From Sky news.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made last Friday when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky joined President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D.

Vance in the Oval Office.

The meeting was described in advance as a conversation between leaders who are ready to sign a mineral rights deal, potentially a way of setting up an agreement to end the Russian invasion.

But even before President Zelensky came to the Oval Office, the deal was being constructed without him and without Ukraine at the table.

President Trump's team had already had conversations with the Russians, who have publicly expressed glee at the change in American disposition.

Trump's envoys had been talking about what Ukraine would have to give up precious metals.

Yes, a whole lot of money.

The dream of joining NATO, roughly a third of its territory, including Crimea.

Russia would have to give up.

Well, nothing, so far as we can tell.

So when Zelensky arrived in Washington, he had already expressed frustration at this turn of events.

And then he listened as President Trump talked to the press about how the peace deal was hard to achieve because, as he put it, Zelensky just harbors so much hate for Vladimir Putin, so much hatred.

Trump said it was hard to understand or deal with.

And then, of course, you could see Zelensky had had enough.

Russian state media has reported this encounter like a rabid sports talk show, cheering on its home team, laughing and celebrating.

Trump followed that meeting by declaring that Zelensky is just too emotional for peace right now.

The next German chancellor, Friedrich Mertz, has said that Europe has to prepare for security without the United States now.

And here's how The New York Times describes new developments just today.

Quote, European Union leaders are confronting one of the biggest challenges in the bloc's history as an aggressive Russia looms to the east.

And American support waivers from the West.

On Thursday, they pledged to rise to the challenge.

Leaders gathered at a specially convened meeting in Brussels to discuss how to bolster both Europe's own defenses and its support for Ukraine amid enormously high stakes.

They must figure out how to accomplish these aims without further alienating their tempestuous allies in Washington.

End quote.

By the way, with all the talk from the Trump team about how Zelensky doesn't want peace, keep in mind Russia is still firing missiles at civilian targets inside Ukraine.

Today, Russia struck a hotel in Zelensky's hometown, killing four people.

Meanwhile, Trump says he feels that Putin does want peace.

Tonight, the Scholarly Center for Polish and Central European Studies is hosting Adrian Carrington, whose book Battleground Ukraine is an indispensable work chronicling the story of Ukraine since the early 1990s to today.

But first, he is with us, and we're glad to have a journalist, nonresident fellow, senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center and the author of Battleground Ukraine, which with us.

Adrian, thank you for making time for the program to the pleasure.

And Doctor Andy Stone is with us as well.

Randy is director of the Scholarly Center for Polish and Central European Studies at the University of Rochester.

Welcome back to the program.

Good to be with you, Evan.

What's happening tonight, Randy?

So tonight, Adrian Carnegie will be, talking about his book, Battle Ground Ukraine and the current situation in, in you in Ukraine.

the lecture will be at 730 in Gergen Hall 101 on the other campus.

It's free.

And, to the public, and there's free parking.

And we're going to talk about the book here and some of this history.

But for the public who are, you know, trying to understand what the speed of events so seemingly picking up velocity each day.

Randy, what do you think the public will get from tonight's event?

Well, I think you'll get an opportunity to get a perspective.

so, Adrian, offers a, remarkable historical perspective.

And his book, reads as both a history and a personal memoir, because he knows a lot of the people who were involved over the years.

so if you're looking to try to get some sense of what's really going on, this is a good opportunity.

Before we get into some of that history, let me ask both of you, Adrian.

I'll start with you.

Did you watch the Oval Office event live?

I mean, what did you make of those events last Friday?

I watched it semi live.

I watched it live on tape about a half hour after it was happening.

So while it was happening, but with a little bit of a tape delay.

And what did you make of it?

Well, you know, look, it was an ambush.

the Zelensky did not behave inappropriately, but he did not behave optimally, which is to say we saw the rather, you know, elaborate effort to play up to Trump's big man status by both the French president and, by the British prime minister.

And I think Zelensky, who, you know, I would want to call it post-traumatic stress diplomacy.

He is the head of a country that is under constant attack.

He is under constant danger.

It's, you know, he is walking a tightrope and he is a high strung guy.

And, so perhaps he wasn't suitable to that, but I think he he had a way of deftly avoiding this.

He could have very easily said, Mr. President, we have some serious issues to discuss.

I think we should discuss them in private.

I'm keen on peace.

Let's let's move on.

But he decided, I think, in the heat of the moment to to go back and forth.

I think that was his biggest mistake.

not that anything that he said.

Was it appropriate and not that what or intense did was, was was outrageous.

but he allowed that opportunity to happen.

And I think that was a sign of maybe ill preparation, because really, the purpose of this was twofold.

To simply sign the agreement and to say, yes, we're we're ready for peace, Mr. president, we want you to work with us to to achieve it.

That's what I'm here to say.

And let's discuss this behind closed doors.

So before I turn to your colleague, let me just probe one other idea about that.

It's it was understandable if perhaps ill advised for him to get his dander up.

What if he went into that meeting saying, look, even behind closed doors, they're making it clear Russia has to concede nothing.

We have to concede everything they're telling us that the only deal that is amenable gives up Crimea forever, gives up the Donbas, gives up territory that Russia is currently on, gives up this mineral rights, a dream of being in NATO and Zelensky.

Zelensky's probably thinking this is just a temporary arm assist that will be violated.

So maybe he's thinking, you know, if I call them on this publicly, it's going to be ugly.

But but I'm already getting the worst possible deal.

Maybe I need to shake things up.

Well, there is a bad deal, afoot, but I think there are ways of.

And actually, things turned out not so badly for Ukrainian interests, although I don't think I was the intention.

I don't think Zelensky had the idea that Europe with step up in the way it has, Europe has shown partly because they're spooked by, Trump's foreign policy.

Sure.

Trump's relationship with Putin that is still this mysterious, you know, mysterious but deep relationship that no one quite understands.

And I think Europe had already, you know, has responded, has risen to the occasion.

And I, I think that has strengthened, Zelensky's, negotiating stance and his ability to be involved because I think Europe now wants to inject itself to make it at least a, you know, quadra partite rather than a tripartite negotiation.

And I think the Ukrainians are really shocked at was that the United States was an ally, but Ukraine is now behaving, but the United States is now behaving as this neutral, if not pro-Russian, advocate and this surrender of any responsibility for the safety of the country, the, the pulling back of, you know, satellite intelligence denying Britain the right to share in satellite intelligence, some of it shared with the United States, with Ukraine and the stoppage in in providing providing weapons that's going to lead that already is leading to the loss of of lives because air defenses depend on US intelligence sharing Ukrainian air defenses.

So I, we, you know, so I think there was for all those reasons, I think Zelensky is aware now of what kind of, administration he is dealing with.

And maybe that's a good thing not to have illusions that we're going to find, a fair and equal and equal arbiter.

But I think he came there for the status to to try to speak truth to power and to try to break through, to, to, Trump a little bit on a, on a personal, on a personal level.

And that's why I think that, you know, and he couldn't have foreseen that Europe would react this way.

By the way, the Chinese have indicated that Europe has to be they believe Europe has to be at the table.

And this is not just a relation, a discussion between the United States and and Russia, that this is a broader discussion, which includes Ukraine and includes what a paradox that, it's not the United States that's advocating this broadening of and understanding that very broad interests are involved.

but it is it is actually China trying to put its, you know, put its foot through the door.

Randy, what did you make of what you saw?

Well, I think it's hard to tell, whether the, Trump, JD Vance, duo or had this all planned and this was just a set up to ambush, Zelensky in the in the white House.

in order to create a narrative for the base that, they're not abandoning Ukraine, that, this isn't weak.

All right.

or they're just acting impulsively, as they've been doing on all other fronts.

All right.

we hear now that, they're talking about abolishing the Federal Reserve.

Today's news says they want to abolish, the Department of Education.

they're talking about, dismantling the FDIC, which we all depend on to guarantee our bank deposits.

There's an awful lot of impulsive craziness in this administration.

And so exactly what was planned and what wasn't planned is something we'll probably never know.

But the crucial thing I think to understand here is that there's a name for Trump's policy towards Russia, and it's appeasement.

This is a policy that, we've seen before.

We know how this movie ends.

You don't avoid war by appeasing dictators, and this causes dictators to increase their demands.

What did Putin do?

He immediately escalated his demands.

He's now demanding not only all the land that he currently occupies, but that Ukraine turn over all the land in the four, we'll call them disputed provinces, the four Ukrainian provinces, in addition to Crimea, which, Russia has claimed that it is legally annexed, so territory that Russians have been expelled from.

by the Ukrainian army.

Putin now expects to have turned over to him.

he is also demanding that, Ukraine be turned into a kind of semi-independent, dependency of Russia, that its democratically elected government be replaced by someone who would be more comfortable for him.

and that it's, it be disarmed.

All right.

So this is what happens.

This is what happened at Munich in 1938, right when, Neville Chamberlain made a deal with Hitler to give away the western portion of Czechoslovakia, which was where, of course, the Czechoslovak army was dug in and was prepared to defend against, against the German army.

and if I can interject on the on the Munich parallel, I mean, it's interesting that we talk about Munich, but oddly enough, I personally believe that Munich happened.

You know, after 2014, in the inadequate reaction of the West to the Russian annexation of Crimea and to the de facto Russian territory, including for Obama.

Yeah, exactly.

Because because, you know, Munich was a prelude to the taking of territory.

And, the taking of territory had already had already, already had occurred the first partition of Ukraine.

This is now the second partition of Ukraine.

So kind of resonant, redolent of Polish, Polish history and kind of it's also interesting that if you look at the 19th century and the, at Russian attitudes towards Poland, Russia believed that poles could be made into Russians.

there was a Russian education minister, Count Suvorov, who who believed that would take two generations to to turn poles into Russians.

And I think the Russians believed the same thing.

And they grossly underestimated the force of, of Polish nationalism then, and were through endless Polish rebellions, were kind of got the message that poles were not going to be a part of Russia.

But I think the lesson that I think Ukraine's courage has shown in these recent years and the emergence of, of a relatively of a fundamentally unified Ukrainian nation that's occurred over this last 35 year period, means that Ukraine is kind of in the same place as to Russia as Poland in the 19th, in the 19th century.

And I believe, will end up with the same result, that it will preserve its sovereignty, preserve its independence.

And the interesting thing is that Europe is which was considered to be kind of flax it and pacifist and so on, has become much more vigorous in in its martial spirit and its willingness to, to to do what it takes to both defend Ukraine and to build up its, its own military capabilities.

And I think that that is the consequence of their accurate assessment of the situation on the ground, which is that the Ukrainians, despite what Donald Trump has been saying, have been prevailed.

Russia, you know, it will take Russia a couple of hundred years at the at the way it's expanding, adding territory to, to take over Ukraine.

Russia has been dealt substantial economic blows.

Russia is disconnected from the, you know, higher level, higher technology, some of it surreptitiously is entering, but pretty much there.

They're not capable of joining the AI revolution, the robotics revolution.

And I think the Russian elite understands that.

And Donald Trump, instead of understanding and his tech bros should be telling him this, that Russia is in a very weak position because it's outside of these major technological and economic developments, these, you know, life changing, life altering and economy altering, developments in technology.

Donald Trump believes that Ukraine is the weak is the weak country.

Europe understands that Ukraine has been withstanding.

And the other reason that you Russia's will that Europe is willing to make the bargain that its willing to take on the Russian bear, is because Ukraine has substantially degraded Russia's, offensive capabilities by fighting.

Russia is not right now capable of marching into Europe the way it was, even absent a US presence, in the same way that it was before this, because much of its military potential has been very substantially degraded and shown to be kind of weak with against higher technologies and new new technology.

Anything to add?

There?

Yes.

No, I think that's that's all.

All correct.

and the, in the Munich analogy was something that, played a key role in us, containment strategy after World War two.

this was something that all the decision makers, in the 1950s and 1960s were keenly aware of that learning from that historical learning from that historical example, that if you lose credibility, you end up, involved in international conflict.

And so they were willing sometimes to take extraordinary risks, sometimes to pay tremendous costs in order to defend us credibility and the credibility of our commitment, to our, our allies in Europe.

Right.

Our NATO allies, and what we're seeing with Donald Trump is the unraveling of an 80 year commitment.

investment in U.S. credibility, right?

That, 65,000 Americans died in Vietnam to defend American credibility.

And it was a dubious prospect that we actually had to defend Vietnam in order to convince the Soviet Union that we were not, willing to let it march into Berlin.

Right.

But the the, the the Johnson administration thought that that was a price that was worth paying, just to be sure that there was no uncertainty, not to lead to a wider conflict that could lead to a World war.

Those sacrifices are now, being trampled on by the Trump.

And the irony is that there is no, real sacrifice, in terms of American, you know, the lives of Americans.

Ukraine has is not in the same posture as, say, after we have Afghanistan was were, or our role in Vietnam or even to a degree, what we were trying to do in Iraq.

Ukraine is not asking for any, support of people to fight a war for them.

They'd be happy to have people as peacekeepers once a deal is made.

They're just willing to take it on and all they want is the continuation of resources that allows them to have a, you know, to, to stymie, Russia and to, to force or to bring Putin, to the bargaining table.

But at the bargaining table where he has to give as much as Ukraine and also Ukraine, I think is ready.

And the Ukrainian polls show that the Ukrainian public is ready to to end the conflict with this current territorial configuration, minus maybe an adjustment between giving up the Russian territory they hold for some portion of Ukrainian territory.

But what the Ukrainians are, are really ready for is that they're ready to try to recover those territories only by peaceful and diplomatic means, or perhaps hope that over time, Russia's politics will change, and the Russian people will recognize that, you know, aggressive taking of another nation's territory is not justified.

So the Ukrainians are ready to make a reasonable deal.

But because the, the Trump administration has shown no indication that they have some redlines, nor any indication that they have some demands of the Russians as part of the give and take.

All that we have heard is that Ukraine has to surrender a BCD abcdef and it's a it's a constantly cascading list of demands.

And now it is even not just the question of military aid.

There is a stoppage of military aid at the moment of an act of war.

It's it's astonishing.

but again, I would say that one of the perhaps most surprising things is how much, you know, coal coalescence there has been among the major European players and the vast majority of the EU and the our the rest of our NATO allies, because Canada is part of this, too.

we can talk about this maybe a little bit later, but there is a Trumpian way of, of, continue of not forced Ukraine to, to pay, for the war.

But Trump has chosen to take money from the Ukrainians, while Europe and the allies are sitting on 300 billion of Russian hard currency assets, which would easily cover for 6 or 7 years.

The the level of expenditure, even adjusted for inflation, that the US spent over the first three years of the war, rather than focusing on that and using that as a lever against, against Putin, there is now this, you know, stoppage, of support and the demand that Ukraine to claw back, grants and aid that was, that was given to Ukraine to fight a war in which it is protecting the international order.

This is a we have to remember, there are only been two instances.

This is the second instance where another country is invading and annexing the territory.

Since the creation of the United Nations system.

The other one was Iraq and Kuwait.

That was rapidly reversed.

This is the only second such such instance because even in the case of Tibet, Tibet was not internationally recognized.

I think there were a couple of countries that recognized Tibet's independence.

It was taken by China in that period, but it was not a subject of international law.

It was not recognized as a as a state within defined borders as Ukraine was.

in a moment, we're going to get to some feedback from listeners.

and if you want to call the program listeners at 844295 talk, it's toll free.

84429582552636.

If you're in Rochester 2639994, you can email the program connections at Cyborg.

If you're watching on our YouTube channel for Sky news, you can join the chat there.

Adrian, about nine months ago, you were looking ahead to this past presidential election, and you said that with some small caveats, we knew what the next presidential administration would look like if it was Kamala Harris, or if it was Joe Biden at the time.

If it was an extension of the Biden administration.

It's a pretty narrow set.

Europe knew what to expect.

Ukraine knew what to expect.

Russia knew what to expect with Trump.

You said the ceiling is very low.

The floor was actually higher because of the unpredictability.

So if you are Ukrainian, you were dreading a Trump win.

You could at least hold on to the hope that who knows, maybe.

Maybe there is a curveball coming here.

It seems to me, listening that interview with you from nine months ago, that your assessment now would be the Ukrainian hopes for some sort of, a Jekyll and Hyde.

The good side.

It has gone completely the other way to to complete your analogy, it's a hanging curve, unfortunately.

And it's being it's getting hit out of the park by Putin at this point.

It doesn't have any bite.

And I think, that that is really the, the scary thing, the the real surprise to me is really the European reaction because I did not anticipate, I anticipated that more likely there would be a kind of, you know, neutralization of Europe and much more disarray within within the alliance and the beginnings of bargaining with the new, you know, the signs of the new world order.

Now, mind you, we do not yet know how this thing will turn out, because the biggest problem is that it will be very hard for Trump to sell domestic public opinion, not to speak of the rest of the international community, to sell them on a kind of a deal, which is the complete loss of Ukrainian sovereignty.

I think it's going to create substantial tension right now with Trump still hovering in the, you know, approval disapproval ratings on a kind of a 5050 basis.

a lot of the Republicans are are concerned but not willing to, to speak up.

But if this is a terrible deal and you have to remember, there have been polls that show that about 50% of the Trump electorate admires Ukraine.

And maybe they don't want to pay for this.

But there are, as I've indicated, ways of paying for this that would satisfy MAGA to support Ukraine and to pay for it with these Russian hard currency reserves.

But I think I think there is, you know, people admire people who are fighting for their freedom.

They're doing it on their own.

They're not asking Americans to, to join them.

And they're not even potentially asking for Americans to pay for this any longer.

and, and Trump is suggesting that the Ukrainians will be paying for what is already been given them.

So theoretically, there is a groundwork.

The question is, will can Putin get what he wants?

which is an array of demands, including clawing back huge amounts of Ukrainian territory that currently are held by the Ukrainians.

The Trump administration has been referring to.

At the early days of the war, there was a discussion about, a peace process in Istanbul.

And they're, just very preliminary discussions were around the idea that Ukraine would declare its neutrality, remove itself from NATO.

Those were those are on the table, but those are on the table for the complete removal of Russian forces from all of Ukraine, with the exception of, of, of Crimea, perhaps.

and again, we didn't, you know, the Ukrainians didn't sign on to any, formal treaty.

But I think, I think Putin has these maximalist demands from before, but with the difference in the, you know, occupies four regions and wants even more of them as part of the deal.

So I just don't see how that will, will, will be able to survive.

I think it will create a lot of, opposition inside the political establishment.

I think public opinion will not respond in the U.S., will not respond to it, you know, positively.

So I think there is a game here.

And the game is that, you know, Trump has already given away half the store, but Putin wants him to give away the whole store.

And if if Trump's, you know, savvy as a, dealmaker, is exposed as just far as, you know, yeah, a fiction, I think it, it will, create a bit of a debate.

We haven't had a lot of foreign policy debates, in, in, in American life since, you know, the Vietnam War, perhaps, and the Iraq War.

But this I think this will this will cascade into a an important national debate.

Well, when we come back, my only break, I'm going to take some phone calls here.

But of course, the the reputation as a dealmaker is a fiction, because Trump himself has said to the extent that he's thought deeply about it, he thinks a good deal is when someone stomps on somebody else and gets what they want out of them.

A good deal is supposed to be when both sides feel good about something, as opposed to thanks for thanks for doing work on my company.

Here's a check for half.

I'll see you in court and laughing at them.

That's the deal that Trump boasts about in his books.

That's that's been the history of his work as a deal maker.

So and when we come back, we're going to talk a little bit more about the perspective that, perhaps there's some bigger game afoot looking forward here.

And I do want to ask my guest to talk a little bit about some of the history in his book.

But I think if we see a still ostensibly independent Ukraine, could it revert to some of the the status that we've seen over the last 25, 30 years in which the Kremlin seeks to have mostly complete control over Kiev?

So, my guest is Adrian and Nicky, who is a journalist, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center.

His book is called Battleground Ukraine From Independence to the War with Russia.

He is in Rochester as a guest of doctor Randy Stone and the Scholarly Center for Polish and Central European Studies at the University of Rochester.

They have an event tonight and they would love to see you tonight.

We're going to come right back and we'll take your phone calls next.

Coming up in our second hour, we sit down with Rochester author Edward Ashton.

He was almost going to give up his fiction writing career and then his book Mickey seven took off.

Now it's the basis for a new movie that's in theaters called Mickey 17.

The premise, set in a thousand years in the future, asks, would you be willing to gain immortality if you have to be willing to die over and over and have your consciousness saved?

We'll talk about it next hour.

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This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

if you're on the phone, hang there.

We'll get to all of your calls here.

Jack and Grace first.

Hi, Jack.

Go ahead.

Oh.

Hi, Evan.

Thanks.

Hey, just to remind you, first off this, that President Trump was impeached during his first term for his phone call to President Zelensky.

the other is, just a reflection back that, know there was talk at one point, during Biden's administration about NATO, NATO, being available for Ukraine.

But but that got knocked out, due to a number of issues.

But the thing that was I find interesting is during President Trump's, conversation, if you want to call it that, with President Zelensky, he talked about you're risking World War three.

And in today's feeds, we see President Macron offering their nuclear deterrent to protect, Ukraine potentially.

So the thoughts that I would have is that, well, the other thing is that Ukraine, Europe in general seems to be still very vulnerable to, gas and oil supplies.

And I guess the question for me that I have would be, do we think Trump is closer to Russia or Europe?

What would the US do if Europe gets involved in a shooting war with Russia to protect Ukraine?

Okay.

Anyway, yep, that's Jack.

Thank you.

Adrian, you want to hit that first?

I will, look, first of all, on on.

I mean, there's a whole series of issues, but on the deterrence issue, you know, nuclear deterrence has worked.

One of the reasons that I think Britain and France are reasonably self-confident is that they have, a nuclear deterrent.

And the, the idea that we are on the threshold of nuclear annihilation is a nonsense.

I visited Kiev and the Biden administration, to be fair to the Trump administration, to a degree, fell for Russian nuclear bellicosity.

Sure.

And and, held back on certain types of weapons, fearing that kind of ultimate escalation.

But I had meetings with Ukrainian diplomats who were in on the high level meetings with their Chinese counterparts.

And very early on, the Ukrainians were engaging the Chinese and getting feedback from the Chinese.

And they had very clear understanding that XI, who has had dozens of meetings and enter into Locutions and contacts with, with Putin, that she was, had sent a strict message that Russia would be isolated, that China is completely opposed and that China was very comfortable that that that message had been heard and that that is not a viable option for Russia there.

You know, there are, all of the big players that have their prosperity in mind do not want to see a nuclear conflagration.

And Putin is not a madman.

He is a calculating, cynical guy who has so far been able to, you know, to figure out how to manipulate, the president of the United States briefly.

Are you comfortable at this point?

I mean, I remember three years ago you said, you know, you had family calling.

You're saying, is this World War three?

And, you know, it was an unsettling time.

Are you comfortable now saying there's a lot of things going on, but nuclear conflagration is very unlikely or not not happening.

I don't feel comfortable saying that.

That's, certain.

I think we live in very uncertain times.

and that, that's part of why I'm so concerned about Donald Trump's, and, ham handed diplomacy.

this nuclear war is extremely unlikely.

Whenever, it's relatively clear what people's interests are, and it's clear what the red lines are, there can be, unusual anomalies, as there were during the Cold War.

Cuba was an anomaly.

and West Berlin was an anomaly, right.

and they were frozen in place because everyone understood where the red lines were in the relationship.

The Biden administration has made it very, very clear that there were are red lines and one in particular that Donald Trump rushed to to obfuscate was the red line about Taiwan.

Right.

Biden made it very clear that, the United States would be involved in a war with China if China attempted to conquer Taiwan.

And Donald Trump immediately said, oh, we don't talk about things like that, because I don't want anyone to know what what we would do.

And I don't want to be put in this sort of a position.

All right.

so there's a great deal of uncertainty.

And if the United States makes its un its commitment to article five of NATO, under which the United States is committed, like every other NATO member, it comes to the defense of every NATO member if they're attacked, if the United States makes that uncertain, that changes the game.

Right.

And so then we have to worry.

Well, what does Russia think the United States will do if Russia gets involved in a conflict?

Suppose Russia sends troops into Lithuania, right?

Which is a US NATO ally and is a former Soviet republic, territory that, Vladimir Putin would very much like to take over again.

All right.

Bring back into the fold.

under article five, the United States would be legally committed to go to the aid of with the Nia.

And there was no question that the Biden administration was committed to doing that.

Right.

There is great deal of concern.

Question right in the Russians minds about what Donald Trump would, would do, and that sort of uncertainty makes possible, miscalculations, which would lead to, to conflict.

Russia, of course, would like to play on that uncertainty because that gives Russia bargaining leverage.

And if it can divide the Western allies by making them think that they would be subject to coercion from Russia, and they wouldn't be supported by the United States, then that allows, Putin, to, to make gains.

Let me let me just say one thing about, the Russian, the Russian elite, we know it's corrupt, but I don't think we pay sufficient attention to the level of hedonism that is part of its culture and the, you know, the enjoyment of the good life.

And I think for them, it's much more important to be able to regain their access to their, you know, villas in, Lake Como and in Monaco and etc.

and their yachts than it is, to get into a conflagration.

So and for Trump, that kind of a transactional thing.

You let us in, I'll let you in, you know, we'll drop the sanctions.

Will you're we'll we'll move past this and you can go back to the way you live.

But it also means, I think, that there is a group of people.

There is, I wouldn't call it adult supervision, but there is heavy self-interest that if Putin were on the edge of deploying nuclear weapons there, I believe is a strong interest group in Russia and not just oligarchs, because when we look at, you know, some of the most corrupt people, there are people in the national security apparatus of Russia who have become billionaires like Putin has.

And that's why I have a I mean, I, I think this is the kind of brinksmanship that Russia exercises should also not we should also be thinking about that other dimension of Russia.

One of the reasons Russia failed in its invasion of Ukraine is that its leadership and the culture of the military was substantially degraded precisely by that kind of corruption.

And, and that gave Ukraine a fighting, a fighting chance to level the playing field.

But that is also a should be a part of our model of how we think about, you know, militant and dangerous Russia.

So Hoover in Pittsford, Mike in Greece.

I'm taking your calls in a second.

I want to build on this, this point that, you know, what is China making of all of this?

And I tried yesterday on this program to, to have a spirited conversation with a former congressional candidate, Republican Greg Sedwick, who, was, I think, bringing to this program a lot of the Republicans sensibility about Trump's disposition toward Putin in Ukraine.

And he thinks it's great.

He thinks it's it's exactly what is needed.

And he called Trump a master negotiator.

I challenged that, and I want you to listen to some of the back and forth after that.

This is Greg Sedwick yesterday.

Nothing was happening for three years, and we were continuing to lose lives.

So we can stay on that same path and have another Afghanistan.

he's trying to prevent that.

Okay.

The other aspect is there's a bigger piece to this puzzle that I think is more critical than Russia, and that's China.

And I think I believe that Trump is trying to pull Putin over closer to us than to China, because China is our biggest threat.

He's trying to get Europe to take care of their own backyard so the big brother can go take care of the bigger problem in the world, in the Pacific.

And I think that's part of his master's travel.

I don't think it is.

He's been pretty open about that.

That's part of his strategy.

He's going to pull Russia toward us so that so that what when China takes Taiwan and they know that we're just going to let them Russia will intervene on our behalf.

What happens here?

It's keep your friends close, but you're enemies closer.

You would would you rather have Russia on our side or on China's side?

I would rather not be in league with autocrats.

I'd rather have standards that say, if you come into my house and you try to burn the whole thing down, and after three years you're still living in the basement, in the living room.

The solution is not to say, okay, I guess you get a third of my house.

Please don't burn down the rest of it.

So you're good with the prolonged war then?

Because really, that's the only other option.

No, I think that's a straw man.

And that's what Marco Rubio has been saying.

Secretary Rubio has been using the same tactic.

Nobody wants a prolonged war.

Why is everybody blaming anybody but Putin here?

The prolonged war could be over tomorrow if Vladimir Putin chose it right.

You agree with that?

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

So why is it on Zelensky to say, well, give away a third of your house, man.

They broke in and you don't have enough weapons to keep fighting them off.

Do you think he's done.

Do you think that Putin says, hey, thank you for a third of the country.

Thank you for humiliating Zelensky and giving me this big victory.

I'm good.

Now.

I don't want any more.

I think I'm fine.

I think Trump's tactic of developing a economic relationship to where we are embedded in Ukraine gives us that without putting boots on the ground.

I'm not for boots on the ground.

It sounds like you might, because either a prolonged war or boots on the ground, or bringing this to an end.

All right, Adrian, what do you hear there?

Well, first of all, the the idea that Putin will make a concordat and ditch China on behalf of the United States is a folly for one reason only if we believe that we have democratic institutions.

And he knows that there will be a rotation of power a few years down the line to misaligned from a reliable ally whose leadership will be the same in the next decade versus someone who, 2 to 4 years from now, if there's a change in Congress and a change in the presidency can be completely different, that's not the kind of partner that a dictator like Putin would want.

His only option is fellow dictatorships, who he believes have a high measure of of stability.

Now, some of them may some of them may not.

But he definitely those are the kind of allies that he wants.

And as to, an exit strategy, there is I believe there is an exit strategy.

The exit strategy would be to give Ukraine longer range weapons to take out to, to wage a reciprocal war if Russia attacks Ukraine's power grid, to attack Russia's power grid, if you attack the Moscow power grid, which is within 400 miles of Ukraine's eastern territory and reachable by certain kinds of missiles that you Ukraine is getting, but are not given the maximum, you know, range, you would very quickly bring them to the negotiating table.

Sanctions are important.

But, three things the continuation and the intensification of sanctions.

But the biggest sanction would be, you know, reciprocal attacks on Russia's power, because 25% of the Russian economy is in Moscow.

You take out Moscow 5 or 10% of the time you're you're degrading the Russian GDP by 1 or 2%.

Russia has hyper not hyperinflation, but very high inflation, 15% that it's that's grappling with its, hard currency reserves.

Those that are not in the West's hands are rapidly, rapidly declining, as is its reserve fund.

There's a whole series of instruments that, you know, the idea that the only option is an endless war is ridiculous.

It's it's a properly waged, waged war.

And and really on the front, you basically have a stalemate, the real place where Russia has an advantage and a bigger advantage.

Now that, Trump has removed satellite intelligence sharing is the ability to attack Ukrainian civilian targets and Ukrainian energy to make Ukrainian lives very hard and difficult.

Randy, what did you hear there?

Anything compelling change your mind on Trump strategy?

No, I'm not convinced.

I think it's key to understand that the reason that the war lasted so long, the reason Putin was willing to hang in there when he was losing the war, was, because was there was this hope outside possibility that Donald Trump might win the next election.

And if he did, U.S. foreign policy might change.

And all of a sudden, Putin might be handed Ukraine on a plate.

He couldn't win it, in the on the battlefield.

But maybe he could he could win it in the American ballot box.

And now and sure enough, that was the outcome.

All right.

So now that the election is over, there's the the uncertainty has been resolved.

Right.

So now it's possible to get a negotiated settlement.

Right.

If Trump were to suddenly adopt the Biden foreign policy, he could get Putin to, to make all sorts of concessions because he has nothing left to wait for.

But that's not that's not Trump's interest.

The other, fallacy here is the notion that you can somehow contain China by appeasing Russia.

Right?

The if the United States is not committed to defending Ukraine, which has proved itself to be an invalid, viable ally, right.

The biggest obstacle to Russian military expansion into Europe.

then what is the likelihood that the United States is going to be committed to defending Taiwan?

Right.

Which is a population half as large, on an island that's close to China and a place that is much more difficult for the United States to support.

and so the natural inference for XI Jinping to draw is that the US guarantee to Taiwan, does not, in fact, exist.

All right.

let me get Sarah on YouTube.

In the YouTube chat, she says, this makes me think there is more behind the talks and not in Zelensky's favor.

I'm curious if your guests have any thoughts on the possibility of trying to force Zelensky out.

So this is where I come back to the book here, Battleground Ukraine, from our guest, Adrian Carrington.

It's key takes us through the different, presidencies, in Ukraine since the early 1990s and obviously they're not all the same here.

Yushchenko is not Poroshenko is not Yanukovich is not Zelensky.

And there's different efforts from Russian leadership to to create this level of influence.

Right now, Sarah is asking, are we going to see this?

Putin is kind of hinted already, so well, as Zelensky's a dictator because he not having elections.

And Americans in the Trump administration are saying the same thing.

Zelensky says he'll leave if we get a NATO guarantee.

But what happens next year?

Do you see the likelihood that this book is almost foreshadowing what the next presidency will look like?

In other words, a lot of Kremlin control?

No, I think it's exactly the opposite.

What this book is foreshadowing is that over the last 35 years has been the consolidation and genesis of a of a European oriented and consolidated nation that understands it is not Russia, but how do they achieve that?

I think they've already they've already achieved it.

And the only way they can lose it is if we don't give them the cooperation.

That's what they're willing to fight about here.

They're willing if they're willing to fight for it.

And I think Europe will step up.

And Europe has most of that 300 billion of Russian aid, which they can with as they can access.

And then the question is whether the whether the Trump administration will deny Ukraine and Europe the ability to buy US weapons, which is in the economic interests of the United States, to, to sell, to sell to Ukraine.

But really, the question about the Ukrainian future, because of this consolidation that has occurred over 35 years and the lack of knowledge about who Ukrainians are and the lack of knowledge about the fact that Ukrainians, in the end, determine their own destiny, they were the ones who unseated and a president, a Yanukovych who was tilting towards Russia.

They're the ones who defended their democracy in the Orange Revolution with mass protests that lasted over a month.

They're the ones who have gone into the front since 2014 and fought a war with very little Western support at the very beginning, with very little Western support in the first months.

But we're only when they show that they could, you know, kick butt and they force the Russians out of major territories, ran rings around them.

Did the West come in with, with massive and, and substantial, assistance?

So I think and the most important thing is because of this consolidation, because the country is unified around preserving a state based on a Ukrainian identity, a European orientation, and personal and political liberties.

No matter who is the president, whether it's Zelensky or generals illusionary, the former commander of Ukrainian forces, who is the only other candidate who leads him in many polls?

Or is running close to him in polls.

There will not be a change in the orientation because Ukraine is sensitive to the will of its people.

You also have to understand that Russia took the territories that were the least nationally conscious and separated, but there's still have to be fair elections in in Ukraine, in Ukraine.

Yeah.

If there are, if and when the next elections.

Yeah.

But they won't be in Russian controlled territory.

Right.

But will Russia you're not you don't seem worried that Russia's going to have a hand in intervening and control.

Look, Russia may have an idea that 10 or 15 years down the line, Georgians were very anti-Russian.

After they took a swath of their territory in 2007. you know, maybe maybe, they're thinking that the same phenomenon could happen in Moldova after years after a breakaway part of Moldova, a pro-Russian party was alternating power.

Maybe Russia thinks they can claw their way back to that.

But I think that's in the distant future.

Public opinion is completely consolidated.

They want a Ukrainian state.

They don't want they're ready for peace, a peace settlement, but they're not ready to settle for peacefully reclaiming their former territories.

That's where Ukrainians are at.

And I'm down to our last minute here.

I've got several emails.

Michael is one of them asking if things would have been different if.

And this is a common refrain you get if Ukraine hadn't willingly given up their nuclear weapons, can you do a 42nd history of that?

What we should know about that?

Well, Ukraine had difficulty using those nuclear weapons because the codes and control for some of the levers were in Russia.

But yes, they had the technological means to retain nuclear power.

And oddly enough, a guy, John Mearsheimer, who offered criticizes U.S. policy.

He wrote an article in early in the early 90s arguing that Ukraine should retain its nuclear deterrent.

The NATO guy wrote that in the early 90s, exactly.

So he has a consistent position that.

But no, you can no NATO for Ukraine, but Ukraine with nuclear weapons.

I'm going to hear the music in a second.

But but is it a fair narrative when people say, well, Ukraine sacrificed their nuclear weapons?

No.

Ukraine was given assurances by the United States.

That's true nuclear, other nuclear powers.

And that's why we owe our responsibility to Ukraine, because they did the the right thing that the West asked them to do.

Doctor Stone tonight let people know where they should be.

It's 730 this evening at the University of Rochester.

Gergen Hall, 101. and our guest, Adrienne Kirk Natsuki, will be talking about his book and the current situation in Ukraine.

Well, we just scratched the surface.

So I think you ought to be there tonight at 730.

But I want to thank Randy for reaching out and helping bring this conversation.

Will you come back soon?

Unfortunately, there's a lot to talk about when you come back soon.

I'll be back.

Evan, good to talk with you.

Thank you very much, doctor Stone.

Adrienne, great to meet you.

A pleasure.

Thank you very much.

Adrienne.

It's and the book is Battleground Ukraine very accessible to anybody who wants to better understand what's going on now and in the country's history.

More connections coming up.

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