00:00We're going to bring in Missy Ryan. She's a staff writer at The Atlantic who covers defense and the
00:03State Department. And she writes about it in her new piece, Ukraine's short-lived comeback.
00:08All right, Missy, it's nice to see you. That's not the most positive-sounding title.
00:12It did seem like there was this big sea change. We had this nice meeting at this summit in Turkey.
00:19The vibes were good. We had all these formerly anti-Ukraine right-wing kind of bloggers,
00:25including Lara Loomer, changed their minds. Some visited Ukraine. We're all saying,
00:30you know, the president needs to get on board. We had this promise of patriots. And then it all
00:34just kind of went away. Do we know what happened? Yeah. So it really is a remarkable comeback story
00:40that Ukraine has. Everybody remembers that train wreck of a meeting that President Zelensky had
00:46with Donald Trump in the Oval Office in February 2025, where the Ukrainians were asked to leave.
00:51They insulted each other. It was very ugly. That represented a real low point early in the
00:59Trump administration and this kind of stunning reality check for the Ukrainians who had had so
01:06much American support behind them since the beginning of the war. But they really did manage
01:12to claw their way back and make a successful argument to the Trump administration that they could
01:18deliver things in U.S. interests, like, for example, providing drone technology that the United
01:25States didn't have, valuable expertise that they had gained on the battlefield. And most of all,
01:32they actually could sell themselves as winners, you know, basically being able to block the Russian
01:39advance on the front, you know, kind of change the battlefield equation in their favor. And everybody
01:45knows that Donald Trump loves a winner. So by the time the pair met in Ankara for the NATO summit
01:53this
01:53summer, Trump really seemed much more pro-Ukraine than he ever had. And he made this very important
01:59promise to allow Ukraine to acquire a license to manufacture Patriot missiles, which were these air
02:08defense missiles that Ukraine desperately needs. And so we kind of tell the story of that and how that
02:14was really this ephemeral fleeting high point that Ukraine had. It didn't last for very long. It turns
02:22out that Trump doesn't seem like he's going to fulfill that promise that he made. Zelensky is now facing
02:30more political problems at home. The ambassador here in Washington left because she was facing corruption
02:36problems. He had to dismiss several ministers. People were upset about that. And then maybe most
02:44importantly, the reality of the battlefield is very difficult. There was a big airstrike last week where
02:53Ukraine was not able to shoot down any of the ballistic missiles that Russia fired at Kiev and
03:00surrounding areas and 17 people died. And so that's a real scary harbinger of a dire future for Ukraine
03:09if they can't get these air defense supplies that they need. 28 missiles in total. Missy, a theme of
03:14the piece, I think, is that personnel is policy here. And we've seen President Zelensky kind of go through
03:20this reinvention vis-a-vis his relationship with President Trump. But I want to go back to someone
03:24you mentioned that as the now former ambassador of Ukraine to the U.S. And she, in your piece,
03:28talks about the moment of recognition she had at that first disastrous Oval Office meeting when
03:32she recognized that Ukraine's overtures weren't calibrated correctly to this administration.
03:38And you mentioned the kind of personnel changeover that we've seen in Kiev in recent weeks.
03:43What should we make of that? I think that there was a school of thought among some experts that
03:46we've seen this over the course of the war, that President Zelensky has kind of cleaned house or
03:50made adjustments to the cabinet. But it does seem in terms of the response to it, the popular
03:55protest that rose as a result of that, that there's something different this time around. So
03:59yes, there's the dynamic between Zelensky and Trump, but there's something broader at play here about
04:04his kind of hold-on strategy when it comes to this war at this particular moment.
04:08Yeah, you know, I mean, as everyone, as the viewers will know, Zelensky has had a remarkable run.
04:17He has the kind of support that Donald Trump would really dream of, given that he's overdue for
04:24elections. But Ukrainians have shown themselves very willing to make their feelings known to go out
04:34in the streets and protest. And that's what happened when Zelensky dismissed this very popular
04:40defense minister, Fedorov. And so it's a balancing act. He's trying to calibrate for the battlefield
04:50requirements. He's trying to make sure that corruption, which, you know, Ukraine has a long
04:55history with, is managed. And so he's got a very difficult task, you know, keeping the United States
05:01and the Europeans on board. But as the war goes on and Ukrainians grow more and more fatigued,
05:09and most importantly, as he maybe proves unable to keep them safe in their homes over the coming
05:17winter with the air defense shortage, and then, you know, we're going to see what happens with
05:22attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure over the winter. That makes the stakes that much higher
05:28for Zelensky. When it comes to that air defense issue, it seems to me the defense minister seems
05:35to have played a crucial role there, because you talk about in your piece how Fedorov was the one
05:40who kind of established the relationship with Elon Musk and had to step out of his children's birthday
05:45party because Musk finally called him back to get him on the phone to get permission for them to use
05:50Starlink over Ukraine. And that's one of the ways, in lieu of these patriots, that they've been able to
05:55have some air defenses. Ukraine is now asking Musk to let them use Starlink over Russia to help that
06:03targeting. It doesn't seem like that relationship is there, and possibly the dismissal of this defense
06:08minister has made that even less likely. Yeah, that's true. And the request for the
06:15guidance systems to be used over Russia was news that we broke last week. It's interesting. It does
06:21show, as you said earlier, that personnel is policy. It also, I think, is an interesting illustration of
06:27the informal, unorthodox way that business is done these days in the United States and in Ukraine with
06:35billionaires from the outside really making these consequential decisions for public life, for
06:42government, and all of that. So Fedorov did have this relationship. It's unclear whether Musk was ever
06:49going to grant this. And I guess there's some possibility that he still could. But the Starlink
06:55technology is crucial for Ukraine. And it just shows that the stakes for the decisions from these
07:08outside actors really can't be overstated. There is some possibility that plan B things that Ukraine could
07:18do. The Pentagon has its own version of Starlink that's licensed to it. It's not clear whether they would
07:25ever, themselves, be willing to take that decision. You know, there are some proposals from outside people
07:30about other military means that they could use to staunch the air defense problem, essentially.
07:37Hearing you say this, I'm reminded of what we talked about with Evan Osnos yesterday, of the New Yorker, about
07:41the
07:41kind of dynamic between the U.S. and China, that it's not kind of a great power struggle so much
07:44as it's a
07:45struggle between oligarchic men, small groups of oligarchic men who are figuring all of this out in
07:50real time. Missy Ryan, Christina mentioned at the top here this task reporting that maybe Jared Kushner
07:56and Steve Witkoff could be headed to Kiev. I mean, I was astonished reading that report that they hadn't
08:01been there before. I think a lot of people would be surprised by that as well. It makes me wonder
08:05just
08:05about the faith that President Zelensky and his team have in there being a kind of constructive
08:09conversation about a path forward here when it comes to diplomacy. Yes, these two men, son-in-law and friend
08:14of the
08:14president are incredibly busy and in a variety of geographies seemingly all at once here. But does
08:19President Zelensky feel like he has a line of communication or the commitment from this
08:23administration to kind of see through a diplomatic solution? They do in some ways, but it has been a
08:33one-sided situation from the beginning vis-a-vis Russia and Ukraine. You had Witkoff and Witkoff's made
08:41eight visits to Moscow since becoming special envoy. He's made zero to Kiev. And you had this other
08:48envoy, Keith Kellogg, at the beginning of the administration who was supposed to sort of do
08:53the Ukrainian side of the account, but he was really sidelined. And so, and that really was an
08:59indication of Trump's feelings and his instincts going into this war, his kind of hard to explain
09:06trust of Putin and all of that. But I think, you know, over time, Trump has grown more frustrated
09:15with Putin. And he really is now seen as the chief impediment to at least serious conversations.
09:24But that hasn't, that feeling may exist, but the kind of structure, structural diplomacy hasn't caught up
09:31with that in the sense that Witkoff and Kushner have not gone to Ukraine. You know, it is a more
09:37difficult journey rather than flying in on your private jet. You have to take the overnight train
09:42from Poland. I don't know if that would play any role, but it does seem like if the administration
09:48is serious at some point, they need to either go themselves or use American leverage to force
09:57Russia to sit down with Ukrainian leadership, which is something that they have been unwilling to do
10:02thus far.
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