Analyst: Trump ’delusional’ if he thinks Putin is serious about ending war in Ukraine

FRANCE 24 English

Visit our website: http://www.france24.com  Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/France24_en

Transcript

00:01Now, for more, we can cross to Melinda Haring, Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia

00:06Center. Thank you very much for speaking with us. Now, Trump says Ukraine war diplomacy is

00:11in its final stages. Can you tell us a little bit more about the main sticking points?

00:18Charlotte, it's great to be with you. So there are a number of sticking points. And the first

00:23one are security guarantees. This is the deterrence that would prevent Russia from not attacking

00:30Ukraine again. And right now, we're stuck with how long the security guarantees would last. The

00:35U.S. has offered 15 years. Ukraine has said it once longer. The U.S. has said that they could be

00:40renewable. So that's one of the sticking points. There's also a sequencing question. At what point

00:46would there be a ceasefire? The Russians have rejected a ceasefire. We saw that before the

00:50meeting today. So that's going to be a very tricky one. The second big tricky issue to watch today

00:54is the issue of territory. And this is about the Donbass. It's two oblasts in the east. It's

01:00Luhansk and Donetsk oblast. And Russia controls about 75 percent of this territory. Ukraine is

01:07unwilling to give up the territory it still holds. Right now, the proposal is for both sides, the

01:13Russians and the Ukrainians, to pull back. Russia has said it will not pull back. So there's a lot of

01:18other tricky issues. But those are the two big sticky ones that the deal will fall apart if they

01:24can't get agreement on those two. As you say, even if Donald Trump and Zaletsky do come to some kind

01:30of consensus today, the question of Russia remains. Will they agree to any kind of consensus reached?

01:37Do you think that Vladimir Putin is feeling any pressure to end the conflict?

01:41No, no. And this is where I think Trump is really delusional. So Trump gave a statement

01:47and he said, I'm confident that Vladimir Putin wants to end this. He gave no evidence. And

01:53Charlotte, I'm an analyst, so I better tell you what the data says. So here's what I see

01:57coming out of Moscow. I see a president who is attacking Kiev. A third of the city of Kiev,

02:04the capital of Ukraine, has no power. And he's intensified the strikes on Ukraine over the last

02:10week during the Christmas holiday season. He's used thousands of drones, rockets and missiles to

02:15hit the entire country. So that's one. Two, I see him putting millions of dollars into a campaign

02:21to build camps to retrain Ukrainian children that he's stolen from Ukraine to join the Russian army

02:27and fight. So that's number two. And then three, I see him making no compromises. We see Zelensky

02:33showing compromises and being willing to offer some give and take on territorial issues and on security

02:40agreements. Moscow has still maintained its 22 hardline positions. So I see no evidence that

02:46Putin is ready for any kind of real negotiations. And European leaders seem to be rallying around

02:53Zelensky. I know that he had a video call with some European leaders yesterday. What do you think

02:58is going to be going on in those conversations? So Charlotte, the negotiating format is really unusual

03:05and it's going to be very hard just simply from a negotiating perspective to get to an agreement.

03:11You know, lay aside all the personalities and the different dynamics with Moscow. So the format is

03:15this. We've got Trump and Zelensky talking today. And we, that's a very hard format because of the

03:21personality. This is their third meeting this year. We all remember that explosive meeting back in

03:26February. And this meeting today is particularly tough because Putin has called and probably sweet

03:32talked President Trump in advance of the call. So I think that's one particular interesting wrinkle.

03:39So we see Zelensky has touched in with all the European leaders before he went into these

03:44negotiations. If Trump and Zelensky can get to an agreement, and that's a very big if, then the next

03:51step is for Trump to call Putin and sit down and try to iron things out. Now, Moscow has already

03:58rejected parts of the 20-point plan that we're talking about. So I think it's inconceivable that

04:03we're going to have some kind of major breakthrough today, just given the difficulty of this format that

04:08we're working with. Thank you very much for that analysis. Melinda Herring there with us.

04:14And for more information, thank you very much.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended