Judging Freedom - Phil Giraldi : Will Ukraine Peace Bring a New Détente?

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

Phil Giraldi : Will Ukraine Peace Bring a New Détente?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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My dear friend and longtime collaborator, Phil Geraldi, joins us now. Phil, always a pleasure. You and I were together, of course, on Saturday morning at the Ron Paul Institute annual gathering, along with many of our other colleagues, Professor Sachs, Colonel McGregor, Colonel Kwatkowski, Max Blumenthal, and Anya Parenthold. At the time, we had a little bit of a handle on the events of the day before, and we know a lot more about it now.

So there's a loaded question. Take as much time as you want to address it. Your take on the Alaska meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin and the subsequent meeting with the G7 in the White House on Monday. Well, my take is that they were two different meetings and beyond the physical sense of where they were and who was present. Obviously, the meeting with between the two heads of state went well and I think went better than the follow-up meeting with the Europeans and Zelensky.

but I believe in a certain sense a lot of what drives Donald Trump is kind of chemistry and I think Putin is a smart enough man to figure out how to play on that and basically utilize it to get in this case Donald Trump to see some things that he probably

didn't see very clearly in terms of the evolution of the war itself, what the major security issues were for Russia, and so on and so forth. So it was a bit of an educational trip. They were together in a car, and they had a long meeting with their associates. And I think it turned out well, and I think it was good that Donald Trump obviously was convinced that the idea of a ceasefire was not viable, and that really what we should be looking for is peace.

And I like that in particular because I think given the state of politics in Europe, if you start making peace instead of just, you know, temporarily going into ceasefires, you're much better off in the long run because you might come out with a much better result. Now, when he met with the Europeans and Zelensky, it was all kind of flattery and, tapping each other's backs and being friendly like, but I think the animosity on the part of the Europeans is there. I think it takes two forms. One form is the fact that the Europeans are tired of having to rely on a unreliable United States in terms of the positions it takes and how it justifies those positions and what the long-term consequences could be for Europe.

Certainly, the changing of what the tactics are in terms of where we're going with this by Donald Trump has had a disconcerting impact on the Europeans and on and on Zelensky. But Zelensky, of course, is a non-player in this. If he is, if the plug is going to be pulled by the U.S., it's probably inevitable that the Europeans will, at a certain point, have to follow, and it'll be a fait accompli. So basically, the only important people in this discussion, if you come back, you close the circle, it was Putin and Trump, and you'd have to look as the result as satisfactory. Do you think that this war ends on a negotiating table or on the battlefield.

I think it will end on negotiating table, but I'm optimistic. If it comes to no resolution over an extended period of time, by that it means maybe more than another month or two,

then Putin is going to have to be thinking in terms of upping the ante on the battlefield. And there are some signs that he is maybe even moving in that direction, or already to send a warning that it is a potential outcome if things don't move along. Do you think he's under pressure, whether it's his military, his intelligence, the elites,

the oligarchs, the Russian public opinion to get this over with without concessions? Well, I think that basically he is still popular in terms of what he's doing and how he's doing it. But, of course, we don't see the whole picture on that. And I basically learned throughout my entire career in Europe with the agency that there was always a story up front and the backstories hiding somewhere in the back. And that's what I tend to believe in all these situations. I think that Putin is probably under a lot more pressure from his bureaucrats and from the oligarchs that basically are behind the bureaucrats. And it's something we don't, I think, understand very well right now. So Putin would like to end this, but he's going to insist on ending this with at least hanging on.

to the territories that he already occupies, and at least with some kind of commitment that Ukraine will not be accepted or brought into NATO at any time in the near future. Do you think that Putin succeeded? Putin apparently spoke for a long time, as we know the Russians like to do. You remember the first question

that Tucker Carlson put to him, in the interview he gave Carlson a few months ago, provoked a 45-minute answer, a very articulate, grammatically, accurate, historically well-documented answer, but a 45-minute answer, which was basically the Russian understanding of the events that preceded and caused the special military operation. Do you think he succeeded? Putin succeeded. in giving trump such a lecture the likes of which he would never have gotten from the neocons with whom he surrounds himself well i would have to say that he certainly gave him the layout for what caused this and he went even back i noticed a couple times

into the 19th century to explain things and which i appreciated and you know so that was there was on the table now but of course of course But, of course, we have the question of Trump's attention span and his ability to retain ideas and to be able to assimilate the ideas into a policy. This has been questionable for, well, it's been questionable, I think, certainly for the last six months, but I would even take it back to the first term of Donald Trump. Oh, it's clearly, it's clearly questionable going back to before his presidency. But do you think the Kremlin believes that Trump understands them? That's a very good question and very hard to answer, I might say. It depends again on perceptions.

And perceptions are something that are elusive in this case. So I think the perception by the Russians who were, interlocutors to this exchange will be mixed. Maybe some of them, Lavrov, for example, who is a very critical guy in terms of the way he looks at issues in amazing detail and is able to break them down, we'll probably have yes, well, this may have gotten through

and this maybe did not. So again, I think Trump will reveal to us in the next few days, what he absorbed and what he took away from it because he tends to say things when the thought comes to mind and he will reveal what he sees as the issues. We're still looking at a phase

obviously where we're setting up the next encounter presumably in Moscow and whether that will include Zelensky and there'll be a lot of other issues that I think will be self-defining. I felt, could you envision Putin sitting down in the same room with Zelensky? They view it as an interloper or a terrorist, a usurper. No, I can't see it.

So that's why the issue is so important. If suddenly Zelensky is sitting there, then we have, in a matter of speaking, a breakthrough in terms of what might be acceptable coming down the road. If Putin is willing to take that step, that he's probably willing to take other steps that he might have resisted at least a bit previously. He might, for example, create some accommodations with the Ukrainians in terms of just how the transfer of territories and stuff like that is arranged. There are probably ways to finesse it. Right. You and I have spoken here and off air that sometimes people with short attention spans tend to believe the person they've been speaking to last, and sometimes they just want to, they want the approval of those to whom they're speaking. It appears that Trump gave the unmistakable impression to the G7 group, not strictly speaking G7,

but the Europeans that were there on Monday, that the United States would engage its military as part of a security guarantee. Now, the reason I say that is obviously I wasn't there for all their conversation is because that's what President Macron told NBC News, Chris, number 12. As it relates to security guarantees, does that mean European troops? And does that mean U.S. troops? Look, I think for me, it's a very important progress of the past few days that your president expressed a clear commitment of the U.S. to be part of the security guarantees. is a brand new.

And last February, when I took the responsibility to gather a series of European leaders with President Zelenski in Paris, and we followed up in London, and we created this coalition of the willing. And it was a reaction to the feeling we had that we could see a temptation to go to a rapid peace,

but without any guarantee for Ukraine. And we know what it means. It was Georgia 2008, but it was as well, Crimea, 2014. And there is full certainty that if you make any peace deal without security guarantee, Russia will never respect its words,

will never comply with its own commitments. So it's for us totally critical, and this is an essential part of any deal, for Ukraine and for the Europeans. This is for our own security. So this is a very important progress of the past few days that the U.S. now is willing to be part of this. The U.S. is now willing to be part of security guarantee.

Trump told Fox News no boots on the ground, but boots in the sky. American jets. Question, Phil Giraldi. Will the Russians ever accept any kind of Western military presence in a post-special military operation, Ukraine, to protect Ukraine militarily from the Russians? Well, I would, this is just a guess, okay? I don't know for a fact on any of this, but I would guess that the Russians will accept some kind of formula of monitors or something like that to oversee the arrangements made

for the transfers of territory and that sort of thing and any kind of other issues in terms of weapons that might be allowed in Ukraine and so on and so forth. I don't think they'll be inclined to accept troops in uniform. I think that would be a problem for them. In fact, they've said that's a problem for them. Right. And the thing about Macron, I mean,

He's basically making an assumption that the Russians will not respect. He doesn't know that. And I was reading something recently about the post-war Europe in terms of Austria, where the Russians came to a neutrality agreement with the Austrians. The Austrians were not going to join NATO or anything like that. And Russia had one man in Vienna at their embassy who basically was monitoring what was going on to make sure that they abided with the understanding. And they did. And they did.

And they're neutral and they're prosperous and nobody invades them and they don't bother anybody militarily. And that's the model that I suppose President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov would love for the parts of Ukraine remaining at the end of the special military operation. Right. And I would agree with that. I think that that's the common sense approach. You don't want to militarize this situation because that's the wrong way to go. You essentially want to demilitarize it because it was, you know, basically that you start a war when you do militarize it.

So you want to walk away from that. You want to make it look like, you know, and this is a question of research. storing normal diplomacy, which is another thing I'd like to see come out of any kind of peace agreement between the two countries with the U.S. involvement, because maybe the U.S. could get back to a more normal relationship with Lerner. Well, I think everybody involved in this, not the Europeans, but certainly the Americans and the Russians want that. What was your reaction to the sweatshirt being worn by our friend Sergei Lavrov when he landed in Alaska that said CCCP on it?

I think he has a sense of humor. I looked at it and said, where can I get one of those? Right, right. I remember them in the 60s and 70s when I was a student. and I wouldn't go near it. They were popular at the time. You wrote an interesting piece recently called, will peace in Ukraine also bring a new detente?

What do you mean a new detente? The type of relaxation and normalcy in diplomacy that we knew and experienced and enjoyed before the Joe Biden years. Yeah, that's kind of what I am referring to. I think once you start talking about removing ways, weapons, removing actual combat, coming to agreements over territory, and that sort of thing. You've opened up the book. And essentially, you can start talking in other contexts, in other words, relating to other countries.

The United States and Russia have enough particular real reason to be enemies. This is the fact of it all. And they have a lot of good reasons not to be enemies. Why have we been enemies since 1945? Right. We have not been, except for some instances in the Cold War, like the Cuban Missile Crisis, and were places where it was very close to becoming of open enemies. But we fortunately had presidents like John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan,

who managed to avoid these kinds of things. And so that was the good thing. But once you open the door, you can start talking about other things. What about all these, what we did to diplomacy with Russia, where we shut down nearly all of their consulates in the United States and basically put their embassy in Washington under siege conditions, where we put all these sanctions in place on Russia. Russia has a lot of raw materials that the United States needs for production of many goods and would be a great asset for the United States. For the Europeans, Russian gas would be a bargain compared to what... All right. What about the neocons?

I don't mean just Lindsay Graham, but I mean your former colleagues in the intelligence community who have a vested interest in the continuing animosity-like relationship, a bellicose relationship with Russia. Can Trump push them under the bus or should he fear them? Well, I should find, I should be looking for ways to neutralize them, not to put them in positions where they're able to either affect the policy or to, their biggest trick, of course, has always been to fake intelligence, to make it look like somebody is threatening you. Right.

I mean, they'll create a false flag overnight if they think it will suit their interests. Sure. I mean, you know, and to say this is not just a Russian thing, they're playing the same games with China. China is not a threat to the United States unless we make it so. And we have these people, this is the Wolfowitz Doctrine, you know, that the United, this was enunciated in why. what, 1992, naturally with Bill Clinton. And it basically says the United States has to be the supreme power able to dictate to every other country in the world kind of in perpetuity.

And this is a ridiculous, if there ever was a ridiculous doctrine, but this is what we were stuck with. And the only country that seems to be immune to the United States stomping all over it is, of course, Israel. Phil Giraldi, thank you very much. Thanks for your thought. Well, let me ask you this before we close off. What do you think is going on in Langley as we speak after the events of Friday and Monday? You know, intelligence officers tend to be litigious among themselves.

I would imagine there are a number of factions that have developed in Langley as a result of what's been going on in this country and the world and our kind of leadership over the last 20 years. So I think I know when I was there, there were many of us who were anti-war. In fact, and we would have argued at the time, look, I'm anti-war because I've been involved in the Cold War, and I just know what a waste of time and space it was. And so I think you'll find a lot of intelligence officers who are opposed to what the people at the top are doing. And the people at the top are doing are responding from the White House and National Security Council. Thank you, Phil.

Thank you for your insight. It was great seeing you on Saturday. We look forward to seeing you again next week. All the best. Thank you. Bye-bye. Okay, so long. Coming up tomorrow Thursday, at 8 in the morning, Colonel Tony Schaefer, at 9 in the morning,

Professor Jeffrey Sachs. At 11 in the morning, just back from Moscow, Scott Ritter. At 1 in the afternoon, Professor Glenn Deeson, at 2 in the afternoon, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson. At 3 in the afternoon, Professor John Mearsheimer. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you. Thank you.