The Current - War in Ukraine: Russia warns of World War Three

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

Donald Trump says Vladimir Putin is "playing with fire," following Russia’s largest air attack of the war on Ukraine, Russia responds with a warning for World War Three. Christopher Miller, the Ukraine correspondent for the Financial Times joins Matt Galloway to talk about what’s on the mind of Ukrainians after months of failed peace talks — and what Volodymyr Zelenskyy told him yesterday.

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This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is the current podcast. Donald Trump is angry at Russia. Yesterday, the US president warned Russia's Vladimir Putin that he is playing with fire and that if it weren't for Trump, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia. A top Russian official responded saying the only really bad thing to worry about was World War III. This came after Russia blasted Ukraine with the largest air attack of the war over the

weekend. Trump spoke with reporters on Sunday. I'm not happy with what Putin's doing. He's killing a lot of people. And I don't know what the hell happened to Putin. I've known him a long time, always gotten along with him. But he's sending rockets into cities and killing people. And I don't like it at all.

OK? Vladimir Putin has rejected US and European calls for an immediate ceasefire. And months of US-led talks have failed to produce a framework for peace. Christopher Miller is the Ukraine correspondent for the Financial Times and the author of The War Came to Us, Life and Death in Ukraine, He is in Kyiv. Chris, good morning.

Good morning. How did we go from a phone call between Trump and Putin that Trump said actually went in his words very well to Russian officials warning about World War Three. Yeah, that's a good question. I think Trump is, well, according to people close to him and President Vladimir Zelensky here in Ukraine, with whom I spoke last night before he went to Germany, Donald Trump is growing increasingly frustrated with Vladimir Putin. He has said that

he has been, quote, tapping him along or dragging him along rather. And, you know, he's coming to the realization, it appears, that Vladimir Putin is not looking for peace, but rather is more interested in continuing his years-long war here in Ukraine. One of the reasons for Trump's outburst, presumably, was this missile and drone attack over the weekend. You were there in Kiev when this happened. What was that like?

It was terrifying, and it wasn't just a single attack. This was a weekend-long attack that began Friday night, just before we were going to bed here. There were sirens, dozens of explosions, and the first attack that night through Saturday morning went on for hours. There were hundreds of drones and several Russian missiles involved then. It caused huge destruction, not only here in the capital of Kiev, but also in other cities across the country. That was followed by a similar attack, a bigger attack even on Saturday night,

overnight till Sunday. And then again, Sunday night through Monday morning, we had what was the largest Russian drone attack of the war with 355 drones launched at the capital here and dozens of other cities, as well as several missiles. And so it was a sleepless, long weekend, and we saw at least a couple dozen people killed and dozens wounded. This far into the war, how are Ukrainians responding to a weekend like that?

Ukrainians are exhausted, and for good reason. This isn't just a weekend of attacks, but they've endured more than three years of full-scale war and more than 11 years of war. It's important to remind people that this began in February and March of 2014 when Russian soldiers forcibly annexed and invaded the Ukrainian peninsula and then fomented a war in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk and Lugansk regions. And they stepped things up in February of 2022. And so this has just been a grind for Ukrainians.

They've lost their homes, they've lost loved ones. You know, tens of thousands of people have been killed on each side and, you know, it's torn families apart. And so, Ukrainians want an end to this and unfortunately, they don't see one. And what they would like to see and what they're hoping for is more action on the part of Donald Trump in the US, but also from their Western allies more broadly. So when Trump says, I don't know what the hell happened to Putin, these are his words, but to your point, and this is something that you posted on social media, he's levelling empty

threats, but has thus far failed to deliver on them. What is the expectation there? I mean, what is the hope, what is it that Donald Trump could do? Sanctions. Volodymyr Zelensky told me and other reporters here in Kiev just last night that what he wants to see happen is Ukraine's Western allies, led by the United States, apply harsh new sanctions on Russia, particularly targeting Russia's energy and banking sectors. He made that explicitly clear to us that he wants that to happen. He discussed it with Donald Trump when they had this 15-minute one-on-one meeting in the Vatican, which he said last night was positive.

And they saw eye to eye, Donald Trump heard him. And he said, if Vladimir Putin, he promised Vladimir Zelensky, if Vladimir Putin does not go down a path of peace and agree to negotiations, I will apply new sanctions to Russia. And so that's what Zelensky and Ukrainians here expect and hope for.

But again, you know, Donald Trump has been hesitant to do that. We know through our own reporting and speaking with people close to the president's office here that on a phone call just over a week ago, Donald Trump told Zelensky and European leaders on that call that he was not going to apply sanctions just yet. How do you understand that?

Well, you know, he, he wants to see the Russians come to the table without having to punish Putin. He has a dangled carrots in front of Putin rather than use a stick to push him into negotiations. He wants to see, to sort of paraphrase what Trump has said, some big, beautiful business deals with Russia. He views economic cooperation as a way to sort of lure the Russians to the negotiating table, but that hasn't worked so far. And,

you know, hence the desire on the Ukrainian side to see sanctions imposed. But he has been hesitant to do that. Why exactly? You know, that's a great question. Other than it's not what he's wanted to do. He's thought that, you know, because Vladimir Putin is, in his words, his friend, that he would just come along to the negotiating table. That hasn't happened, you know, and yeah. Is there a fear that if Trump doesn't get what he wants, he could just disengage from this process,

that he could say, this is not my problem and he moves on to something else? Absolutely, that's one of the Ukrainians biggest fears because the United States is Ukraine's largest military backer. It provides artillery shells that are crucial for its defense. It provides Patriot interceptor missiles,

which are incredibly important when you have these large scale air attacks, like we discussed earlier. The United States also provides really important intelligence so that Ukraine can see what is coming at it in the air, on the ground. It can see Russian forces massing around its border. It can also use this intelligence

to strike Russian military targets in occupied areas and across the border inside Russia. So without those things, Ukraine's fight would get really, really difficult. We could see withdrawals of Ukrainian troops at crucial points across the front line. It would make its defense just a really much more difficult challenge than it already is without that assistance. So Donald Trump walking away could mean, you know, leaving Ukraine to its own

fight. And if he does more and pulls that intelligence and that military assistance back, it could be even more disastrous. At Desjardins Insurance, we know that when you're a building contractor, your company's foundation needs to be strong. That's why our agents go the extra mile to understand your business and provide tailored solutions for all its unique needs. You put your heart into your company,

so we put our heart into making sure it's protected. Get insurance that's really big on care. Find an agent today at Desjardins.com slash business coverage. Every region shapes the story of Canada, but the West often sets the plot twists. On West of Centre, we bridge the power plays with policy choices shaping everyday life, showing how national decisions, regional priorities, and the friction between them drive the outcomes that impact all of us.

I'm Kathleen Petty in Calgary. Tune in every Friday for a fresh Western-Rudovian view of Canadian politics wherever you get your podcasts. You talked about Ukrainians feeling exhausted. You were speaking with soldiers on the eastern front line of the Russian assault and wrote about this talking to a drone unit commander who said that the harsh reality is that Putin, these are his words, Putin is convinced that he can break Ukraine. What is morale like among those who are fighting? It fluctuates.

You know, I think right now it's at a low point and that's because of the messaging coming from the White House and Donald Trump and Ukrainian soldiers hearing what he has to say and thinking, you know, he doesn't have it in him to challenge Putin and to push him into negotiations. They don't see in Donald Trump necessarily a close ally. They view the United States and the West more broadly as an ally, but not necessarily Donald Trump. They're hoping that he can prove that to them by sanctioning Russia, speaking more positively of their

president, speaking more positively of them and supporting them. And so, you know, when we hear things like we've heard from Donald Trump criticizing Zelensky, you know, that only hurts morale. Or when he pauses intelligence sharing and the delivery of weapons as he did in early March that too takes a big hit. What do we know about the state of the Russian army right now? Again a soldier on the eastern front line told you they don't care about losses they just keep coming not to take kilometers but to take meters. Yeah that right. The Russians have employed these quote unquote meat wave tactics where, you know, the Ukrainians say Russian commanders are sending men essentially to their

death. And then, you know, the these assaults happened in, you know, this wide open, spans of no man, no man's land in eastern Ukraine. And gun down these troops as they come at them, if they're able to. And then the next wave of troops comes running right across the field over top of them. And it's just this relentless wave after wave of Russian soldiers. And the Ukrainians tell us, this just shows us how little life is valued by Russia and by the Russian military. They view them, you know, merely as a means to achieve their goal, not as people, you know, in contrast to the way the Ukrainians see it.

You know, if you look at it from the Ukrainian perspective here, one of the challenges they face and perhaps the biggest is manpower. And they've decided not to at this point lower conscription age below 25 because they worry that that could lead to another generation of Ukrainians being wiped out. There's a demographic issue that is a part of that, which is they just don't simply have a whole lot of men under the age of 25. But they value life much more than they say the Russians do. What are they worried about when it comes to this summer and what might unfold this summer?

What they're worried about is a new Russian offensive. So also to speak to that last question of yours, about the Russian military, it's bigger. It has greater resources. They view their troops merely as a means to conduct this warfare that they're fighting. And so they've got 50,000 troops along the northeastern border against Ukraine's Sumi region.

Vladimir Solinsky said yesterday, they've got tens of thousands more troops nearby aiming at the Kharkiv region. And then they've got hundreds of thousands of troops along the frontline throughout eastern and southern Ukraine. They're pushing at several various key points where they're making gains right now and hope to make more by just grinding away at Ukraine's already exhausted defenses. What the Ukrainians are looking at is a hot, really difficult summer. this is, of course, why they need more support. And not only militarily,

because in that sense, Ukrainian production of its own weapons systems and drones in particular, long range missiles and drones both are doing pretty well. But they need these missiles for their air defense. And they need some money to ramp up production to full capacity, which would really help it in beating back this defense. Then if they can, on top of that, convince Trump somehow to hit Russia with harsher sanctions on its war economy, then they could be in a better shape in a few months time. But until they see that right now, they're looking down the gauntlet at a Russian force that is trying to seize more territory.

Just before I let you go, that does not suggest that this war will end anytime soon. No one here is under any illusions that this is going to end anytime soon. Even if Trump finds a way to push Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table, those negotiations are still going to take a lot of time. Vladimir Putin's position remains maximalist. He's not shown thus far

that he's willing to concede anything. And so the Ukrainians believe that this is going to be a war that grinds on for months, if not more years to come. I just wonder how they wrap their heads around that. I mean, this far into this war, understanding, as you said, no one's under any illusion that this is going to end anytime soon. It's an existential fight for them. They just simply cannot give up, lay down their arms and turn around and walk away from this. That would mean the end of Ukraine, the end of the Ukrainian people in their mind. And so they'll continue to fight. And as those soldiers who spoke with me for that recent article you mentioned earlier told me, we will continue fighting until we can force the

Russians to believe that they're just not able to defeat us. Chris, it's really good to talk to you about this. I appreciate you taking some time to speak with us. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. It's a pleasure to talk to you. This has been The Current Podcast. You can hear our show Monday to Friday

on CBC Radio 1 at 8.30 a.m. at all time zones. You can also listen online at cbc.ca slash The Current or on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening.