00:00President Trump meanwhile says the U.S. is willing to help Ukraine as part of a security agreement to end the war with Russia
00:06while continuing to express frustration with the pace of talks.
00:09This as Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky floated the idea of a referendum on handing territory to Russia.
00:15Bloomberg's Oliver Crook joins me now with more.
00:18Ollie, what guarantees is Trump considering and under what circumstances?
00:22We know, for example, that there were promises made in the past, but Zelensky isn't willing to just, you know, accept promises.
00:29He wants something written down and accepted by, you know, maybe Congress even.
00:35And the reason that he wants that is because those promises have been made in the past, Vani.
00:39We remember the Budapest memorandum that basically secured Ukrainian sovereignty back in 1994
00:45when the Ukrainians surrendered their nuclear weapons, which would have been obviously a very effective deterrent
00:49against any invasion by the Russians.
00:53There were guarantees made by the Russians, the Americans, the U.K., and a number of others who were party to that contract.
00:58And, of course, those were not honored.
00:59So the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, would like to get a very clear idea of what the security architecture would be promised to the Ukrainians
01:08in order to safeguard their sovereignty if they are able to get a peace deal negotiated.
01:13At the moment, we do not know what that architecture would look like.
01:16We do not know what President Trump is actually offering.
01:19But, Vani, I think it is significant that President Trump is talking openly about a U.S. role in those security guarantees.
01:25It's not something that Trump really discusses very publicly at all.
01:29It's something, obviously, that's been discussed behind closed doors.
01:32But this is the president of the United States acknowledging that this is something that he's willing to play a role in.
01:36So significant from the Ukrainian perspective and the European perspective.
01:40The Europeans would also like to have some more talks over the weekend that would involve a delegation from the United States.
01:46We heard from Donald Trump that they will only send a delegation if they feel that the talks are making progress.
01:50And these are not meetings just for the sake of having meetings, which is one of the frustrations the Trump administration has aired over the last couple of days.
01:57So we'll find out if they are going to send a delegation over the weekend to Brussels.
02:02And that's really the next diplomatic moment we're looking for over the next 48 hours.
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