The Current - Russia holds cards in Ukraine peace deal

Episode Date: November 26, 2025

As Washington continues to negotiate between Ukraine and Russia, a Ukrainian MP hopes diplomacy can end the war and secure his country's future. But a Russia watcher says getting Putin to lay down his arms won't be easy.

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Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. After nearly four years of war in Ukraine, it is hard to imagine in some ways that it could end, especially when, as politicians and diplomats go back and forth on a possible peace plan, the missiles and drones are still flying and people are still dying. And yet, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told allies at a virtual meeting of the so-called coalition of the willing yesterday, a meeting including the Prime Minister Mark Carney, that there may be a path toward an eventual agreement with Russia. Here is what Zelensky had to say about the American plan adapted in Geneva on Monday in consultation with Ukraine. France, now we have a good result from

Geneva. That framework is on the table and we are ready to move forward together with the United States of America, with personal engagement of President Trump, and with Europe, with leaders, and with all partners who have their strengths and capacity to help. Initially, this plan presented by the United States last week made many controversial concessions to Moscow. It would have seen Ukraine give up territory, controls in the Donbass, in the east, shrink its military, and forego protections from NATO.

But the meetings in Geneva brought amendments that make the proposal more palatable to Ukraine. Here's what the U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said, coming out of those talks. I don't want to declare victory or finality here. There's still some work to be done, but we are much further ahead today at this time than we were when we began this morning and where we were a week ago for certain. So far, however, Russia has done nothing to indicate that it's willing to bend on its demands. And today, the Kremlin spokesperson, Dimitri Peskov, said it is premature to talk about striking a peace deal on Ukraine in the near future.

We will hear from someone who has been closely watching Russia's strategy in a few moments. But first, I'm joined by Olexi Goncharenko as an opposition MP and is in Odessa, Ukraine, this morning. Alexi, hello. Hi. You have said that these negotiations carry the weight in your words of national survival. How hopeful are you when it comes to these talks? We need peace here in Ukraine as soon as possible. That's why I welcome any development in this direction.

Definitely, this package of proposals included some things which are unacceptable for us. For example, leaving our cities in Donbos, which are controlled by Ukraine today. It's cities with hundreds of thousands of people heavily fortified, something which Putin failed to conquer, to take control over for more than 10 years, and now he wants to take it in negotiations. But in general, we need to definitely change this plan to improve. it, but in general, once again, we need peace. Every day of war makes situation worse for Ukraine. You wrote a column in the UK newspaper, The Telegraph yesterday. The headline for that column was,

as a Ukrainian MP, I must be honest with my people. So what are the hard truths that you want Ukrainians to face? The hard truth is that Ukrainian tanks are not near Moscow, unfortunately. aggressively. Aggressor attacked us. We just surprised the whole world that we survived. You remember, everybody were saying two, three weeks and Ukraine will fall apart and will fail. It didn't happen thanks to Ukrainian people and Ukrainian army, but still our price is very high. We lost tens of thousands of people. We lost 20% of territories. Unfortunately, our last military success was three years ago. And from that time, Russia very, very slowly, very incrementally, but moving ahead. And we need to stop it. That's what we need to do in order to save the country, to save the state,

to rebuild the country, and we need to do this. And to do this together with our partners. We need to become a member of European Union. So all this job is ahead of us. In that column, you said, and these are your words, Ukraine, at this state, cannot defeat Russia militarily. Do you think Ukrainians want to hear that at this point in time? No, Ukrainians don't want to hear it at all, but it's reality. We can't ignore reality for too long. Unfortunately, our partners did not provide us with enough weapons in 2022 and early

2003, which at that time I think it would be possible to completely defeat Russia. After our failed counter-offensive in summer 2023, the situation is worsening and worsening and worsening. And the price we are paying is enormous. We need to stop it. And so, as you write, strength is measured not only by a willingness to fight, but also the intelligence to halt when the cost threatens your existence. What do you need to see to make this deal that is being hammered out right now acceptable? we need to take off this point about living and giving up our territories which we control today so we need to speak about freezing of the war on the current line

second thing is what is super important from my point of view is security guarantees we need to receive a real security guarantees because exactly these days 31 years ago in Budapest, to the Borsesai and Budapest memorandum after which Ukraine voluntarily gave up the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world. And we received for that from United States and the United Kingdom

some memorandum which appeared to be nothing because it didn't help us at all when Russia attacked us. So then we had some security agreement with President Biden. President Biden is not president anymore and this agreement is not, not interesting to anybody. So we need to have a real peace treaty with the United States,

not peace treaty, but a treaty, security treaty with the United States, which will be ratified by the U.S. Congress, which will really prevent Russia from attacking us again. Do you believe that, just back to the issue of ending the war on the current battle lines, do you believe that Ukrainians would support that? I mean, the fight for so long has been to regain territory that has been lost, but you believe that that's where the line should be. Do you think Ukrainians would support that? Yeah, I think so. It's something already, I think we can say this is consensus in Ukrainian society. Unfortunately, every day this line is moving a little bit, not in our direction.

So quicker, we will stop it better. What about Russia? The U.S. Special Envoy, Steve Whitkoff, is going to Moscow next week to meet with Vladimir Putin to discuss this plan. Do you think that Russia would accept those conditions? Russia doesn't want peace, for sure. But Russia is very afraid of. the United States of America. So if the United States will really want to do this and having a realistic plan, then I think it's absolutely achievable if they will put a real pressure on Russia. So, yeah, it will not be an easy talk, but I think it is possible. What sort of pressure is Ukraine and is Vladimir Zelensky under right now to reach a deal,

do you think? you know big pressure about it's a hard decision all you said many people killed there are people whose houses unoccupied territories it's a hard conversation with people it's a hard pressure but that's something we should we should do in order to protect what we have today and in order to be prepared one day this russian empire will fall apart like it happened 100 years ago 30 years they will fall apart again, maybe tomorrow, maybe in 10 years, I don't know. And at that moment, we will take everything, which is ours back. But in the meantime, you believe that, I mean, one of the things that you wrote in that piece is, is realism is not defeatism.

You could imagine that some people would say that your position is defeatist. Why did you need to say that, that realism is not defeatism? Because I think as a politician, I'm responsible for people who elected me, because it's, it's, it's, great when you're just speaking about yourself, it's your decision what to do. But when you're speaking about, in our case, tens of millions of people, we, Ukrainian politicians, should feel this responsibility and we need to protect them. Oh, we need to show what is our plan. You know, like three years ago, when we liberated Hirson, American General, Chief of Staff of American Army, Mark Millie said, it's time to have negotiations. He was heavily criticized. He was heavily

criticize at that time. But three years ago, we were in much better position. So if this peace process would not go ahead today, we will be back to peace process, I don't know, in three, six months, but the situation would be worse and conditions possibly also. So it's time to make a deal when it is possible. And if it doesn't happen, I mean, you've hinted at that. What would that look like? What would happen to Ukraine and to Ukrainians if this war does not end soon? Then we will continue to fight. We will not surrender. Well, what I said to you before doesn't mean that we're speaking about surrender. We know clearly what Russia is doing.

They are committing genocide against Ukrainians and occupied territories. So we will fight till the end, but that will be a heavy fight. I believe Russia can't wipe off Ukraine from the map of the world, but they still can cause enormous suffering to Ukrainian people, kill more tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people. So it's a bad scenario. Alexei Goncherenko, I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Alexi Gonciarenko is a Ukrainian opposition member of parliament. He was in Odessa. Hi, I'm Sarah Nicole Landry, and I'm the host of the papaya podcast where each week I ask curious questions to people with incredible stories or expertise in their fields. I'm somebody who has found so much inspiration in storytelling and learning from them, and I wanted to bring that to a podcast where each week we walk away learning something that might just change our lives for them.

the better. Check us out every Monday on the Papaya podcast. See you there. Alexander Lanosha is an associate professor of political science at the University of Waterloo, author of Military Alliances in the 21st century. Alexander, good morning to you. Good morning to you too as well. What do you make of what you've just heard from Alexei Goncharanko? He says that Ukraine needs to be realistic, that you need to think about the cost, that the war needs to end sooner rather than later. And that those lines that the battle is at right now, that's where the war needs to end now. It is hard to disagree with what he said. However, the problem is that war is a

relationship and it takes two to tango. And if Russia does sense this sort of weakness on the part of Ukraine, then we'll have every reason to continue fighting so long as it can afford to wage war and certainly has geared its economy accordingly, then it will probably continue doing what it has, which has been to go about nightly aerial attacks, as well as the steady encroachment on Ukraine territory, albeit at a very costly grind. And so what did you make of the initial peace plan put forward by the United States last week? Again, it has been altered in part because many people believe that that peace plan seemed more favorable to Russia?

It was on balance much more favorable to Russia because it required Ukraine to concede territory that it still controls, to have elections within a very unrealistic time frame that would allow Russia to inject itself as a potential constitutional actor. It could mean Ukraine accepting all sorts of political demands where Russia would not have to do too too much for its part. There were some aspects to that initial plan that were favorable to Ukraine. It did, of course, reaffirming Ukraine political sovereignty. It did lay out terms for its reconstruction. It also opened the door for it to be a member of the European Union. Some other aspects were very controversial, but I think they were overstated in their negative

impact. The restriction, for example, on the Ukraine military at 600,000 would still make the Ukrainian military much larger than its peers in NATO. And indeed, calls for NATO not to include Ukraine or for Ukraine to renounce NATO membership would simply certify reality. There's just no pathway as it stands for Ukraine to be a member of the military alliance. It's consensus-driven after all. Bloomberg News seems to have received a transcript of a phone conversation or a recording of a phone conversation that suggests that the negotiator for Donald Trump, Steve Whitkoff, was speaking with the Russian government last month and advising an aide to Vladimir Putin on how Vladimir Putin could go about pitching the U.S. on a peace plan. Do you think that the United States is an honest broker

in these negotiations? Well, so one thought I had about the initiative. peace proposal was that this would be not so much a viable plan, but for Washington, specifically the Trump administration, to find an off-ramp. It wants to maybe discharge itself of this particular conflict. And as such, maybe it's not approaching this issue in good faith. But that being said, there does seem to be some sincere willingness on the part of the Trump administration. I don't want to overstate this point, but there seems to be some interest to go about at peace proposal because it has done so in other conflicts. But the news about Whitkoff is not good, especially for Whitkoff.

It may explain why his role in these negotiations seems to be winding down and that I might actually create more pressure on the Trump administration to deliver terms that are more favorable to Ukraine. Alexi Goncharanko wrote and talked about how he feels that honesty and pragmatism are required in this moment. Ukraine has worked to revise this plan, along with the so-called coalition of the willing. What are the non-negotiables, do you think, for Ukraine? The non-negotiables would be issues that would relate to language rights. To be sure, there are provisions that would bring along Ukraine to EU standards as regards to minority

rights, but some calls for basically restoring language rights in a way that Russia would like would probably be negotiable. I would also suggest that those sorts of territorial consections that would seed Ukrainian control would be very difficult to sell, even if the fact that the liberation of occupied territories would be very difficult to undertake militarily. Giving up territory you still control, I think, would not necessarily be a deal breaker, but would make it very hard for Zelensky to sell this sort of agreement. What sort of pressure do you think Zelensky is under?

I mean, we've talked on this program about the corruption scandal that seems to be engulfing parts of his government, getting close to him. You have, to your point, the United States perhaps looking for an off-ramp and losing patience in supporting Ukraine in this war. do you think Zelensky is facing to make some version of this deal work? He's under tremendous pressure, as the MP said. These are decisions that will impact at least one generation, if not more. And public patience has worn thin in view of all these crises.

He has mishandled parts of the war effort, especially since 2023. He was definitely the man of the hour in 2022, but some of his leadership decisions since 2023 are open to question. And so eventually there will be elections, and it's not entirely clear whether he would prevail. And so there's just a lot of stress. I'm surprised he's as active as he has been. I cannot imagine the physical and emotional duress he has been under. He is a human being, and I just cannot imagine what sort of stress he is a feeling at this moment.

How does that pressure factor into what Vladimir Putin's endgame might be here? You talked about weakness earlier, and the suggestion from some is that if he sees weakness, I'm not saying he runs the clock out, but he knows that he can apply pressure because eventually Ukraine will have to make concessions. So how does that play into what his end game may be? So what's interesting is that if you look back to pictures or videos of Vladimir Putin in early 22 after the initial assault on Kiev failed to work for Russia, he looked pretty frail and shaken up. And since then, he looks a lot more composed and healthier, as a matter of fact. And I suspect part of the issue there is that he struggled with the notion that this war would

be as more drawn out than he had expected. But I think he also psychologically acclimatized himself to that notion more quickly than some of us here in the West. And unfortunately, for Ukraine, we're in the situation because we have not really been psychologically prepared for this war to have lasted as long as it has. And we didn't really develop a strategy for Ukraine, one that was credible for to be in a strong of a position to negotiate peace on very favorable terms. We didn't do that. We overpromised and underlivered in terms of military assistance as well. I'm repeating what the MP had said earlier.

And so Putin did suffer some psychological hardship, I would say, in early 2022. But he's recovered and he seems rather poised. And he probably does believe that he can wait things out. He can go about a campaign of sabotage and subversion across the Euro-Atlantic in order to a trit support for Ukraine. That time is on his side. I'm not entirely sure that is correct. He has biological constraints like all of us. Right.

But I think this is how he's perceiving the conflict. We'll be watching to see where these negotiations go. Alexander, thank you very much. Thank you for having me again. Alexander Lenoshka is an associate professor of political science at the University of Waterloo, author of Military Alliances in the 21st century. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon.

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