The Dispatch Podcast - Peace in Ukraine | Interview: Tim Mak

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

War correspondent Tim Mak joins Jamie Weinstein to discuss the latest news out of Ukraine following President Donald Trump’s calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The Agenda: —What’s on the negotiating table? —Throwing Ukraine to the wolves —Ukraine’s response to the Biden administration’s actions —Russia’s economic issues —Controlling rare earth minerals The Dispatch Podcast is a production of The Dispatch, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including members-only newsletters, bonus podcast episodes, and regular livestreams—click here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Did you lock the front door? Check. Close the garage door? Yep. Installed window sensors, smoke sensors, and HD cameras with night vision? No. And you set up credit card transaction alerts, a secure VPN for a private connection,

and continuous monitoring for our personal info on the dark web? Uh, I'm looking into it. Stress less about security. Choose security solutions from TELUS for peace of mind at home and online. Visit tellus.com slash total security to learn more. Conditions apply. Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Jamie Weinstein. My guest today is a friend of the show. Tim Mack returns to talk about Ukraine. You may remember that Tim Mack is a on the ground or correspondent in Ukraine. He started a publication, The Counter Offensive, and now the Counter Offensive Pro, you can find the counteroffensive at counteroffensive.com. Previously, he worked at NPR, the Daily Beast, Politico, all over the political news world. And, for

foreign policy. And he is on to give us insight into the latest of what is going on in Ukraine, as well as the response to both Ukrainians and people in Europe to the recent developments in Ukraine over the last 24 hours. We're recording this on Thursday the day after that Donald Trump tweeted out that he had a conversation with Vladimir Putin. Kim is joining us during this call. You can hear noise in the background from the Munich Security Conference, where he is on the ground covering the latest of how European and world leaders are discussing what is going on in Ukraine and elsewhere. I think you're going to find this very informative as always. So without further ado, I give you Mr. Tim Mack.

Tim Matt, welcome to the dispatch podcast. It's always great to be here. Thanks. so much. Well, we can hear you're in the middle of the Munich Security Conference. Thank you for finding time to join us. Let me just recap what we have seen over the last 24 hours or so. We got a tweet yesterday from President Trump saying that he had a quote-unquote a productive call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, where he discussed a peace deal in Ukraine and agreed to begin negotiations immediately. Earlier in the day, Secretary of Defense, Pete Hexeth, in Europe outlined some of what is the U.S. stance going into these peace negotiations. He said there will be no NATO membership for Ukraine, no return to the pre-2014 borders,

no U.S. troops in Ukraine, and no more relying on U.S. for a majority of military funding, defending Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russian president, I'm sorry, Ukrainian president, Zelensky, tweeted out that he had a positive conversation with Trump as well, concluding, we believe that America's strength together, with America's strength, that together with Ukraine and all our partners is enough to push Russia to peace. I think I saw him speak probably a little less sunny when he said that he thought that there cannot be a peace without bringing Ukraine into these conversations from the get-go. Tim, you've been covering this conflict as closely as anybody. What do you make of these recent developments? Well, it's a joke, frankly.

I can't imagine any serious negotiation starting with immediately making concessions for no concessions in the term, right? So the Trump administration's view has been, okay, despite the blood that Ukraine shed in order to protect its own sovereignty and establish its own independence, we are going to make sure that they don't get to enter NATO, which has been a major Russian goal the entire last few years, even before the full-scale invasion began. And we're going to make sure that we will reward bad behavior, that is the invasion of Ukraine, by ensuring that. Russia knows that it ought to keep the territory, it certainly authorized. And by the way, we're not going to get anything for that in return. I mean, so this is why Ukrainian officials I've been speaking to, European officials that I've been talking to are absolutely gossomats about how this is the opening, I guess you could say,

if you can even compare it to chefs, this is an opening move in a negotiation is to start giving away, giving away the house. It's totally puzzling, although maybe not such a crisis. Ultimately, you know, I understand what you're saying that to begin negotiations

by giving, you know, everything up front is not a particularly smart negotiating strategy, at least on the face of it for someone who claims to be the world's greatest negotiator. But is this what a peace deal would look like under the Trump administration?

I mean, what was there ever going to be, or even the Biden administration, some degree. Was there ever going to be NATO membership? Were they ever going to get the 2014 borders back? Were they ever going to get U.S. troops in Ukraine? I get what you're saying, don't give this up front, but are any of these realistic in terms of a negotiating strategy for Ukraine? Were they ever going to get any of those things? Well, fundamentally, neither you nor I are master negotiators of any kind. But fundamentally, when we're trying to make some sort of deal, we're operating off of leverage.

Yes, it's likely that they would have wanted to trade some sort of period of Ukraine not being NATO in exchange to the end of the war. But we've already exchanged that and we haven't ended the war. So that's the issue of puzzlement and vexation here in Europe right now. It's like, look, you may be reflector that the most last. outcome of the negotiations would involve X, Y, and Z. But what the Trump administration's done is give those away and get nothing in return. And by the way, I don't think we're any closer to a peace deal today as compared to yesterday. That's what I want to ask you. I mean, are, you know, is with giving this up, do you think this is going to compel Putin to come to

some sort of deal? Is he going to ask for more? What more would he ask for, do you think? You know, here I'm at the Munich Security Conference, which is an annual conference where America, the United States, top officials, talk about defense issues. What we're already hearing murmurings in the audience and in conversations I've been having all day is that this is Munich 2.0, that they're giving away, they're giving in to a dictator. They're handing away other people's, another country's territory in the hopes of appeasing them, but really not coming any closer towards peace. I don't see looking at these developments.

I'm saying, well, you know what? I've really learned my lesson. I'm less likely to invade a sovereign country in the future. And I'm really willing to go for it. I mean, the counter to that is, I mean, I guess the lesson he learned is he lost, what is it, Tim? You know the numbers.

Maybe over a million people, maybe a little under that. I mean, isn't that the impediment to invading another country that his army has been totally, you know, reduced to a small fraction of what it was once before. Well, but here's what you're doing is you're applying democratic thinking to an authoritarian governmental system, right? If the United States entered a war where they lost hundreds of thousands of people dead, injured, suffering from terrible trauma, there will be a price to pay politically. But Vladimir Putin has paid very little price for the debts and maimings and injuries to

hundreds of thousands of this countrymen, that isn't something that concerns a dictator quite nearly as much as it would concern, you know, a president of the United States or a similar democratic country. Well, I understand what you're saying from the political aspect. He doesn't have to bend to the public will. But as a practical, can I invade many other countries with the army I now have aspect, because my army that existed three years ago no longer exists. and it's, you know, now worse recruits than they had in the beginning. Can he practically go and invade another country with the army he has now? Maybe not right after some sort of deal is Rish.

This is not Vladimir Putin's first conflict, and certainly not his first conflict in which he's lost significant numbers of people. He's invaded Georgia. He's invaded Ukraine. There was the war in Czechia. He's not afraid once he takes losses, it takes some time. and recostate to his forces and do it again, particularly if he is rewarded in the long trend strategically

with what he cares about, my geopolitical competitive, if he is rewarded for doing it over and over again. The Ukrainians will point out, this is the second war he has already lost. Can the U.S. force a peace deal? I mean, are we able, if Donald Trump wanted to say,

we're cutting off all funds unless you come to a deal, can the U.S. force Ukraine to come to a deal? can Ukraine fight on without the U.S. support? That's a really difficult question to answer. I think they would want to fight on. But I think given the losses in their manpower over the last three years, I think it would be very difficult to see how they do and a battlefield collapse could occur as a result of that.

That's kind of a nightmare scenario, a nightmare scenario in which Latimeric and Donald Trump make some sort of bilateral deal, negotiate what they call peace, and throw Ukraine to the wolves. I mean, I think that that would be one of the worst case scenario. And it would be a real abdication of America's responsibilities, having encouraged Ukraine to stand up and fight against Russia, and then leaving them to die and lose their sovereignty and their independence. I think it would be a huge black mark on the United States in a generational steen in the memories of most, if not all these things.

You know, in theory, talking about the negotiations that we were just talking about, you know, if the person you're negotiating again with, or I guess a strong ally of the person you're negotiating with gave away pretty much all that you probably would have gotten in the end in the beginning, you probably bank that and ask for more. What more would Vladimir Putin want in these negotiations? Well, Vladimir Putin has expressed through intermediaries, through diplomats, that he's not interested in a simple kind of a negotiation just on the topic of Ukraine.

Russia is seeking a much more comprehensive agreement with the United States and other members of Europe. They want sanctions relief. They want to feel, from their perspective, strategically safe and not threatened on their borders. They want some sort of energy deals likely. And perhaps they taunt with the United States more broadly. So this is not a topic, this is not a topic of negotiation or a series of topics for negotiations that is likely to be done very quickly. I mean, for all the promises that this might be decided in a few weeks or a few months,

I mean, thinking about the number of issues that need to be resolved between the United States and Russia just to name two of the parties for this, it's going to take a very long time to deal with it. Tim, I think some of those issues were also given away already. Donald Trump said he can't wait to meet with Vladimir Putin and seems like he is anxious to welcome back him back into the international system, have him at major summits with world powers. What do people in Europe think about that? Are they ready to go to a G8 summit with Vladimir Putin again? It sounds like that's what Donald Trump wants. Well, I'm not sure about the specific question about showing up to summits with Vladimir Putin, but a lot of these summits involve people that, you know,

European democracies find objectionable. So that may not be as big of a question as how Europe feels like they've been cut out, just like Ukraine, they've been cut out of the negotiations. European partners of Ukraine have been a much more threatened by Russia's actions.

B, have contributed quite a lot to Ukraine's defense. And now they've been kind of sidestep by Donald Trump as Trump decides kind of just go let alone and come up with his own peace agreement, the Europeans, you know, are marginalized.

Tim, what is actually the, you know, the current state of the war on the ground in the U.S.? We're just, unless we're following you at your counteroffensive, a lot of people don't actually get news about the daily back and forth of the war and the current state. What is it on the ground? Who currently has the upper hand right now? Well, Russia has the upper hand on the battlefield. It's gaining territory now at the fastest pace. It's been gaining territory since the full-scale invasion began in February 2020.

This is a situation in which there's just been a – I want to kind of give you a sense of what it's like to live in Ukraine right now. There's just an accumulated trauma. of and stress of years of power outages and air raid alerts of drones flying in the city of explosions all the time. Just last week, what was originally in a rainy mode, Cahidron flew over in my apartment in Qaeda. And, you know, every single person is struggling with exhaustion, a lot are struggling from post-traumatic stress. That's why you've seen public opinion change over the last year from Ukrainians, just to maybe the percentage of people willing to concede territory that's in public opinion polls that's risen from just. the teams to now plus to 40%. And part of that is

it's been a really long, hard winner. A lot of people have not had tower or has not had heating, and it's adding up. People are kind of asking themselves what's next for us? Can we have a break? It's when we have a cessation of facilities

for at least some period of time. Most Ukrainians will tell you, but even if there is a deal reach, it's likely that this isn't just to pause until the next war begins. That's another real fear that the Trump administration is seeking a win of any kind, of any shape, and that Donald Trump just wants to say he made a deal, the details not so important. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss,

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You are at the Munich Security Conference, so you probably haven't been on the ground since the last 24 hours to get the reaction of the people on the ground. Let me ask you this question. The answer might be no. But is it possible that this, even if they don't think it will be lasting based on what you just said, the desire, I think you showed a poll that, you know, it went from 10 to almost 40% of the people are willing in Ukraine to give up territory to end the war, that this will be seen as ripping the bandaid off. And if this gets a temporary piece that maybe, you know, maybe it's worth it. Maybe what Donald Trump did is worth it to get a temporary piece. and allow people to at least stop the fighting and the death for a short period of time, maybe

years. Donald Trump seems willing to mortgage the sovereignty of a free country for a short-term political win. The thing is that a brief and unjust and unstable peace deal is no peace deal at all. What we're talking about in terms of Ukrainian recovery in the long term is being able to welcome, for example, business investment, tourism, the return of refugees. If people don't feel confident that this peace deal is just and durable, those things won't happen. People will continue to leave. There's already a demographic crisis in Ukraine that will be dramatically exacerbated by a bad peace deal. And a peace deal that kind of neutered Ukraine

creates incredible uncertainty of the future of Ukraine and the country's security is exactly what Vladimir Putin want because he wants this country to be suburban to Russia. And so just to push back against that line of argument, I would say that a non-durable, non-just peace will make things much, much worse. for Ukraine in the long term. And there's no kind of pulling off the band-aid effect. I don't disagree with what you're saying there. But let me ask you this. What was the alternative

in a way? I mean, there was, it didn't seem like we were on the path to any sort of negotiations when President Biden was giving Ukraine and trying to back Ukraine. You know, sometimes he had some trouble with the Republican Congress, Republican House, to get them what they wanted. but he was full scale behind Ukraine. And I didn't see any roadmap to a peace deal or a win by Ukraine. And maybe I'm wrong. You follow this most closely.

What was the alternative to maybe not doing it the way Trump did, but pushing for the U.S. pushing for some sort of agreement? You know, it's interesting that you think, that you vomited on what your interpretation of Biden's actions is, as being particularly pro-Ukraine. I don't think Ukrainians would see it that were interesting.

From their perspective, they would not have said that Biden was a particularly effective partner, although they appreciated the American sport. I think what they always felt from the Biden administration was a sense of this halting and grinding work that needed to be done at all times to ask for permission to demand new weaponry and to make sure that weapons shipments weren't delayed. So if you talk to a lot of Ukrainian military officials, what they'll tell you is that working with the Biden administration was very much a difficult process and that they had to beg for attack arms, that they had to beg for plaster munitions,

that they had to beg for S-16s, that they had to beg for the ability to strike into Russian territory. And at each of these points, the Biden administration delayed, delayed, delayed, until ultimately agreeing at a point far too late for there to be a, you know, a tactical or strategic difference on the battlefield. They really think that the Biden administration dragged their feet through moments in which in which the United States could have been very effective in aiding Ukraine. Now, to answer your other question, which is, was there some other option? The thing is that authoritarian regimes are very brittle structures.

And what we're seeing with Russia is an economic, economy under real trouble, real stress, real pressure. We're seeing sky high inflation in the 20% range. We're seeing very, very, very high interest rates. We're seeing a country that's really struggling in terms of filling their jobs because of the losses in manpower. We're seeing low energy prices that are affecting Russia's ability to generate revenues for the war and for other government services. Russia has already, I would point out, Russia's already

gone through one mutant in its military or military-adjacent servicing. We don't know how close or if Russia is close to a collapse or a popular uprising. That seems to be one route is if an American administration wanted to support Ukraine is to tighten the screw on sanction and to increase aid delivery to Ukraine, that would be one route to lead to a kind of better outcome for Ukraine. But another, you know, another process or another option would simply be to negotiate like an adult and not keep away things for nothing. I mean, that's, I would imagine negotiating rule number one. Let me summarize that and correct me if I'm wrong. So it seems like the options would. One is Ukrainians believe, and I understand what you're saying, that Biden was

always resistant for too long to give weapons and then would ultimately give weapons, but it would take a while to get there. So one option, obviously, would be for an American president to be more willing to give Ukraine what they believe they needed to win. But that's probably, since Biden wasn't doing it, an unrealistic option in the current political environment in the U.S. There wasn't an administration seemingly willing to do that. And the other two options would be something like what Trump's doing or maybe more responsibly not giving things up front or be continuing the war and hoping for a Russian collapse,

which may be there because, as you mentioned, people have a bad job of predicting when authoritarian regimes collapse. It happens sometimes overnight, but we just don't know. We just don't know. Are those kind of the options that are out there? Yeah, I mean, Trump's own Secretary of State. Let's imagine a scenario in which instead of being Secretary of State, Marco Rubio was president of the United States.

Which option do you think he would personally prefer to head towards, knowing him as you do, and me knowing him as I do, having covered him in the Senate and spoken to him many times over the years? What do you think a President Marco Rubio would be most inclined to do there? Well, he'd probably be super inclined to arm Ukraine to the teeth, to expedite arms shipments, to tighten the screws on the Russian energy sector, and to increase sanctions against Russian banking, against Russian financial services and Russian manufacturers, and create enough pressure so that when you get to the table, you have leverage so that you can negotiate things in your own interests and in the interest of your partners.

That is the thing that sort of, you know, that seems obvious to me. And I don't see any better way to Newarky. You know, I want to ask you about the rare earth's issue that has come up. It seems like, you know, one way that maybe Trump does start arming Ukraine to some extent is some sort of deal where they pay the U.S. in rare earths or something along those lines. It seems a little bit mercantilist in a way. I don't, how are, how is, how is Ukraine viewing Donald Trump's request for control of their minerals? You know, this is the interesting thing because of these struggles with the guided administration,

there's a lot of, frankly, optimism in Kiev after Donald Trump's election. Oh, well, you know, we have to deal with a transactional president. We're facing an existential crisis. We're trying to survive. If they want critical minerals for our security, let's trade them what we have. Me personally, I don't want American foreign policy to be conducted on the basis of transactions for doing the right thing. But the Ukrainians have been only happy to deal with a politician where, hey, if we give you something, we get something in return. The thing is that the Ukrainians have already offered to make a deal on their earth minerals like lithium.

But they've got very, very little in return other than, you know, the president's attention and the president's inclination to help in some way in the future. But whether Donald Trump follows through with his end of the bargain, I don't know whether he would do that. And in fact, in the recent last few days, we've seen a series of events that indicate that Donald Trump is very, very unlikely to approach these negotiations with a view that's inclined towards the Ukraine. Let me close with these two questions.

I want to go back to where we began. It seems like the Trump administration, as you mentioned, as we've mentioned many times here, kind of has given away to Russia what they hope is the end state of this. And if that is what is ultimately agreed to for a peace or at least a sensation of violence for years while the Russian army regroups. It does seem like that, I mean, is it something that could have been achieved two years ago when Ukraine surprised people on the battlefield and had some leverage and you could have got something maybe similar, maybe even better? And if that's the case, you know, what do we say of the last two years where so many people died when you probably

could have achieved this outcome, you know, a year into the war or less? Well, look, hindsight is 20-20. I mean, if we talked, if we talked two years ago, that was around the time I launched the counteroffensive to cover the coming screen counteroffensive in 2023. And there would be very little in first Ukraine to come to some sort of peace negotiations when they were planning a push forward. Now that ultimately, that counterfeensive wasn't successful. So it's very easy to look back and say, okay, well, we know now what happened. Shouldn't we have done something totally different that would have been, you know, that we would have been disinclined to do at the time because of our feelings in the strategic situation? Well, maybe. But there was no way of knowing that then. So all we have to, you know, all the information we have to operate on what we think might happen in the future. But final question, Tim, you have been on the ground in Kiev, as you said, for, you know, shortly after the beginning of the war. I'm sure now Kiev is a major part of your life and will

always be with you. Do you think, though, that your main residence will be in Kiev a year from now? Will you still be on the ground covering this a year from now? Or do you think in a year will have some sort of cessation of violence? Well, I think those are two slightly different questions. Because I am a work correspondent, but the question is, you know, do I think I'm identifying Kiev's home is one question? And the second one is, do I think that there will be peace in the next year? I think it's going to be a much more difficult process in the Trump administration believes. So the reasons that the Russians want a very comprehensive deal that deal with all sorts of things, not just related to Ukraine. So I'm skeptical of it ending this year, although I would be pleased that there was a just peace to establish as soon as possible. That's certainly what I want. As for my own kind of personal plans, from my journalistic's perspective, I'm really committed to not only Ukraine coming up, ending the war in a positive state, but also in trying to do what I can to help with its reconstruction and resurgents. And so probably what I'll be doing is I'll be

according on all sorts of business sector related things related to reconstruction, infrastructure, energy, the critical minerals that we discussed, and the defense technology that's become the envy of the entire world. That's going to be a major driver of Ukrainian growth in the future. So I'll be writing about Ukraine for many years to come and likely to be living in Ukraine for many of them, I think. Tim, can you just take a second to tell people how they can find counteroffensive and also counteroffensive pro and how do they differ? Sure. So I have two publications. One's called the counteroffensive. As you mentioned, it's at counteroffensive. News. And what we do there is we

highlight news of the war by telling interesting stories about people. We profile them. We do human interest narrative. And by learning about their stories, you learn something new about the news. And so we're kind of a human first reporting publication. Counter Offensive Pro, which is available at counteroffensive.pro is a trade publication that covers the business of Ukrainian defense technology. So what we do is we cover battlefield feedback, really interesting technologies that are emerging due to combat iterations. We cover the business environment and the regulatory environment for Western VCs interested in investing in Ukraine and defense companies looking to partner in Ukraine. And so that's what we're doing over at counterpensive pro. And we're thinking

about launching all sorts of other coverage for major business sectors in your brain shortly. Tim Mack, thank you for giving us color from the ground in Ukraine. And thank you, as always, for joining the dispatch podcast. Thanks so much, Jim. You know what I'm going to do.