Russia vows to press offensive, rejects Trump's claim that Ukraine can retake land

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00:00first that about face from donald trump on ukraine the u.s president sat down with the

00:15ukrainian leader volodymyr zelensky on the sidelines of the un general assembly in new york

00:20after that meeting trump made a social media post with a much more optimistic tone on ukraine even

00:26saying kiev could take back the upper hand ellen gainsford has more in a major reversal of

00:34position the unpredictable u.s president donald trump now says he believes that ukraine can win

00:41back all of its territory from russia due to the pressure the war is placing on russia's economy

00:46posting online he took a tougher tone against moscow than previously russia has been fighting

00:52aimlessly for three and a half years a war that should have taken a real military power less than

00:57a week to win this is not distinguishing russia in fact it is very much making them look like a paper

01:03tiger trump had in the past warned that ukraine would likely need to make territorial concessions

01:09to russia to bring about an end to the conflict the about face came following trump's meeting with

01:16ukraine's president vladimir zelensky on the sidelines of the un general assembly in new york compared to

01:22their fiery confrontation at the white house seven months ago it was a radically different atmosphere

01:28following their discussions president zelensky celebrated the change of tone

01:33zelensky also told reporters that trump had said he was open to providing security guarantees for

01:48ukraine after the war is over but that he had given no specific details on what this would entail

01:55we're going to talk more about this renewed focus on ukraine with author and expert bart

02:02chef chick who joins me now live from brussels bart thanks for taking the time to speak to us what

02:07are your thoughts on this turnaround from donald trump has he now completely turned his back on the

02:11russian president well as your coverage noted it is a big diplomatic shift and time will tell whether

02:19it translates into additional economic pressure against russia and greater military support to ukraine

02:26but look uh certainly today ukraine and europe are in a much better posture uh with respect to the

02:32united states and with respect to transatlantic unity vis-a-vis russia than um even a week before

02:38so in his social media post the u.s president said ukraine could win back all of its territory from

02:44russia and to quote him maybe go even further can we read anything into that

02:49i'm not sure um i think the main uh point to take away is that right now there's uh a bit of momentum

02:59towards uh further support for ukraine and greater pressure against russia and you know this conflict

03:06has been ongoing for three and a half years um it's gone through ups and downs um uh successes by

03:14ukraine and setbacks by ukraine and now i think it's um an opportunity to build on this renewed

03:21diplomatic push by the united states and by europe to exert greater pressure against russia to try to

03:27see if we could bring russia to the negotiating table and to have a resolution to this conflict but

03:32you know certainly um you know this is an opportunity to build on and one thing that i think europeans have

03:39been uh looking at uh in recent days and weeks is uh for instance how to use russian state assets that

03:47have been immobilized over the past three and a half years and to be able to allocate those assets or the

03:53process of those assets to ukraine this would free up something like 200 billion euro uh of cash uh to be

04:01available for additional weapons perpetuces uh to be able to compensate ukrainian claimants for the

04:07damage that they've suffered in ukraine uh and this might be a good opportune moment to uh try to

04:13focus on this effort right but what would need to happen concretely to release some of those assets

04:17well president form line uh in her state of the european union addressed a couple of weeks ago

04:23um outlined the general concepts of a plan which would be to uh move those assets into um another entity

04:31that would then invest in an iou into a loan agreement that would be repaid when russia repays

04:38uh reparations for the damages caused in ukraine uh in a nutshell uh to make a somewhat complicated

04:46financial arrangement uh sort of simple this would free up about 200 billion euro in cash made available

04:54again for ukraine for weapons purchases to compensate ukrainian claimants uh and uh that money would

05:00eventually go back to russia once russia uh paid for the damages caused in ukraine i want to get back

05:07to this shift in position uh from donald trump i mean i know it's hard for anyone to really think what

05:12he might be thinking at the moment but this does come after months of donald trump actually saying

05:17ukraine would likely have to give up land to russia months after that very tense meeting we saw between

05:23trump and zelensky at the white house what changed was just the fact that trump was not getting his way

05:28with vladimir putin um like you i i can't really uh speak exactly to uh the reason for the shift in

05:36strategy but one um factor might be just to try some new element you know we've been in this conflict

05:43for uh like i said over three and a half years uh the west has throughout this time provided extensive

05:51military and economic support uh to ukraine uh the trump administration when it came in thought it

05:58could try a new approach to try to uh see if a diplomatic outreach to russia might bring it to the

06:05negotiating table and maybe that could be a way of uh resolving or ending the conflict that hasn't

06:12worked and so now they're trying something new i think uh and the new element is much greater

06:19uh rhetorical pressure on russia that hopefully will also translate into like i said economic uh

06:26pressure against russia and uh military support for ukraine uh and the elements are there and i think

06:32um you know it's also um we should know that lots of credit should go to european leaders that have

06:39worked uh extensively over the past nine months to try to engage the trump administration and

06:46sort of give their perspective uh first and foremost president zelensky but also president

06:51macron uh prime minister starmer prime minister tusk and others uh and uh it might be the case that

06:57the trump administration and president trump right now are in a new posture where they're thinking okay

07:02the diplomatic outreach to russia hasn't worked let's try something new uh and uh the trump team has been

07:09you know quite flexible in its foreign policy generally and taking a sort of uh a fluid approach and

07:15this might be a new element as part of the overall strategy just before you go bart volodymyr zelensky

07:21is due to address the u.n himself just a few hours from now what do you think we can expect from that

07:26speech well from his uh press conference and meeting with president trump yesterday he seemed uh very

07:33pleased with uh the diplomatic and rhetorical posture uh that he and ukraine find themselves in uh so i think

07:41he will try to uh embrace this moment and and and build on this diplomatic momentum uh i'm sure

07:47there'll be lots of uh words of thanks uh both to the united states uh europe and the west at large

07:54and uh hopefully an outline of where things can go uh from here and the truth is that ultimately

08:00you know this war could end today tomorrow um whenever uh russia decides to stop fighting if ukraine

08:08stops fighting it will be the end of ukraine uh and the end of uh the western um order as we know it

08:14all right thank you for that bart shefchick speaking to me there live from brussels

08:18russia was

08:20and we're going to stop fighting it and so we don't have to do it right now

08:22um

08:24so

08:26so

08:28and

08:30so

08:32so

08:33so

08:36so

08:38so

08:40so

08:42so

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