00:00Let's bring in Jamie Shea, the former NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges
00:06and Senior Fellow at the Friends of Europe think tank.
00:10Jamie, welcome back, good to see you.
00:11So Tomahawks for Ukraine or not, who is President Trump listening to?
00:18Well, as your correspondent in Washington just said,
00:21Trump seemed to be listening to the Ukrainians at the beginning of the week
00:26and his Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseff, was adopting sort of quite a forward-leaning pro-Ukrainian,
00:32tough-on-Russia stance when he was at a meeting of NATO defense ministers.
00:37But to our call with Putin seems to once again to have brought Trump now into a position much closer to Putin,
00:45maybe thinking on the back of his success in achieving a ceasefire in Gaza
00:50that he now has momentum for peace negotiations and he can push on Ukraine.
00:55We'll have to wait and see.
00:57But Trump never made a decision in favor of sending those Tomahawk cruise missiles.
01:04There was always a question mark over them.
01:06And number two, what Zelensky is looking for, of course, are Tomahawks, but a lot of other things too, Jamie.
01:12He's hoping to do a $90 billion deal with the United States for the supply of a lot of U.S. military equipment.
01:19But Ukrainians have been in states this week going around U.S. defense industries like Rafian and Lockheed Martin also looking for deals.
01:29And he's also looking, Zelensky, to conclude a drone agreement with the United States,
01:34which would give Ukraine access to a lot of technology,
01:37but also mean that the United States would buy Ukrainian drones and bring in some income.
01:41So let's not just look at Tomahawks, let's look at that wider picture.
01:44Even if Zelensky doesn't get the Tomahawks, providing he can get some of those defense cooperation agreements,
01:50I think he'll still see the visit as being a successful one.
01:52And what message would it send if President Trump were to approve or deny those requests for those weapons?
02:01Well, of course, it's very important, I think, particularly with winter coming and the Russians launching these massive strikes on Ukraine's energy grid and railway network system.
02:15I think it's very important for Zelensky that he gets things like Patriot Air Defense Systems,
02:21the things that the United States has been supplying in the past.
02:25Otherwise, it's going to be a very difficult winter for the Ukrainians, too.
02:29He also wants this U.S. investment in Ukraine's domestic defense industry because, as Zelensky says,
02:37Ukraine is now providing 50 percent of all of the weapons that it uses itself.
02:43And even when it comes to Tomahawks, let's not forget, Jamie, that Ukraine does have very good long-range systems of its own, like the Flamenco.
02:52It's been very successful at developing long-range drones and ballistic missiles.
02:56And even without Tomahawks, you've seen that Ukraine has been quite successful at hitting Russian oil refineries in recent weeks.
03:02And, as Zelensky puts it, reducing Russian oil refining capacity by 25 percent.
03:08So Ukraine is not bereft of its own resources in this matter.
03:12Does this meeting signal something of a shift in United States strategy towards Ukraine?
03:17Or is Trump using it more as leverage with Russia?
03:23Well, I think we're really going to have to wait and see, frankly, how the meeting goes today.
03:28It's always a little bit unpredictable, as we know, when Zelensky visits the White House.
03:32And secondly, what Trump's stance is going to be.
03:35I mean, in recent weeks, Europeans and Ukrainians have been sort of happy that, you know,
03:40Trump was taking a much tougher line on Russia, calling Russia a paper tiger, suggesting that the U.S. supported Ukraine,
03:47liberating all of its territory, hinting at more sanctions, for example, on Russian oil exports,
03:55clamping down on India's ability to import Russian oil, suggesting that Trump would do the same for China.
04:02So I think the Ukrainians were sort of kind of hoping that, you know, Trump had finally chosen his camp instead of going back and forth between Moscow and Kiev,
04:10and was willing now to really up the ante to take those tough measures which would bring Putin to the negotiating table.
04:17So the Americans have built in some leverage now, and the tomahawks are part of that to put Putin under pressure.
04:24But whether Trump is, you know, having created the leverage, is really willing to use it,
04:29well, that's what we're going to have to wait and see after today at the White House and in forthcoming weeks up to this summit in Budapest.
04:35Jamie, good to see you. Thanks for that.
04:37Jamie Shea, the former NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General.
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