The Current - Will Ukraine be sidelined in peace negotiations with Russia?

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said that it’s “unrealistic” that Ukraine will regain key land taken by Russia or join NATO as part of any peace settlement. We hear how Ukrainians are reacting to that news, and whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be sidelined after U.S. President Donald Trump’s pledge that peace negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin will start “immediately.”

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This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, it's Matt here. Thanks for listening to The Current wherever you're getting this podcast. Before we get to today's show, wonder if I might ask a favor of you if you could hit the follow button on whatever app you're using. There is a lot of news that's out there these days. We're trying to help you make sense of it all and give you a bit of a break from some of that news too. So if you already follow the program, thank you.

And if you have done that, maybe you could leave us a rating or review as well. The whole point of this is to let more listeners find our show and perhaps find some of that information that's so important in these really tricky times. So thanks for all of that. Appreciate it. And on to today's show. Full scale war in Ukraine is approaching the end of its third year. US President Donald Trump has promised to end that war quickly, but his administration says in order for this to happen, Kiev will have to change its expectations dramatically

and give up hope for getting back key parts of its land or joining NATO. We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine. But we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective. Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering. A durable peace for Ukraine must include robust security guarantees to ensure that the war will not begin again. That said, the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement. This US Defense Secretary, Pete Hegsetheth speaking at NATO's headquarters in Brussels yesterday. Hours later, after a lengthy phone call with the Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump said that

Putin had agreed to begin peace negotiations. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump also spoke on the phone yesterday about ending the war. Tim Mack is a journalist and the founder and editor of Counter Offensive. It's a news publication covering the war in Ukraine. He's based in Kyiv and that's where we usually speak to him from. But today he's in Germany where the annual Munich Security Conference is getting underway. A conference where US officials are set to begin to meet, to talk about that negotiation process. Tim, hello to you. Hey there, thanks for having me. Thanks for being back on the program.

What are you hearing about how people in Ukraine are reacting to this phone call between the US president, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin yesterday? Well, there's a lot of shock actually, and some stunned silence about the progress of the last few days, if you can call it progress. Basically European allies of the United States and Ukraine

feel like they've been sidelined in this process. They feel like they're not being considered a serious partners in these negotiations. You realize that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin had a conversation without Vladimir Zelenskyy present. So is the United States about to where is Zelensky present? So is the United States about to try to find a way to end this war without a contribution from one of its closest allies in Ukraine? And will European partners who have spent so much time and effort in contributing to the defense of Ukraine,

will they be considered partners in the negotiations? It does feel like many of America's closest allies are being left out of this process and that's what we're hearing discussion about here in Munich. Volodymyr Zelensky said today that he does not think Trump calling Vladimir Putin before him as a sign of US priorities although he says it is unpleasant in his words. You wonder whether Volodymyr Zelensky himself feels like he's going to be part of those negotiations or whether he's been

cut out already? Well, he's a politician who understands what he needs to say given the current political situation. Fundamentally, he's not part of those conversations. He's trying to speak out around the edges, it feels like. And Europe, which is part of NATO, much of Europe is part of NATO, and all these diplomats who are arriving in Munich and having discussions over the next few days with American counterparts, what they'll be expressing is a sort of sense of betrayal, that they don't feel like they're

being brought into the negotiation process, even though they have serious risks and liabilities as it relates to how the war might end. After all, this is a war that's occurring in Europe. And any sort of security guarantee, let's say that there's a peacekeeping force that's deployed to Ukraine, that would have to involve European peacekeepers. But right now, they feel very much cut out of the loop. And I, the observation from a lot of America's friends of last few weeks is that the, the new, the new Trump administration has spent a lot of time alienating its closest friends. This phone call went on between, um, Putin and Trump for 90 minutes, apparently. And, and, uh, a Kremlin spokesperson says that Vladimir Putin told Donald Trump he wants to get to, in his words, the root causes of this conflict. What are the root causes? What do you

understand those to be in Vladimir Putin's mind? What would the root causes of the conflict be? Well, Putin, from the very beginning of the invasion, has identified kind of strategic stability as its major issue with Ukraine being free. That it doesn't feel secure having a partner with Europe or a partner with NATO on its borders. Now we can disagree about whether or not that's a legitimate grievance, but any sort of negotiation, it seems like from the Russian perspective, any sort of negotiation will need to involve all sorts of issues not just related to the war in Ukraine in the short term, but all sorts of things involving just related to the war in Ukraine in the short term But all sorts of things involving its feeling of its own strategic safety its own feelings about

Sanctions relief and so this is a process that is unlikely as the Trump administration has promised Well, we'll wrap up in you know, two or three months This is something that is likely to take a very long time to hatch out. Do you think Ukraine is likely to accept? I mean, one of the things Vladimir Putin has said, whether you agree with it or not is another matter, but has said that one of the threats was Ukraine being part of NATO and the expansion of NATO. Pete Hegseth has said that Ukraine's hopes to become a member of NATO is unrealistic. Is Ukraine likely to accept that? is unrealistic. Is Ukraine likely to accept that?

Well, what I'm hearing from European officials here in Munich is why would you, before you've even begun a negotiation, start making concessions to the other side while receiving no concessions in return. So the starting point for negotiations is to give away the prospect of Ukrainian membership in NATO, to give away this hope that Ukraine will eventually retain and retain control over all of its territory. The thing is that Ukraine is limited in its leverage.

The United States has significantly more leverage in this situation. Ukraine is not likely to be able to unilaterally determine whether it can be a member of NATO or not. Without the United States' blessing, it's unlikely to ever occur. So it's not a matter of whether Zelensky will concede the point. I think Zelensky's interest in the short to medium term is to have an ending of the

war that gives stable security guarantees so that his country does not have to deal with another war that's been as devastating as this. Pete Hagseth has promised security guarantees. Do you think that will carry water in Ukraine? Well, the devil's in the details here, right? So what does that mean? The Ukrainians feel very, very, very betrayed about the 1990s where the United States and the UK and Russia made various promises in what was called the Budapest Memorandum. They said they would make sure that Ukraine's sovereign territory was not infringed upon. Obviously, that happened, and Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons to get those promises.

They're not likely to want mere promises and rhetoric again. They'll want boots on the ground. They'll want specific trees that activate if they're invaded again. They'll want boots on the ground. They'll want specific trees that activate if they're invaded again. That's what will be the minimum, I think, from the Ukrainian starting point in negotiations. You just wonder who's going to be backing up those security guarantees because the United States has also said that Europe should carry a larger financial and military responsibility for Ukraine's defense. Pete's hegemoneth saying that Russia, stopping Russia's war machine is Europe's responsibility. You're there in Europe at the security conference. You wonder what leaders from the rest of Europe make

of that, that they in some ways are going to need to increase their defense spending, but also their defense capabilities and that the United States may pull back a little bit from that. Yeah, I mean talk to most European defense officials and they'll concede that they've been very, very much flat-footed over the last five or ten years and that the European defense environment, the defense tech sector is way, way behind. But there's no way to snap your fingers and immediately make up that difference. And I think European officials, while they're ready to bear the primary burden of keeping peace in Europe, the point of alliances is that you can share some of those burdens with your closest friends and allies that have similar values and national interest. Right now Europe is not feeling like very secure in its friendship or alliances with

the United States. And so the negotiation process seems to be about to begin. As I mentioned, the US officials are there in Munich to start this. It appears as though Donald Trump has some sort of agreement from Vladimir Putin that this is going to move forward with or without Zelensky as part of this. Do you think these talks could be the beginning of the end of the war? Is it the beginning of the beginning of the end? It's the beginning of the beginning of the end, I think. But like I said, because the Russian interest in this is to have a very comprehensive peace process that involves all sorts of things related

to Ukraine and not related to Ukraine, this is not a peace process that's going to be resolved in a matter of days or weeks or even months. This is something that's going to drag out for a long time because the Russians are going to want to hash over everything from NATO presence on its border with Finland to energy sanctions and other sanctions. It's its role in the global economy They're going to want to resolve issues of what territory it might it might get to retain for the time being in occupied Ukraine there are gonna be so many issues. I don't see that being resolved in a very very short manner I'll let you go

But just the last point we usually reach you in Kyiv and we have spoken with so many people in Ukraine over the course of the last three years who, I mean, their emotions have changed and now at the end of a long winter or getting towards the end of a long winter, what we've heard from people is that they're exhausted, they're tired, and they want this to end at some point in time.

What do you think the Ukrainian people want now? When you talk to 100 Ukrainians, you'll get 100 different answers. Fair enough. But what the surveys show is that there's been an increase in the percentage of Ukrainians who are willing to accept that at least the temporary, temporarily giving up some of these occupied territories,

it's risen from just in the teens to now close to 40% of Ukrainians are willing to make that concession. So as you can tell, as time goes on, this war has had incredible costs to Ukraine in terms of its human potential, its economic potential. And as it drags on, there's this sense of deep, deep fatigue, which is leading to changes in public opinion. Which may advantage Vladimir Putin in this. I think that's certainly one of the reasons why there are a lot more people interested in having talks.

Tim, it's good to speak with you as always. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. Tim Mack is a journalist and founder and editor of Counter Offensive. It's a news publication covering the war in Ukraine. We reached him at the Munich Security Conference, which is why you heard the sound of a conference unfolding in the background.

There are people busy doing things, including perhaps talking about peace in Ukraine.