Front Burner - Ukraine and Europe: A pivotal moment

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

The world marked the third anniversary of Russia’s brutal full scale invasion on Monday.This milestone in the deadliest conflict Europe has seen since World War Two comes as U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration have moved closer to the Kremlin and sidelined Europe and Ukraine. A lot happened on Monday on multiple fronts, as rival leaders scrambled to try and shape the course of this pivotal moment in Ukraine and Europe’s history.Will there be a peace deal and what could it look like?Jayme Poisson speaks to Francis Farrell, a journalist for the Kyiv Independent, who’s been covering the conflict since 2022 including time spent reporting from the frontlines.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In Scarborough, there's this fire behind our eyes. A passion in our bellies. It's in the hearts of our neighbors. The eyes of our nurses. And the hands of our doctors. It's what makes Scarborough, Scarborough. In our hospitals, we do more than anyone thought possible. We've less than anyone could imagine.

But it's time to imagine what we can do with more. Join Scarborough Health Network and together, we can turn grit into greatness. Do need at lovescarborough.ca. This is a CBC podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Plessom. A lot of people don't understand that this is not only about Ukraine, but this is also about Europe. This is also about the United States.

This is also about international law. And at the end of the day, it's about the world order. That was Finnish President Alexander Stubbs speaking Monday alongside other Western leaders in Kiev as the world marked the third anniversary of Russia's brutal full-scale invasion. This milestone in the conflict, the deadliest in Europe since World War II, comes as President Trump and his administration have moved closer to the Kremlin and sidelined Europe and Ukraine. Trump says that he is in discussions with Putin on major economic deals as part of talks to end the war. A lot happened on Monday on multiple fronts as rival leaders scrambled to try and shape the course of this pivotal moment in Ukraine's history and Europe's history.

Will there be a peace deal? What could it look like? Will it abandon Ukraine? Who could prevent that from happening? With me now is Frances Farrell, a journalist for the Kyiv Independent, who's been covering this conflict since 2022, including time spent reporting from the front lines. Frances, hi. Thank you so much for making the time today. Great to be here, Jamie. Thank you.

So before we get into the latest news and talk about how this war could end and the potential repercussions of that, you are in Keefe right now, you've been covering this war, as I mentioned, since 2022. And can you try to put into words for me what people have lost, how life has changed for Ukrainians in these last three years? Yeah, I think it goes as no surprise that most Ukrainians kind of look at their life as before and after.

And, you know, on the other hand, for some people, that dividing line started a long time ago because the war hasn't been going on for just three years. It's been going on for 11 years since Russia first invaded Crimea and Donbass. But of course, this has been destruction and loss and occupation and any other form of Russian war crime on a much larger scale. And it's a time when I think many people, some people are looking at the anniversary and really recalling, some people are asking each other, you know, what was life like before? Do I even remember that? What would I tell myself on the day before the full-scale invasion?

But on the other hand, many people are not even thinking much about the anniversary and just taking it one day at a time. I know that's the case for a lot of soldiers for whom they're on the front line, they're fighting, they're living in really tough conditions. It's freezing here in Ukraine at the moment and they're certainly, I don't think, spending much time thinking about the anniversary. It's just another year ahead, which threatens to be perhaps the toughest year. It also ahead, which threatens to be perhaps the toughest year. It also has potential to be the decisive year for better or for worst. And so everyone goes about this reflection in their own way, I think.

What is the state broadly of the fighting right now? I know that Russia mounted the biggest drone attack of the war so far, just on Sunday, right? Yeah, well, the biggest drone attack, I could definitely tell that it was the biggest drone attack because I barely got any sleep. Normally, in the last few days, the drones have been coming in pretty consistently at around 11 p.m. and near my house, there's a lot of the Ukrainian air defense set up, machine guns, anti-air guns going at it. But the other night, it was really all night.

It wasn't just one wave of it. But of course, that's almost really the last of Ukraine's problems compared to being in a city that's well defended and having some drones fly ahead that are shot down compared to the fighting that's going on in the frontline. The last year has been one of brutal attritional warfare where Ukraine has been on the defensive pretty much the whole time apart from this attack they did into Russian territory where they're still holding some of it. But Ukraine has lost a fair amount of territory.

The good news is that while in the second half of last year of 2024, the really concerning thing was that Russia was taking more land with each month and that kind of basically pointed to the fact that it seemed like things were spiraling almost out of control and if that trajectory would continue, then we could see some kind of slow motion collapse of the front line, especially in Donetsk Oblast near the cities of Pokrovsk and Khorakhovo. But the good news is that that didn't happen and the last two or three months since the peak of November, we've seen progressively less Russian gains and even those, they've just been mopping up areas that they were already kind of surrounding in the first place.

It's just a reminder that this positional attritional war is really a to and fro. It's like a bit of a tug of war. You can go one way, then go the other way. Russia is, of course, losing far more soldiers and equipment than Ukraine because they're constantly attacking. And attacking with these groups, these waves of infantry is the only really way they know how to attack at this point in the war. And they lose so many people and the Ukrainians have gotten extremely good at fighting these

offensives back. The problem for Ukraine is that they are suffering from their own really dire manpower situation. You can tell that positions that should be manned by 10 people are manned instead by three people. Russia is really good at finding the weak spots and pushing right where the weak spots are in Ukraine's defense. So there's a lot of dynamics at play. This year has been 100% defined, first and foremost, by the expansion of the use of drones, but it's really on a knife edge at the moment.

So let's get into how this could play out in the coming year. As I mentioned, there were lots of moving parts on Monday, lots of headlines coming out around Ukraine. To name just a few, in Kyiv, Ukraine's President Vladimir Zelensky met with European leaders and Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. There was a virtual G7 meeting. We must do everything in our power to enable Ukraine to secure a just and lasting peace, a peace that cannot be achieved without Ukrainians at the table. French President Emmanuel Macron was at the White House to talk about Ukraine with the

president. Just so you understand, Europe is loaning the money to Ukraine. They get their money back. No, in fact, to be frank, we paid. We paid 60% of the total default. And it was through, like the US, loans, guarantee, grants, and we provided the real money, to be clear. He and Trump joined the G7 meeting.

They also held a press conference. The United Nations adopted a resolution drafted by Ukraine supporting its territorial integrity. The UN did this in defiance of the United States, who voted against the resolution with Russia. And just I would be curious to hear from you, what do you think the most notable developments of the day were? I mean, I think today you see with this diplomatic contact and a few hopeful remarks from both sides is hopeful in the sense of potentially restoring the personal relationship between between Kiev and Washington, at least to a workable level. President Vladimir Zelensky simultaneously tried to repair his

strained relationship with the U S president while laying down some new red lines. We are partners and I want Trump to be on our side, said Zelensky. I think that was the big concern that we had over last week, that at this point, you know, once you start to get these emotional accusations flying on social media about Zelensky being a dictator, a dictator without elections, Zelensky better move faster. He's not going to have a country left. Got to move.

Got to move fast. And about, you know, accusing Ukraine even of starting the war. Well, you've been there for three years. You should have ended it three years. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal. I could have made a deal for... And that coming right on the back of these US-Russia negotiations in Saudi Arabia, which Ukraine has fought so hard against with this idea that anything about Ukraine must be with Ukraine. And so this all fed into a particular narrative and I think it will justify the feeling that, okay, this was it.

This is the last stages before the US abandons Ukraine completely. And I think today's contact was at least a sign that there is still hope that that is not necessarily an inevitability, although I think it's still way too early to breathe a sigh of relief in that respect. In general, Ukraine must prepare for that possibility. There was a lot of reporting on Monday and in previous days that the US and Ukraine were hammering out the details of an economic deal and that that was progressing. And just what is this economic deal?

What is its purpose? Well, it started with actually a Ukrainian attempt to basically bring in a kind of more transactional, more material incentive, kind of speaking Trump's language about, you know, this is why we need peace through strength because it's strength for the US and it's also wealth for the US. But very quickly, that was turned around by Washington into the first draft of a deal which really kind of extortionately asked for simply for 50% of all future Ukrainian resource wealth. The document was unclear. The only thing that was clear was that we had to give up 50% of everything listed. By the way, we're not afraid of doing this, but there was no mention of security guarantees.

You know, Zelensky is a leader, a wartime leader that has been standing up to the world's biggest gangster mafia boss, armed with one of the most heavily armed militaries in the world for three years. And so to immediately expect him to give way to clear mafia tactics with this first deal was a bit perhaps unrealistic because the point of this minerals agreement from the Ukrainian side is that, you know, we're willing to maybe hand over a lot and get into a tight partnership with the U.S. when it comes to our resources, you know, invest together and exploring and extracting them.

But you know, the whole idea is that in return, we should see the U.S. commit to not only getting tough with Russia and making them stop their war right now in the moment, but also provide hard security guarantees against the future invasion, which is what Ukraine's been talking about already. But none of that other side of the deal was there in what the US proposed. And so when Zelensky rejected the first draft of the deal, that's when you saw these relations really sour quickly. The Americans were talking about this real personal offense that they felt starting from Trump

and going down to Marco Rubio's comments in an interview a few days later. I was personally very upset because we had a conversation with President Zelensky, the vice president and I, the three of us, and we discussed this issue about the mineral rights. And he said, sure, we want to do this deal. It makes all the sense in the world. The only thing is I need to run it through my legislative process.

They have to approve it. I read two days later that Zelensky is out there saying, I rejected the deal. I told him no way that we're not doing that. And then it seemed that they proposed a second draft, which is almost even more extortionate, basically proposing that Ukrainian future resource wealth should go straight into a $500 billion kind of fund for the US. We don't get our money back and we're losing. I mean, we don't want to do that anymore.

So we're signing an agreement, hopefully in the next fairly short period of time, that will assure us that we'll get four or five hundred billion dollars back. We're in there for three hundred billion. Now, one other thing. So basically calling it a fund, but basically calling it in reality, it's a debt that the US is expecting Ukraine to pay apparently for the aid that has been given to Ukraine.

And Zelensky said yesterday at the conference, well, that's, I'm sorry, that's also just ridiculous because first of all, that was aid, that wasn't a loan. And second of all, it was nowhere near $500 billion. It was maybe around $90 billion in total. So now, you know, it seems like negotiations are ongoing. Maybe things have cooled down a little bit and maybe some kind of deal will be signed. But what really remains to be seen is what side of the bargain is the US actually prepared to hold up on their end in terms of securing a secure peace, because there's still Russia to deal with and they're

still moving forward. Dear friends, this year should be the year of the beginning of a real lasting peace. Putin will not give us peace or give it to us in exchange for something. We have to win peace through strength and wisdom and unity, through our cooperation. In Scarborough, this is fire behind our eyes. A passion in our bellies. It's in the hearts of our neighbors. The eyes of our nurses. And the hands of our doctors.

It's what makes Scarborough, Scarborough. In our hospitals, we do more than anyone thought possible. We've less than anyone could imagine. But it's time to imagine what we can do with more. Join Scarborough Health Network and together we can turn grit into greatness. Donate at lovescarborough.ca. What does a mummified Egyptian child, the Parthenon marbles of Greece and an Irish giant all have in common. They are all stuff the British stole. Maybe. Join me, Mark Fennell, as I travel around the globe uncovering the shocking stories of how some, let's call them ill-gotten, artefacts made it

to faraway institutions. Spoiler, it was probably the British. Don't miss a brand new season of Stuff the British Stole. Watch it free on CBC Gem. I know that you have spent quite a bit of time looking at various scenarios here for what some kind of negotiated peace could look like. And just given everything that we have seen in recent weeks, given how much the Trump administration has moved closer to Moscow, what do you think the most likely scenarios are right now? Well, it depends a lot on a few things.

Of course, first and foremost, Trump himself and where he decides to end up finally throwing his weight because he hasn't, he seems to be still on the fence. And secondly, the battlefield dynamic in the meantime. Basically what I've tried to say when I do have the chance is that you can throw around terms like negotiations, freezing the conflict, ceasefire, European boots on the ground, security guarantees, whatever you like, but any true idea, true concept of peace, of the end of this war first needs to start and end with the question, why should Russia stop on the battlefield?

They're still moving forward every day and in their mind, of course, they would love to see the destruction or at least the undermining and weakening of sovereign and independent Ukraine as a more maximalist goal, because the war started with an attack on Kiev. But in terms of their minimalist goals, they've said pretty loudly that there are these four new Russian regions which we've illegally annexed with illegal referendums and we haven't finished taking them all of that, all of them yet. And these are territories where millions of people, millions of Ukrainians live, including some large Ukrainian cities.

And so that's Russia's position, that's Russia's price that they're, their minimum price that they're demanding for to be, to stop on the battlefield, to stop the war because they started it. Whereas Ukraine's is the polar opposite. It's not only stopping the frontline where it is right now, definitely not giving any more territory over, but more importantly, stopping it with hard security guarantees. But those security guarantees for Russia, that means giving up not only the momentum they've got on the battlefield now, but giving up the chance to invade again later, which

they surely want to. So in terms of bringing the war to an end, it's certainly not an enviable task for Trump, even if he had the right intentions, because he's bringing together two sides which have all opposite positions and none of that has changed yet. The question is the scenario in the middle, not Russia getting new territory and not Ukraine getting security guarantees, but just a simple ceasefire. In fact, probably a shaky ceasefire that can be violated at any time by Russia and would not protect Ukraine from a future invasion. That seems like it could be as dangerous as it is. It could be a meeting point for the two sides and that's probably what Trump

would wish that they would just both decide to stop and go home. But there are clear reasons why that's not going to be acceptable for either side and what does that all bring us to? I think simply to the idea that the war won't be stopping anytime soon. I know that you said that Trump hasn't come down yet. It's hard to really tell exactly what he's thinking. But what is it do you think Trump and his administration ultimately want here? It's a great question. I think on one hand, the obvious answer is that they want to be seen as the heroes,

as the peacemakers, and on the side, maybe have some real material benefit from this. But in the circumstances that we have, where again, there is this mammoth task of bringing two sides together, I guess, you know, if they want to make peace, it could either go two ways. They have to either get tough on Russia, at least tough enough for them to stop now, or abandon Ukraine and in this kind of post-truth environment that they exist in, simply put all the blame on Zelensky and Biden and the Europeans, and disengage from the process and focus on taking Greenland or taking over their own democracy or whatever else they're busy with.

So, I mean, the problem is here that it's clear that when you look at Trumps in a circle, the Elon Musk's and the Tulsi Gabbards and his own children and his own statements, they and nevermind people like Tucker Carlson, they have been mouthpieces for Russian propaganda points for a while. And if you look at what they're doing domestically, it seems like they prefer the language of authoritarians than ideas of the importance of a rules-based world order. So it seems completely transactional at this point, not based on principles whatsoever. Maybe worth noting here that Trump said on Monday that he was discussing major economic deals with Putin.

Yeah, I mean, exactly. And Trump, I mean, he... There's one, there's two parallel kind of processes happening that there's him trying to strong arm Ukraine as much as possible, which is what we're getting again with this, with this Millet Minerals Deal talk. But at the same time, if he is serious about a peace, about getting Russia to stop, then, you know, if he's not deliberately setting this up for failure and planning to disengage and blame everyone else, then he has to deal with Russia as well. I think we have a chance of a really good settlement between various countries.

And you know, you're talking about Europe, and you're talking about Ukraine as part of that whole situation. The other side has a lot of a lot of support also. So let's see how it all works out. It might work out. He happened and he has to either make them stop or or convince them to stop potentially with some positive incentives, which is also a bit terrifying to think about because maybe that means taking off sanctions, inviting Russia back into the world community and potentially, as you mentioned, some kind of economic deal

and kind of carrying their own, Moscow's favor as well. So it's something we have to keep an eye on, but I doubt that it's possible that everything will come together nicely for him. Frances, is there a scenario where Ukraine and Europe could reject any kind of peace deal that the U.S. is trying to push through and continue this war without the U.S.? It's a great question. Ukraine always has the right to keep on fighting. They're defending their own land, and they are a sovereign state, and they reserve that right.

And the good news is, on one hand, is that most of the weapons they use for the day-to-day trench warfare that we're seeing out on the front. At this point, a year ago, we had the Congress blocking further aid packages and there was this big worry that artillery shells will run out. But by now, the majority of damage done to attacking Russian forces is actually done by drones and it's done by drones that are made in-house inside Ukraine and used by these large drone units that Ukraine is constantly expanding.

And this, by the way, is a completely new 21st century type of warfare that the West is certainly not ready for, and NATO countries are not ready for, and that's another very important reason why it's so important not to abandon Ukraine. And obviously, Europe has the economic power to continue keeping Ukraine in the fight if they have the political will. The scarier part is the threat.

Well, there are some US systems that Ukraine just can't do without, of course, the Patriot air defense system and the high mass rocket system. And more, you know, at least the Europeans could potentially buy that from the US. But the scarier part is, of course, the US support with intelligence and Elon Musk's control over the Starlink system, which is the main way that Ukrainian frontline units communicate. And if that was turned off as a kind of punishment for this scenario of refusing a deal, if that was turned off, then that would be pretty catastrophic for the frontline. Ukraine is looking for alternatives at the moment, but it's hard to replace Starlink

at the moment, but it's hard to replace Starlink at the moment. Off the top of the show, we heard from the Finnish president. Also, I was listening to Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, speaking on Monday about how... It is not only the destiny of Ukraine that is at stake, it is Europe's destiny that is at stake. I wonder if you could just elaborate for me a little bit more on that idea. Of course. I mean, it's important to call Russia first and foremost what it is.

It is a clearly not only dictatorial, but clearly fascist power meeting all the criteria. And it's on the march. It's taking territory and it's interested in taking more. And when I talk to ministers and leaders from countries like Finland or like the Baltic countries, they're the ones who often raise the parallel of 1938 and the Munich conference in 1938 and the Munich conference now and this idea that is this the moment where we say, okay, we'll give Russia Ukraine, but we'll leave it at that and we hope that Russia won't go further forward. And that's the message that countries with direct recent experience of Russian occupation are trying to bring across. And then on the global level, of course, we're talking about the end of the post

World War II order in which it was actually not considered okay for weaker countries to conquer and engulf and enslave and kill their smaller neighbors. There was an idea that you don't do that and if you do that, there will be consequences. And if Russia is allowed to do that and they might look for more smaller countries to swallow, we know that there are a lot of other larger countries in the world which are also looking around at their neighbors and thinking about that being an option. So the thing about 1938 is that 1939 is around the corner, and it definitely feels like that from here inside Ukraine.

It's something that we've been screaming about for a long time, and lots of the stronger partners who've had this more clarity in their approach have also been talking about. But now it feels like we're here and we could be on the edge of that, finally. OK, Francis, thank you so much for this. Thank you, Jamie. It's been a pleasure. All right, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.