The Paikin Podcast - World on Edge: The Alaska Summit, Putin’s Games, and How to End the Ukraine War

Episode Date: August 21, 2025

After Trump’s meetings with Putin and Zelensky, is the Ukraine war any closer to peace? Is Putin serious about ending the war – and accepting security guarantees for Ukraine? Or is he playing a longer game? Steve is joined by Janice Stein and a special guest to discuss the state of the Ukraine war, land swaps, Article 5, and whether Canada should pursue closer ties with Russia. Today’s guest is Zach Paikin. He is a Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy. He is also Steve’s son. Follow The Paikin Podcast: TWITTERx.com/ThePaikinPodINSTAGRAMinstagram.com/thepaikinpodcastBLUESKYbsky.app/profile/thepaikinpodcast.bsky.social

Hi, everybody. Steve Paken here and happy to welcome you aboard for another edition of the Paken podcast. This week, World on Edge. We thought it made sense this week, given what transpired in Alaska between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, and then the follow-up meeting between the President of the United States and all of those European leaders at the White House, we thought it made sense to take a look at Russia, Ukraine, this week. And to that end, Janice Stein will be here in a moment to give us her take on what transpired. And beyond that, we thought we would pair up Janice this week with a smart young fella. He lives in Switzerland. He has his bachelor's degree from McGill University. He got his master's degree from the Monk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. And he got his PhD in

international relations from the University of Kent in the United Kingdom. I hosted the agenda for 19 years on TVO and never once interviewed this foreign affairs observer, and we thought that should come to an end today. A bit of a surprise guest. Stick around and find out who. Okay, happy to welcome back Janice Stein now from the Monk School. And Janice, I guess the first thing I want to ask you is, apropos of everything going on in the world right now, as a general principle, should Canada seek to have, right now, better relations with Russia? That's an easy one, Steve, because you said right now, and the answer is no. The only country that's doing that is the United States.

No European country represented at that summit is doing that. we are still very far away from any agreement on the resolution of the war that Russia started against Ukraine. And Canada, you may notice, was not at that meeting in Washington. That's a whole other subject we might want to discuss. Okay, we shall discuss it. And to that end, I'm going to bring on our special guest now to match up with you, Janice. and I'd like to welcome from Geneva, Switzerland, Zachary Paken.

Zach is a research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible State Craft out of Washington. He's also a senior fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy out of Canada. And I think this is the first time that we're doing an interview. Hello, Dr. Paken. How are you today? Very well, Dr. Paken, honoris causa. A pleasure to be here. And nice to be here as well, actually, with two of my teachers in life, my father and the director of the monk school when I was doing my master's. That's beautifully put. Did you have classes with Janice when you were at the monk school? I don't even know.

I don't recall actually, Janice, were you? I don't think we actually had a class together. But I knew Zach well. Yeah. Okay. Well, Zach, let me throw the first question your way again, which is, should Canada at the moment be trying to have better relations with Russia, given everything that's going on in the world right now? At the moment, the answer is no, and even if we wanted to, it wouldn't be possible. It takes two to tango and diplomacy and the Russians view Canada as an extension of the United States. And so we're not effectively a significant or independent enough actor to be able to set the terms with Russia of a bilateral relationship. But right now is the key writer there. Over the short to medium term, questions concerning arms control and the wider European space,

depending on how this diplomatic process that has just gotten underway regarding Ukraine could become relevant once again. And when that happens, there will be absolutely scope for Canada to contribute, as it did to the reconstruction of security, not just in Europe, but also in the Arctic region, which is becoming increasingly important. We just saw our foreign minister, Anita Anand, in Helsinki, meeting with the president of Finland, Alexander Stub, who was just in Washington meeting with Donald Trump. And we released a statement following, or during her visit, rather, that was in cooperation with the Nordic Five.

So that's already those six countries, that's nearly one-fifth of all NATO members that gives the opportunity, I think, for Canada to carve out a specific role in the high north in terms of ensuring not just the defense of the high north vis-à-vis Russia, but as arms control measures, you know, and confidence-building measures potentially return, to explore the potential for deconflection measures with Russia in the Arctic space. So we should consider the reality that deterrence only works when it's actually paired with measures of reassurance. And Canada can have an influence in that region, given that that's our region. We're one of seven countries, including the United States, that are members of NATO, but that are also in the Arctic region. So that's really a space we should carve out. Okay. Let's, having put both of your positions on the record now, let's take a look at what transpired both in Alaska and then the follow-up meeting in Washington and talk about whether anything was actually achieved. You two have seen enough of these summits to know that, you know, they can be anywhere on a continuum between utter disasters and true breakthroughs.

So, Janice, start us off. How would you gauge Alaska on that continuum? Well, it was not an utter disaster, Steve. There was, you know, there always has been communication between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. There's something special from Donald Trump's part going on there, which very few of us are confident, frankly, that we can decode. But this is a longstanding pattern for him that he has, he thinks he's a good guy. He has admiration for Donald Trump, which sets him apart, frankly. As I talked about the Nordic 7 just a minute ago, there isn't one among the Nordic 7 that,

their wants, warmer relationships with Russia right now, or thinks he's a good guy. But I actually think Donald Trump did the right thing by trying to open up a dialogue with Putin about how potentially this conflict can be resolved. Where did he mess up? And he really did mess up. If you're going to do this, if you're going to mediate between two parties, you have to be accurate. And you have to be professional or backfires. What did not happen here is any precise understanding,

shared understanding between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump about what Russia had agreed to or had not agreed to. Now, as soon as did Donald Trump say, oh, well, they've accepted the idea of European security guarantees for Ukraine. out came Donald Trump's spokesperson and said, oh, no, we are adamantly opposed and will completely reject the idea of European security guarantees. So what got done, the conversation changed. What is now on the agenda is, will Ukraine concede territory to Russia in order to get an agreement?

That's officially on the agenda now. but also on the agenda now is security guarantees that Europe insists on and Vladimir Putin utterly rejects. Okay. During the course of our conversation, we'll continue to look at all of these things. Zach, give me your sort of elevator pitch on from complete disaster to pieces breaking out all over. Where on the continuum did you see this past meeting? Yeah, I think the lack of clarity that Jen is described is occurring because you're getting leaders in the room very early in the process. And normally the way that this would work is that you

have detailed technical negotiations first. You then elevate them to a more senior political level, and then you bring in the leaders at the 11th hour to get the deal over the finish line to provide impetus and to sign the deal. We're not seeing this. This is unorthodox diplomacy. Donald Trump is, of course, a very unorthodox president of the United States. But that doesn't mean that the summit was a failure. I think a lot of folks in the mainstream media are casting it as a failure because by the benchmarks that Donald Trump set, you know, he didn't get what he said he was trying to get. He was emphasizing, along with, you know, America's European partners, that there needs to be a ceasefire, first and foremost.

And that if he doesn't, and if Putin does not agree to a ceasefire, then, you know, there were going to be sanctions. There are going to be consequences. This is what Donald Trump threatened. Didn't get those either. My view, no, but my view is that, you know, basically the presidential summit might not have happened without those threats, because basically you need to be able to look as if you are tough, that you're not going to throw Ukraine under the bus. And so he needed to set up actually

the sort of the conditions under which it would look legitimate to hold the summit. And he didn't get a ceasefire because a ceasefire was never going to happen. Right. Vladimir Putin started this war to achieve certain political aims, right? It is war as a means of obtaining political aims. And those aims pertain to the military status and orientation of Ukraine. They pertain to revising Europe's post-cold war, excuse me, security order, you know, in a fashion of that takes Russia's interests more into account. And the main source of leverage that Putin has to achieve those aims is to continue making gains on the battlefield and attruding Ukrainian forces

and putting pressure on the Ukrainians and on the broader West. There's no way that Putin was ever going to, you know, basically ceasefire in exchange for nothing. But he didn't even ceasefire during the time he was in Alaska. They were still killing people while he was negotiating with Trump and smiling with Trump and telling jokes with Trump in Alaska. Janice, how much sense does that make? It, you know, it doesn't, frankly. And let me just circle back to two points that Zach put on the table.

This, you call this unorthodox, Zach, I call this really unprofessional. You don't bring, you don't hold a summit unless you've done the work before. And you understand precisely where the areas of disagreement are. It's not that Donald Trump has some orthodox approach to peacemaking that nobody's ever thought of before, he's unprofessional. He has a short span of attention. He doesn't do the work, okay? We've seen this not only on this summit, on a whole series of conflicts in which he's intervening, the agreement must fall apart within weeks because nobody is doing the professional work. And that's frankly dangerous. Holding a summit is not cost

free. And if they backfire, as this one might, there's cost to that. Secondly, you know, setting it up by saying there has to be a ceasefire and if there's no ceasefire, there are consequences, and then backing off when you get the meeting, that does something to your credibility the next time around. He's negotiating against himself. So I look at this and I say, as every European leader in the room did you watch their body language, under their breath they're saying, Oh, my God. How do you handle, frankly, this unprepared, unprofessional, sloppy, and I would say narcissistic leader when he's the one across the table from Putin. This is like putting the head of the mafia in the room with some teenager and betting on the teenager. It doesn't work. Zach, what do you think?

If I could just, yeah, if I could just jump in here because, first of all, history is replete with examples of belligerents who fight and talk at the same time. And they're fighting and talking, in part because they're trying to shape who has leverage at the negotiating table. So think of the Vietnam War, think of the Korean War, think of the Iran-Iraq War. This is normal. This is par for the course. So he's got leverage.

He's going to continue to try to exercise that leverage, and he's not going to trade it in exchange for nothing. Now, Donald Trump, I think, has been wrong to call for a ceasefire since he's come into office because for the reasons, as I've said, Putin's never going to agree to one, and Putin's winning the war right now on the battlefield. And so he has no reason to compromise on the political aims that he's trying to achieve in exchange for nothing. So it's good, ultimately, that Donald Trump has actually shifted now to the correct position, which is that there should be a negotiated settlement that is more comprehensive. In fact, the Europeans were

not even calling for even a ceasefire before Donald Trump came into office. The Europeans were saying basically, you know, that Ukraine needs to be supported and it's failing war effort for as long as it takes and all the sanctions are going to remain in place until every single Russian troop leaves Ukraine's sovereign territory and there needs to be accountability for war crimes, which maybe means, who knows, you know, bringing Putin over to the Hague, which of course is never going to happen. It's only Donald Trump that has injected, you know, imperfectly, very imperfectly, a degree of, you know, diplomacy into this process. And now we have the first serious diplomacy that's going on, and it is going on for the first time since the Istanbul

process in the spring of 2022. So I think, you know, yes, it's taken Donald Trump to move away from the incorrect position of pushing for a ceasefire. He's now embraced a settlement. It's now incumbent over the coming weeks for all parties to try to negotiate what sort of framework agreement all sides could potentially agree to. And then look, if it fails, it fails. And then the war effort continues. But, you know, ultimately after three and a half years of war, after so much death, more than a million casualties, it's incumbent upon us to try. And I'll add one last thing. it's that, you know, a negotiated settlement, a more comprehensive settlement, is actually in the interest, not just of Russia. Of course it's in the interest of Russia because, you know, they're trying to create a new European security order in which Ukraine is codified as a neutral country, you know, in which its interests, you know, are not basically overridden by unilateral NATO or EU actions.

But it's in the interest of Ukraine and it's in the interest of the United States as well to have a more comprehensive settlement. Because if you don't have a comprehensive settlement and you don't have a stable situation for Ukraine, you're not going to get the private sector investment that you need in order to rebuild Ukraine's economy. You're not going to get people from abroad going back home to Ukraine. Remember, the population of Ukraine has shrunk from 52 million at the time of the Soviet Union's collapse to 29 million today in the territories that control, that they control. That is 50% almost in terms of reduction. And if we want Ukraine to be strong, to be resilient, to be anchored in the West, it needs to be demographically and economically healthy. And then for the United States,

they need a comprehensive settlement too, because if you have an unstable ceasefire, merely a ceasefire, you know, that threatens to bring the United States back into repeating, you know, repeating conflicts in the European theater. And that's not what the United States needs to do, because we're entering an increasingly multipolar world right now, in which the United States simply does not have the resources to be the dominant power in every single theater on the globe, Europe, the Middle East, the Asia Pacific, etc. And it needs to make choices about how to allocate its resources. And Europe is full of rich democracies, so they should do more for their own security. Let me jump in. You mentioned the word theater, Zach, and I want to use that word to start another line

of questioning with a different interpretation of that word theater, different from the way you just used it. There are always a lot of theatrics around these kinds of summits. And, you know, we saw the red carpet. We saw Donald Trump applauding as Vladimir Putin was coming towards him. I'm not sure what kind of signal that sends to the rest of the world, that a man who is in the eyes of many people in this world, a war criminal is being applauded by the president of the United States.

We saw Lavrov, the Soviet minister, show up with a USSR shirt on, CCCP in the Cyrillic alphabet, as if to harken back to the days when Ukraine was a part of the Soviet Union and not on its own. I mean, Janice, everybody looks at these kinds of signals, and they do come to certain conclusions and interpretations about what, if anything, all that stuff means. What did you come to a conclusion about all that?

Again, I'm going to come back to this. This was an extraordinarily unprofessional performance. I think it's important to distinguish. Is it right for a U.S. President to try to explore whether there is a possibility for any kind of agreement between Russia and Ukraine? I think it is. I think, you know, for exactly the reasons that this war has been going on, and can continue for years, frankly, with heavy, heavy costs to both sides, but heavier to Ukraine than to Russia. There's no question about that.

And so it is the right thing to do, but it's how you do it. So applauding Vladimir Putin, as you put at Steve when he walked off them. This is the leader of NATO who is applauding Vladimir Putin. That's not necessary. that solo ride in the limousine with nobody with them. Anybody who wants to engage in conspiracy theories, that's a golden opportunity to do it. There are no notes.

There's no report on what those two guys talked about together. And this is not the first time this has happened between them. You know, and you follow at the press conference. Look at the press conference that came out of that summit. It wasn't really a press conference. No questions. Just a couple of speeches. And it was really sad to watch, right?

An unwillingness to take any questions. You would have been so frustrated, Steve, if you were in that room. And you've gone to Alaska, I can just imagine what you would have thought about that. And beyond that, Vladimir Putin makes the speech at the end of that press conference that it's the same speech that he's been making since 2014. It's the same speech that he is the same. same letter that he wrote in July 2021, before he invaded Ukraine, there is zero movement there, frankly. And Donald Trump has nothing to say. Literally, we agreed on some things,

but we didn't agree on all things. We're up right there. And then his famous phrase, we'll see what happens. Thank you very much for your attention. Zach, what do you think? Yeah, look, would I have, you know, clapped as Vladimir Putin was approaching me? No, I would not have done so, I would chalk that up to Trump, just being Trump, you know, especially given, you know, how, you know, touch a tough line he took vis-a-vis Russia in the lead up to the summit. So I wouldn't read anything more pernicious into it than that. Beyond that, you know, diplomacy comes with certain formalities. You know, you roll out the red carpet, and yes, he's an accused war criminal. There's no question about it. And Russia has certainly committed war crimes in this war.

But this is not the first war criminal that the United States has ever done business with. You know, We've seen the response on the part of Western countries to, you know, Benjamin Netanyahu's ICC arrest warrant has taken a markedly different tone than the approach that they've taken towards Russia, which and Vladimir Putin's arrest warrant from the international criminal court, which has been much more uncompromising. You know, and we've seen instances in which the West, Western countries have taken actions, you know, in places like Iraq, the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, which ultimately resulted in more civilian death. than Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

You know, we've seen also, as it relates to the Saudi-backed war in Yemen, which was facilitated by the United States. Also, more civilians died there than in Ukraine. Yet we have no difficulty, you know, doing business with the Saudis. So, again, you know, the rest of the world doesn't have a heck of a lot of time right now for a lot of this moral preening that you see that's, you know, exclusively reserved, it seems, quite often for Russia. So, you know, that hypocrisy that the United States undertakes, or what that main street

sort of voices in the United States undertake really undermines the role of the United States and the rest of the world and its influence there. And I'd add just one last thing, which is, you know, you need these diplomatic formalities vis-a-vis Russia because it's imperative that the United States fix its relationship with Russia and maintain a relationship with Russia. Because those two countries, the U.S. and Russia, together amount for 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons. And we survived through the Cold War by accident in many respects. there were a lot of very, very close calls. We should not just simply say that the Cold War is evidence that deterrence works. And I don't think that, you know, I should have to, or my children, your grandchildren should have to live through another Cold War in a multipolar nuclear balance of power that's incredibly unpredictable. You know, we have an imperfect world.

It's not going to be a world, unfortunately, in which liberalism is synonymous with universalism, but nonetheless we have a duty to make the best of a relatively bad situation. And we can't maintain that relationship between the U.S. and Russia in the name of global security unless we find some kind of comprehensive settlement to the war in Ukraine. And just one example of why that's the case. You know, we saw Ukraine, for example, launch a very audacious attack by smuggling in drones that proceeded to attack deep within Russian territory. Russia's strategic bombers, which are part of the Russian nuclear triad. Right. So that makes arms control and other measures to increase nuclear safety.

in the world, a heck of a lot more difficult when you have a war that's going on in which there are incentives to escalate, especially when Ukraine is losing on the battlefield. It has ever more of an incentive to escalate in order to draw in its European and American partners to prevent itself from losing. Well, let's go into the home stretch here then. And Janice, I'll put to you some comments made by Anne Applebaum from the Atlantic the other day. And, you know, here's her prescription for bringing this thing to an end. She wrote, arm Ukraine, expand sanctions, stop the lethal drone swarms, break the Russian economy, win the war. Then there will be peace.

What do you think of that prescription? Well, it's wonderful in theory and completely impractical, Steve, in all honesty. We haven't been able to do that in three and a half years. And to do that, India and China would have to stop buying Russian oil is already royal terribly, the relationship between India and the United States when Donald Trump has starting to impose 50% sanctions on India for buying Russian oil. And there's no way China will do that.

So I think it's just impractical. On the other hand, here's where I really disagree with Zach. It is not about Vladimir Putin being war criminal. It is precisely about Vladimir Putin's view of what a multipolar world will look like. And he's very clear about what they're not. that is. It is three great powers, each with their own spheres of influence, free to do what they wish in that world. Arms control figures nowhere in it. And so that to me is the really

crucial issue here. And that's why mishandling the relationship with Russia, which is what Trump is doing. It is not only about the war in Ukraine. It's about what does that future relationship look like in a multipolar world, and when you threaten and back off, and when you're an unreliable reporter, and when you do no homework, and you engage in unprepared cemetery, and you frustrate your allies, all you really get out of this kind of, frankly, terrible management is a Europe that is more determined than ever to resist Russia with the United States or without Russia. That stability in Europe that people are talking about is ephemeral as long as Europeans are convinced, and they are, especially those who live next to them, that they are next on the menu. And Vladimir Putin has done nothing to reassure any of them that his view of a world order includes stable lines in Europe.

So in many ways we're talking about the wrong issues. and what's terrifying to me is to have a leader in the White House who was so amateurish and frankly so unbelievably narcissistic. We didn't get a chance to talk at all, Steve, about the meeting in the White House. But watching these European leaders engage in... No, they're all fawning all over him. Absolutely. They're Saddam Hussein in him, for goodness sakes. They really are, and you have to ask yourself,

When you see this, where does this, how does this advance any kind of security that agenda that's serious? It doesn't. None of it really does. Because if they don't do that, he won't pay attention and he won't take them seriously. And therefore, I know it's kind of crap. Okay, Zach, quick response to all of that. And then I want one final question to both of you. Sure. So I wouldn't say that arms control figures nowhere in the Russian worldview. In fact, arms control is one of the domains in which Russia can express itself as one of

the three major great powers in the world and have that special relationship with the United States, right? So, you know, we saw Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden just a couple of weeks after Biden was inaugurated in 2021, agree on very short notice to extend the New START Treaty by five years. You know, arms control is very much an essential part of the Russian world view under normal circumstances. They haven't always lived up to their end of the bargain in certain arms control regimes, but it was only after you saw Lloyd Austin, who was Biden's Secretary of Defense, when he, perhaps in a freelancing move, said that the goal of the war in Ukraine is to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, that all of a sudden Russia started tying arms control to the outcome

of the war in Ukraine. But he has done that, Steve. He has totally submerged arms control in a broader issue with his version of a new security order and the future of Ukraine. Right. And that's what he, that's been the goal. And he doesn't hide it from it from anybody. He talks about it quite openly. Yeah. And this is to be expected because if the goal of the United States is to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, then Russia is not going to compromise on the size of its nuclear arsenal because that's one of the tools that it has in a strategic competition with the United States in which NATO holds a massive conventional superiority over Russia. So for Russia, nuclear weapons are a major equalizer. But where I do agree with Janice is

that Ann Applebaum's prescriptions are not at all realistic. This is a war that Russia is gradually winning. We should not content ourselves with the fact that they've only managed to take about 1% of Ukraine since they've been on the offensive. You know, Ukraine's lines are becoming increasingly brittle. Their military is short about 300,000 men. They've not been able to recruit efficiently, so they're starting to snatch people off the streets. We're seeing videos coming out of Ukraine all the time, and that's not a very efficient way of recruiting forces. You know, you've seen just enormous numbers of casualties also on the Ukrainian side. Hundreds of Ukrainians. are fleeing the front lines now. Soldiers are fleeing the front lines every single day.

So, you know, you've got frontline units that are operating quite often now with 30% manpower capacity. And ultimately, men are needed to hold territory. You know, drones can help to defend, but you need men to hold territory. And if somehow this war is going to end by Ukraine retaking the offensive, that's just completely unrealistic. And if you think that Ukraine can end up winning the war simply by bleeding the Russians to death and causing, you know, the costs to go up from a political perspective for Vladimir Putin, I wouldn't suggest that either, because there are so many Russians who see that, you know, soldiers who've been signing up for the Russian military are doing so and getting salaries that are three times higher than the average industrial job. They know what the

bargain is. All of society knows what the bargain is. They're doing it to get money. They know that dying is potentially a risk involved. And so you're not seeing a lot of pressure on Putin to end the war. Yes, you know, the benefits of Russian, you know, wartime Keynesianism may start to wane, you know, over the coming months. But that doesn't mean that Russia's economy will fundamentally enter a period of crisis or that the regime will fall or anything like this. Hope is not a strategy, is my point. Janice, come back on that.

Yeah, look, I think we are misreading. First of all, I don't think there is any peace process at all. And this is more likely to implode, just hope that it doesn't explode as a result of the mismanagement. Secondly, the Russian economy is already, this is part of the reason that Vladimir Putin is even willing to come to the table and discuss any of this. The Russian economy is beginning to suffer cracks under the pressure. What Vladimir Putin has done is inflated his economy into a wartime economy, but there's limits to how long he can do that. and we're beginning to see for the first time, and it's ironic, that the two processes are converging.

We're beginning to see significant economic data. First of all, that's just the downturn. And ultimately, that is the most dangerous thing that can happen to Vladimir Putin, because that's where protests start in every country. It's all about the economy, stupid. And he's no exception. to that. The third thing I think we're deeply misreading is what the long-term Ukrainian strategy is they're not up for this game. They are not prepared to live under Russian hedge money.

They're just not. And we have seen that you think you win a war and there's a high on the battlefield, which then transforms into the reality of resistance. And that is the Ukrainian strategy for the future. They will not be willing. They know history. They know their own history. They know the history of Russia and Europe. And they're not prepared under any circumstances to do it.

And there are enough European countries, including Germany now, that understand that that's the game. So either they're meaningful security guarantees. No Article 5 like, which was one of them. of Donald Trump's famous phrases over this last astonishing week. But Article 5, which is meaningful to the Ukrainian, it's not in NATO, but it doesn't have to be inside NATO, but it has to have a meaningful security guarantee from Europeans. And if Vladimir Putin can't accept that, the war goes on, which is what Ukrainians prefer

and will do one way or other. I know from some of the discussions that that's what the Ukrainians are planning for. Zach is shaking his head here. Look, as I was saying before, hope is not a strategy. Countries throughout history have demonstrated that they are willing to weather economic costs in order to pursue what they see as their core interests. And so Russia, even if it enters a recession this year, is not going to compromise on one of its core interests. We have polling now in Ukraine that shows that nearly 70% of Ukrainians want their government to pursue an negotiated and to the war as soon as possible.

But they don't want to give up territory that Russia has not earned on the battlefield. That's right. They do not want to give up that territory. Absolutely right. Nor should they, in my view, because, you know, this area around Kramatores, and Sloviansky is extremely well fortified. And it's very strategic. Absolutely. You don't want a situation where the Russian forces are effectively sitting on Dinipro, which is the fourth largest city in Ukraine. So fully an agreement there. The question is, if you want Putin to back down from that demand, that Ukraine vacate that territory, what are you going to give him in response?

And the answer is you need to come up with security guarantees that are actually going to be acceptable to Russia, right? And Article 5 is not something that's acceptable to Russia, right? There need to be some kind of guarantees if guarantee is the right term. We have to see what those are going to look like. Over the coming days, we are going to find out what is being proposed by the Europeans and by the United States together on this front. But a guarantee for Article 5, which de fact,

This is not what the text of Article 5 actually says, but de facto means that you're going to go to war on behalf of Ukraine is not credible because you have seen that, you know, both Joe Biden and Donald Trump, two presidents of the United States, from two different parties, have made it very clear they are not going to send U.S. troops to fight now. And Obama before that, when Crimea was at stake. Exactly. So we have been promising since 2008, since the Bucharest summit of NATO in 2008, to bring Ukraine into NATO. We haven't done it. And therefore, any pledge to defend them is likely to be tested because it won't be credible. An Article 5 only works if it's credible. And if it's tested by the Russians... We're not talking about an Article 5, which the U.S. guarantees. What is likely to happen here is this is a European guarantee.

And the Europeans have made clear... They're not willing to go to war for Ukraine now either. No, no, no, but they are prepared... So why would they do so in the future? Well, they're prepared to put... They've said explicitly that if there's a settlement, they are prepared to put forces on the ground in Ukraine. And why are they prepared to do it?

Because they're worried about Russia's next move. There's a bigger strategic picture for them, and they are prepared to do it. And secondly, Vladimir Putin has given no indication that he's prepared to back down on his demand for Ukraine to see territory that Russia currently does not control. He's asked for the whole of the non-pass, which everybody agrees, were that. to happen, would leave Russia within striking difference distance of the Nipro River and that strategic town and would open Ukraine much more easily in the future to, you know, a really quick assault by Russian forces. So until there's an indication from Russia that there's a willingness to trade, which there is not yet, and Vladimir Putin did not signal in any

join that summit to Donald Trump or after the summit, that they're willing to do so. And I think we're pipe dreaming here. That's not true. Russia's previous position was that Ukraine had to withdraw from all four of the oblasts that Russia claims to have annexed. He has since revised that position to saying that Ukraine does not have to vacate Zapparijian-Harson. So it's possible.

We're in a stage of negotiations now. We have to see what's tradable. And the most realistic security guarantee for Ukraine is a large Ukrainian military that, that can deter Russia and defend Ukraine. And that's what we have to be pushing for at the negotiating table right now. They get Putin to revise his criterion for demilitarization of Ukraine rather than to pledge to put Western troops on Ukrainian soil, which the Russians have repeatedly said is unacceptable.

And if they attack them, then the United States is dragged into war. I feel an obligation here to give the professor the last word on this. Just because, just because. Yeah, exactly. Okay, go ahead, Janice. Look, I agree that we need an end to this war, and I agree that it would benefit Ukraine as well as Russia. And I think some of our commentary is off, Steve, because it doesn't recognize that Ukraine needs an end as well as Russia to this war. But the details matter. The terms matter.

And what is on the table now is deeply threatening to. to the survival of Ukraine. Look at the map and it's obvious. And we have a history here of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, which is not a good one. Over and over again, when those two sit down to the table, Donald Trump walks away telling everybody what a great guy Vladimir Putin is and what a good friend he is. And he's done it not once, not twice. He's done it several times.

and every single time either meets along with him or there's almost nobody else in the room and the kind of detailed work done by professionals that needs to proceed that needs to start right now and here's the basis for my pessimism is not happening because the National Security Council is functionally disbanded in the White House. The State Department has lost many of its experts. And the kind of technical work for this to be a serious process on the part of the Americans is MIA. The worst outcome is a bad deal.

And the United States, frankly, is not staffed up to do the work to get a responsible solution here. That is the big picture. you know i want to thank you two for doing this today goodness knows zach and i have had this conversation numerous times off camera so i'm glad we were finally able to do one on camera with janestine and i uh i will close this by closing as i always do by saying peace and love uh both of which we need a lot more of in this world oh live long and prosper works too zach okay we'll go for that too zachary pekin from the quincy institute and the institute for peace and diplomacy janestine

from the Monk's Gulu of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the U of T. Thanks so much to you both. It was a pleasure and a pleasure to be with the other Dr. Pankin.