00:00Gulliver Craig, our correspondent in Kyiv. Let's move from Kyiv, let's go to London.
00:03Let's bring in John Loft, the geopolitical analyst, commentator,
00:06head of foreign policy at the new Eurasian Strategy Centre, Nest.
00:10John, welcome to France24. Always great to have you with us.
00:13And we're talking about who's in the room today.
00:16Who should we know about?
00:17Notably that the head of Russia's intelligence unit, the GRU, is amongst them.
00:22A significant factor?
00:24Do you hold the same kind of despairing thought in terms of where this could go,
00:28or do you see room for manoeuvre here?
00:33Well, I'd say it's not a particularly high-ranking Russian delegation.
00:37The two names that I've heard of are the head of the Russian military intelligence service
00:42and also the person, Kirill Dmitriev, who has been involved in earlier negotiations
00:48and who is a businessman and who is the direct counterpart of Steve Witkoff.
00:52So this looks like an effort on the Russian side to keep the negotiating process going,
01:01but not with, I think, any serious commitment to seeing it through to a successful end.
01:07We have to be clear here that Putin sees, I think, mainly the opportunity in this process
01:12through the fact that he thinks that Trump can exercise influence both over Zelensky,
01:17President Zelensky, and over Ukraine's European allies, to persuade them that there really is
01:23no point continuing the fight because Russia is eventually going to win.
01:26And this, in other words, would be a way, as Putin sees it, to accelerate a victorious outcome.
01:32So I'm afraid I share the caution or indeed pessimism of your correspondent in Kiev.
01:39I think the Ukrainian expectations of these talks are very low.
01:42They know exactly what the Russian strategy is.
01:45They can see it being implemented now with extreme brutality in terms of the
01:48just targeting of the energy infrastructure during this cold snap.
01:53And this is an effort on the part of Moscow to try to break the will of the Ukrainian people
01:58to continue the war.
02:00But we see no sign that Ukrainians are giving up, even though they're numerically outnumbered.
02:05The Russians are advancing places on the battlefield.
02:08But it's actually a relatively still static picture.
02:11And that's how it has been over, what, the last three years or so now.
02:16And the thought that this is entering, this war is entering its fifth year.
02:20And Russia controls, what, around 20 percent of Ukrainian territory.
02:27It really, this war has gone, I think, so far very, very badly for the Russians.
02:32And their economy is starting to hurt.
02:33And I think there have to be questions raised just about how credible this strategy is of Putin,
02:39because he's been talking for months and probably over a year now about the possibility of the Ukrainians collapsing any moment.
02:46Two thoughts there.
02:47First of all, I guess what the Donbass gives in its vast territory is the industrial heartland,
02:52the coal mining area, Luhansk and Donetsk, because we know most of, if not all,
02:58bar bits of no man's land in Luhansk are occupied.
03:02There's still, I think, maybe about 20 percent of Donetsk, depending on different analysis,
03:08that is still in Ukrainian hands.
03:11We're talking about Pokrovsk as well in and amongst that.
03:13I just wonder your thoughts, because you talk about, you know, this is a, you know, for Russia,
03:20it's not what they wanted, but this allows Putin, doesn't it, to present something that, you know,
03:24kind of a golden gem of Ukraine, the Donetsk.
03:28As you say, there's a kind of, they're going, marching slowly towards it as well.
03:32And I do wonder whether actually we're going to see that issue go away,
03:36because the study of war, the Institute of Study of War estimates it will take Russian troops
03:39up until, quote, August next year to conquer the rest of the Donbass.
03:43It goes back to your other point, that the leverage is slowly diminishing, isn't it?
03:49Well, I think it is to some extent.
03:51We have to see on the Russian side, Putin has set expectations.
03:55Expectations of a rapid victory.
03:57And that's not going to come about.
03:59And I think the Ukrainians are going to continue fighting.
04:03The Russians may advance a little bit faster when the spring comes and the foliage returns.
04:07And they're not as exposed.
04:11But Ukraine, I suspect, will somehow keep going with the assistance of its, in the main, its European allies.
04:18So the question is, how long can the Russians carry on?
04:22Putin wants to show something absolutely tangible.
04:25And, of course, territorial acquisitions are a very useful way of showing, in principle,
04:30that, you know, the war has achieved a result.
04:33But there's a nice phrase in Russian to describe, I think, territories such as Donbass.
04:36And that is a suitcase without a handle.
04:39This is going to be a burden for Russia because the industrial assets there have been, in many cases, devastated.
04:47The attraction of coal mining these days is not as great as it used to be for obvious reasons.
04:54And those territories have been largely depopulated.
04:56So what value Russia really sees in those, I think, is limited beyond the fact that they want to get hold of the towns that are known as the Fortress Belt,
05:07that are really the mainstay of Ukraine's defenses in that region at the moment.
05:12Because if they can control those, then I think the path to acquiring greater influence in Ukraine or, indeed, invading further is much, much easier.
05:25So that's why it's such a threat for Ukraine and why they don't want to give up that territory, particularly since they control it.
05:30And added to that is the visceral factor, isn't it, that this territory, many of the families of soldiers say, is marked in the blood of their loved ones,
05:37people who've fallen to defend it and what's left of it.
05:40Do you see, though, another outcome here?
05:42Of course.
05:42Other than the continuation at this point, I mean, Gulliver talked about, you know, how the government wants to continue,
05:49will not give up this territory and it would have to go to a referendum.
05:52Do you see any, looking and analyzing the political situation,
05:56any outcome which could involve a referendum in Ukraine on this territory in the Donbass?
06:01I think it would require the military situation to deteriorate significantly for that to happen.
06:07And then you might be talking about, let's say, some division of that contested territory at the moment.
06:15This would be, of course, extremely unpopular in Ukraine, and President Zelensky has referred to this repeatedly.
06:22But right now, I think there is a, from what we can tell from the opinion polling,
06:26there's a consensus among Ukrainians that they must keep fighting.
06:29Because if they don't, they risk losing their independence entirely.
06:33And this is what this war is about.
06:35But Russia wants to deprive Ukraine of the possibility of being a viable independent state.
06:42As always, really good to talk to you, John.
06:44John Luff, a geopolitical analyst, commentator and head of foreign policy at New Eurasian Strategy Centre.
06:50Ness, John, as always, we'll see you soon.
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