:03Thankfully, the house itself wasn't affected.
01:06Nearby Lviv was not spared either. The mayor reminded residents not to ignore air raid alerts
01:12after Russia launched about 15 Shahed drones at sites around the city.
01:17There are no military facilities in Lviv. We moved them out of the city.
01:21I think the Russians wanted a very different outcome, but no one was killed and no one was injured.
01:28Kiev says Moscow launched 502 drones and 24 missiles overnight, injuring several people and causing
01:35significant damage to civilian infrastructure and homes across the country.
01:39The family was inside the house. Later, we helped the neighbors put out their burning house. Their roof had caught fire.
01:48Thousands of households are without electricity. Russia says it's justified attacking civil infrastructure to hinder Kiev's war effort.
01:57The Russian Ministry of Defense also released this video, claiming that the army now controls about half of the city of Kupiansk in the Ukrainian region of Kharkiv.
02:06Kiev. President Zelensky called for more pressure on Moscow, saying its almost nightly strikes showed it did not want to end the war.
02:14For more, let's bring in Lubav Smachilow, head of the Analytical Department at the Media Initiative for Human Rights, a Ukrainian NGO.
02:25Thanks so much for being with us on the program this evening.
02:29As we are reporting, President Zelensky has arrived here in Paris.
02:33We're going to have more high-level talks on Thursday, the so-called Coalition of the Willing meeting again.
02:39Are you hopeful that anything concrete is going to come out of this meeting?
02:46Thank you for having me tonight.
02:48Of course, as every Ukrainian, we are hoping that we will still have the support from European Union countries and our allies.
02:59But we should understand that the ceasefire and the peace negotiations should also be the main point for Russian President Putin.
03:12And for now, we see no will of Putin to really ceasefire and to participate in this negotiation process.
03:20And President Macron said tonight that security guarantees are ready for Ukraine, that they will be endorsed tomorrow during that meeting.
03:29What exactly does Ukraine need when it comes to those security guarantees and what do you think they're actually going to entail?
03:37I think, first of all, that the point is that the security guarantees for now, at least they will be only after like post-war security guarantees.
03:51So only after the ceasefire will be will be provided also from Russian side.
03:59And I think that this is the main, like the most important subject and topic is to see if Putin will also participate in this negotiation process and this fire.
04:17And on the security guarantees, it's not only about military help, but also to help us to support our positions in the negotiation process.
04:35I think this is what is very important for Ukrainians.
04:38And when it comes to those negotiations, if, you know, a conversation ever does take place between the two presidents,
04:46do you think there is any indication to date that Vladimir Putin will be actually willing to make any compromises?
04:55I don't think so.
04:57And recently he said in his press release that what should be done is a referendum in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine,
05:06which means that he supports the statements that Lavrov had recently also on the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
05:16So no compromise on territories, which means that basically they stand on the main positions that they had early June.
05:29And I don't think that they will have some compromise for positions during this negotiation process.
05:36Putin also proposed to Zelensky to come to Moscow to have this meeting and start this negotiation process, if we can say so, in Moscow.
05:47But we have already all seven countries who can help this, who can provide this platform for negotiation.
05:55And I think it's just a manipulation, another manipulation from Putin to delay any start of the negotiation process and to gain the time for them to be more prepared for new attacks
06:10and for attacks to the critical infrastructure of Ukraine, because winter is coming.
06:16So I don't see, and I think that Ukrainian and I think that also European leaders, they don't see this real will from Putin to really start this negotiation process.
06:30And, Lubov, a little earlier, Donald Trump said that he thinks he's going to be speaking again with Vladimir Putin in the coming days.
06:38President Zelensky will, we believe, have a chance to speak with Donald Trump tomorrow when the Coalition of the Willing get in touch with the U.S. president by phone.
06:47What do you think at this point they need to be telling him?
06:49I think that, first of all, Ukraine will stand on its propositions and on our position about negotiation process, including territories, our population in the occupied territories of Ukraine,
07:08including our sovereignty and independence, and our independence to choose if we want to join any aliens or any NATO or any European Union.
07:26And I think that we should clearly show to Putin that we will not accept their position in this negotiation.
07:37And I hope that this will be also the topic of discussion, because the fact that Donald Trump spoke already with Putin and we tried to put him out from this diplomatic isolation,
07:51it's also, for me, a step back, because we show that we can actually listen to what Russia wants from this negotiation process.
08:04But they don't have any compromise position.
08:08They still want to have all these territories occupied.
08:11And basically, they show with this that they will never stop on only these occupied territories of Ukraine,
08:19as they don't want to accept any security guarantees for Ukraine from other states.
08:24And Ukraine joined NATO, for example.
08:27And I think that these deadlines that Trump already gave to Putin and we see that actually doesn't work means that Putin clearly don't want to have any compromise on the position they already announced.
08:47Yeah, because President Zelensky said as well a little earlier that he plans to push for further sanctions when he speaks to Donald Trump.
08:54What kind of difference, though, would further measures make?
08:57And in your view, is Trump likely to actually impose them?
09:00I don't know if he will impose, because it's very difficult to say what Trump will do or not,
09:10because we can see his politics since the beginning of his presidency.
09:16And I think that sanctions from the U.S. is very important, because for now, the only thing we can do is the military support of Ukraine.
09:27So Ukraine can push back Russian army from the front line and still stay in and to protect Ukraine and Europe.
09:39And other things that we can have this pressure on Russia and its economy to not to buy these drones and not to produce these missiles that are killing and shelling Ukraine every day.
09:53And I think that, yes, this sanctions and military support is the only instrument that are working now,
10:03because we already have seen that instruments like international criminal court arrest warrants were issued to Putin.
10:12We see that we have 19 packages of sanctions from the European Union.
10:20We see these deadlines that Trump announced to Putin and nothing of this work.
10:25Putin continues its work in the same scale that he started it in 2022.
10:30So I think that we need not have illusions about Putin's will to stop this war.
10:40Thank you so much for being with us.
10:42We'll have to leave it there for now.
10:44That is Lubav Smachilo, head of the analytical department at the Media Initiative for Human Rights.
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