--:-- [Sound of music plays]
--:-- Noel King: The first time Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky met President Trump in the White House, it didn't go well.
--:-- Noel King: During the war, everybody has problems. Even you, but you have nice ocean and don't feel now, but you will feel it in the future. God bless. You don't know that. God bless. God bless. You will not have the war. Don't tell us what we're going to feel.
--:-- Noel King: Today, Zelensky visits again. This time, seven European leaders are coming too. Why the show of force? They're not coming here tomorrow to keep Zelensky from being bullied.
--:-- Noel King: Oh, OK. Over the course of just another manic Monday at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, President Trump will meet Zelensky and company to try to settle Russia's war in Ukraine. And on Today Explained from Vox, we're going to tell you what to keep an eye on.
--:-- Noel King: J.D. Vance. Keep an eye on J.D. Vance.
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--:-- Noel King: Сегодня и что оно означает. This is Today Explained.
--:-- Noel King: President Trump went into his Alaska summit with Vladimir Putin on Friday saying he wanted a ceasefire. But when that meeting ended a few hours later, he changed his mind.
--:-- Noel King: To find out why, we called Julia Yoffe. She's a founding partner of Puck. She's a longtime Russia hand, and she's author of the book Motherland about Russian women.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: I think what ended up happening is that for all of Donald Trump's insistence that he is the dealmaker in chief, he was going in against a much savvier, much more seasoned opponent.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: The current administration, which, as everyone knows, is making, in my opinion, quite energetic and sincere efforts to stop hostilities, stop the crisis.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: And he was going in thinking, oh, we're kind of friends. We get each other. We get along. There's a good respect level on both sides.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: And I think, you know, something's going to come of it.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: I notice he's bringing a lot of business people from Russia.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: Whereas Vladimir Putin certainly does not see Donald Trump that way.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: And there was basically a bait and switch.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: I think Vladimir Putin told him, look, you can get a ceasefire now, but those things fall apart all the time.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: Not mentioning, of course, that usually it's Russia violating the many ceasefires that over the last 11 years have been implemented in Ukraine since Russia first invaded in 2014.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: And said, look, we could get a much bigger peace deal, bigger deal, end the whole war, big, big peace deal.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: And I think, I'm guessing that Donald Trump fell for the much shinier object, not realizing that the Russians aren't just going to agree to it like that with a snap of the fingers.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: They love getting in the weeds. They love dragging things out diplomatically.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: So I don't know that Donald Trump realizes that this is going to take a long, long time and that he gave Putin kind of exactly what he wanted, which is a legitimization of his maximalist demands, a walking away from a ceasefire that would freeze Russia's momentum on the front and give Ukraine some time to breathe and regroup and allow its citizens to stop being killed in their homes, at least temporarily, in favor of this receding horizon, which was the thing that Donald Trump got so frustrated to begin with.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: Let's go toward the outlines of the deal.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: So So Trump goes in saying, we want a ceasefire.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: He comes out saying, we don't want a ceasefire, which, as you point out, is the same thing that Putin has said.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: No, no, you don't need a ceasefire.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: What is on the table here? What seems is on the table is Ukraine having to give up control of the Donetsk and Luhansk territories, which Russia has, by the way, not been able to capture militarily, despite trying to actively since 2014.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: In exchange, Russia would give up the little pieces of the Sumer and Kharkiv regions that it holds.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: Apparently on the table is formal U.S. recognition of Crimea as Russian and a lifting of some at least U.S. sanctions and some kind of security guarantee for Ukraine that doesn't involve NATO membership.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: So kind of a forswearing of NATO membership for Ukraine in exchange for some kind of security guarantee.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: From the reporting I've seen, it seems that on the security guarantee, there's already kind of a poison pill put in place that the Russians told the Americans that they want China and Belarus and their own allies as part of as some of the parties guaranteeing Ukraine security.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: And you can just imagine that if they're two of the guarantors of Ukraine's security and Ukraine says, hey we were just attacked by Russia and China and Belarus have veto power and say no you And therefore the collective defense that promised in these security guarantees doesn kick in It's not much of a security guarantee at all.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: I want to talk about the way the administration is framing this.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: So Marco Rubio goes on ABC's This Week on Sunday, and he says progress was made, but he doesn't give any detail.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: Both sides are going to have to give and both sides should expect to get something from this.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: Steve Witkoff on CNN more or less said the same. We made so much progress at this meeting with regard to all the other ingredients necessary for a peace deal that President Trump pivoted to that place.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: Do we have a sense of what the administration means when it says progress?
--:-- Julia Yoffe: It is progress in the sense that they're talking.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: And it's progress in the sense that it's not just Ukraine and Russia are fighting.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: Nobody's coming to the table.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: And Putin and Zelensky are playing this game vis-a-vis Trump of trying to show Trump that the other guy's the problem.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: The other guy's the impediment to peace.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: You've now been in office for five months and five days.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: Why have you not been able to end the Ukraine war?
--:-- Julia Yoffe: Because it's more difficult than people would have any idea.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: Vladimir Putin has been more difficult.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: Frankly, I had some problems with Zelensky.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: You may have read about him.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: And Trump being frustrated with Putin and threatening him with sanctions.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: I don't have to say there will be very severe consequences.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: So it's progress from that.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: They're at least talking about something more productive in the sense that they're talking about some kind of actual peace settlement and the parameters of it.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: The question is, does it actually lead to an end in the fighting and a kind of durable and just peace?
--:-- Julia Yoffe: Or will Ukraine be sold down the river?
--:-- Julia Yoffe: And this is obviously a thing that Ukraine was deeply concerned about.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: The big controversy over the summit was that Zelensky was not there.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: And then and then kind of came as a surprise.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: We hear that Zelensky will come to D.C.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: He will bring a handful, but a significant handful of European leaders with him.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: We're talking before he and Trump meet this afternoon.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: But what do you think Zelensky is coming to Washington for?
--:-- Julia Yoffe: I think Zelensky is coming to Washington to make sure that he has heard that Ukraine's interests are taken into account.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: Because from the very beginning, from the fall and winter of 2021-2022, Putin has been insisting that Ukraine does not need to be at the table, that the two big guys, Russia and the U.S., can just negotiate over Ukraine's head, carve things up, and settle it between the two of them, right?
--:-- Julia Yoffe: Because Russia does not see Ukraine as a serious country.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: It sees it as a kind of vassal of the U.S. that actually should be part of Russia.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: That now I think Zelensky is coming to Washington to make sure that he's heard, to make sure that Putin and Trump don't decide something about Ukraine without Ukraine, without hearing that the security guarantees need to be real without this kind of poison pill, to make sure that this territory isn't just given away for nothing.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: Because remember, you know, he is the president of Ukraine, and he is responsible to the Ukrainian people.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: And we've seen what happens in territories that Russia captures from Ukraine.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: People are disappeared, tortured, killed.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: These places become, you know, that Russian government sends in its vast repressive apparatus, and also its corruption.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: These are not pleasant places for people to live once Russia takes over.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: And, you know, in ceding control of these territories, they're also leaving their own people behind.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: I think that's also very important to understand.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: At the end of the day, do you think the summit between Trump and Putin in Alaska was a win for Russia, a win for Trump?
--:-- Julia Yoffe: Who came out of that the victor?
--:-- Julia Yoffe: The Russian leader, much like the American president, sees things as a zero-sum game.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: And so if one side is winning, then the other side must be losing.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: And Friday's summit in Anchorage was definitely a win for Putin.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: I mean, it's one thing to invite him and welcome him onto American soil.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: It's another to see it, to see the Russian presidential jet land, to see uniformed American troops literally on their hands and knees rolling out a red carpet for a man who has an ICC warrant out for his arrest for war crimes.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: OK, it's another thing for Trump to talk about Putin glowingly.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: It's another for him to clap for him as he stands there and waits on the red carpet.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: Then at the press conference, Putin spoke first, which apparently took White House staff and the press that was there by surprise.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: And this was very much like Putin spoke first because the boss speaks first.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: It was a very weird moment.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: And he didn't give Trump what he wanted.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: He was able to trick him onto his own side and get him to take his position without Trump getting much of anything.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: I think it was, frankly, pretty embarrassing.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: And given the coverage of it on Russian state media and in loyalist telegram channels, I think the Russians certainly see it as a win for Vladimir Putin.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: It's also an unforced error.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: Trump didn't have to do this.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: He didn't have to invite Putin.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: He didn't have to set the expectations this high.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: I mean, Putin himself has warned him.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: He said when Trump was talking about how disappointed he was in Putin, Putin offered a kind of offhand remark without naming Trump.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: He said, you know, disappointment comes from inflated expectations.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: This was a failure of Trump's own making.
--:-- Julia Yoffe: It was completely unforced and unprovoked, and it didn't have to be this way.
--:-- Noel King: Julia Yoffe of Puck, her book is Motherland. Thanks, Julia.
--:-- Noel King: Coming up, Europe sends its A to Washington.
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--:-- Noel King: This is Today Explained.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: I'm Oliver Carroll. I'm the Kiev correspondent for The Economist.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: All right. So Volodymyr Zelensky is in Washington today.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: You are in Kiev where he normally is.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: What's it like in Kiev right now?
--:-- Oliver Carroll: Is everyone talking about this?
--:-- Oliver Carroll: So, you know, nearly four years of war has put the population into a certain rhythm and it's been heightened by the ups and downs of Trump.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: And that rhythm is basically what I would call survival.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: The most sort of popular psychologist in these parts is Viktor Frankl, the famous Holocaust survivor, whose basic treaties was about focusing on the day, not looking too far ahead and not being too despondent about the possibilities.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: So in Kiev right now, there is a real worry.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: It took a little while to filter through.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: But at the same time, you know, this war has been going on for nearly four years.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: And there is a sense among the population and among the politicians that it can't go on for much longer.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: Obviously, they want a peace on reasonable terms.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: But they're seeing, you know, the outlines of something, although at the moment a lot of the most recent news goes against Ukraine's interest.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: I was talking to a contact yesterday and he talked about the idea of this being like the film Speed.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: So everything is very dynamic.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: There is a sense things are speeding up, but the worry is that the bus has gone out of control.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: All right. So we hear the news that Zelensky is coming to D.C.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: And then we hear that like half of the important people in Europe are also coming with him.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: Who else is going to be in Washington this week?
--:-- Oliver Carroll: Right. So this this is perhaps the most surprising thing is that, you know, after being invited to Washington, And the thing in everyone's memory is what happened in February when essentially Volodymyr Zelensky was attacked left, right and center.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: And he obviously took the bait to a certain extent.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: But there is a real desire to avoid that kind of scene.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: You're not in a good position. You don't have the cards right now.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: With us, you start having cards.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: You're playing cards.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: You're playing cards.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: You're gambling with the lives of millions of people.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: You're gambling with World War III.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: You're gambling with World War III.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: And what you said, they should have.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: Have you said thank you once this entire meeting?
--:-- Oliver Carroll: No, in this entire meeting, have you said thank you?
--:-- Oliver Carroll: So what's happening is he's coming with several other European leaders from the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to the head of NATO, Mark Reuter, to British Prime Minister, Kier Starmer, Macron, Maloney.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: It really is the list of everyone who has been supporting Ukraine.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: So it is to a certain extent to make sure that that kind of visual, that optic in which only Vladimir Putin wins isn't repeated.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: But at the same time, it is a show of European muscle.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: The bottom line is that Europe, wider Europe, has in fact provided far more support to Ukraine than the US.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: In fact, in early 2025, Europe had overtaken the US in military aid contributions alone.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: And that isn't including, of course, the macroeconomic and the humanitarian aid.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: And though the US is taking a lead in making some of the decisions and some of the calls on what will happen in Ukraine and in Europe, It's ultimately Europe which will be funding the bill.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: Now, one thing that has come up time and again throughout this war is that the United States is separated from Russia by a nice ocean and that much of Europe is in fact not.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: So tell me in addition to funding the war what is at stake for Europe as Russia you know continues this war in Ukraine
--:-- Oliver Carroll: I mean obviously the narrative of recent days has been of course that Alaska is very close to Russia But let's put that aside.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: Recent years, in fact, the last decade or so, maybe.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: Indeed, indeed.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: They're our next door neighbors.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: And you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: And I can see Russia from my house.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: I mean, you know, of course, this is a problem on Europe's doorstep.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: And this is a problem in the first instance, which is threatening the European post-Cold War order.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: And clearly, the immediate threats to security will be felt by the countries with immediately neighboring Ukraine.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: And it's no coincidence that these states have been the ones leading the charge to arm and defend Ukraine from the start.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: Poland, the Baltic states, and so on.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: Now, there is a question as to whether, you know, the Russians are in fact serious about a conflict with NATO in the long term.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: Right at the moment, they wouldn't really stand a chance.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: But it seems quite clear that five or six or seven years down the line, you know, the possibility of some kind of hybrid threats on the eastern flanks of Europe and NATO, that's a real possibility.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: So the fear is that even if the invasion, the war in Ukraine is settled, then Putin will be able to redirect his energies after all the lessons and all the efficiencies which he will have gained from this pretty bloody and tragic war, and then start to chip away at European defences.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: That's the fear.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: How realistic it is, I mean, I think probably we'll only be able to see in the future, whether it will be a strategy to essentially deflect the West's economic attention when perhaps Russia will be looking at different opportunities in the Middle East and so on and so forth.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: We don't know.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: But it's certainly a clear possibility.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: Does Europe, coming into these meetings today, does Europe trust the United States as an ally?
--:-- Oliver Carroll: We have done quite a few things in the last eight months that might be viewed as breeding or engendering mistrust.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: Where does the trust stand right now?
--:-- Oliver Carroll: Well, yeah, I think it really depends who in Europe you're speaking to.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: I mean, as far as the Brits are concerned, well, the policy is to engage wherever they can.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: And we still believe our security cooperation is the closest in the world.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: And that's certainly true on security intelligence contacts and so on.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: It's too close a relationship and it's too integrated a relationship not to try and embrace.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: And that's certainly the policy.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: And it's been shown to have some success.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: I mean, that view is not universal across Europe.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: There's a real sense of trepidation that the sort of policy approach, and it isn't a fragmented policy approach of the US White House, to put it mildly, some would say chaotic and completely absent.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: I'm trying to be politically correct here.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: But there is a sense that, you know, the Americans under the Trump administration, these aren't allies that we can really rely on.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: And of course, at the end of the day, there are real lives at stake here in Ukraine fighting a defensive war.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: When you ask Ukrainians what they make of President Trump saying, you know, there are more meetings to come and the Kremlin saying, look, we have red lines and we simply will not back down.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: And Ukraine saying, well, guess what? Neither will we.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: Are people there hopeful, civilians?
--:-- Oliver Carroll: Are they hopeful that this is coming to an end anytime soon?
--:-- Oliver Carroll: I mean, what is clear is the country is playing in different gears.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: There is one part of the country which is very committed to the war effort and without it, the war effort would stop.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: There are other parts of the country which are less committed and more ready to make concessions.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: What's cleared in general is that Mr. Zelensky is in a very difficult situation.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: If he agrees to everything that, you know, Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin appear to have scribbled down the back of a cigarette box, he will provoke a revolution or at least very fierce protests.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: He knows that.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: The Ukrainians will not be ready and it will not accept in broad, I would say 80-90% giving more Ukrainian territory without a very clear understanding of how that means the war would stop.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: So he has this on the one side, but at the same time, this is a man under extreme pressure.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: This is probably the nearest we've been to a peace deal since the beginning of the war and the Istanbul process.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: And certainly I understand that those people who are having contacts with the Russian side right now believe that these are the strongest signals the Russians have been sending, that now might be a good time to sort of try and find some points of interaction.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: So he has this sense that it might only be this window opportunity.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: It's open right now.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: It might not be open for long.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: And so this piece, if that is what it is, it might need to be seized right now.
--:-- Oliver Carroll: So it's a really tight, tight line he has to walk.
--:-- Noel King: Oliver Carroll is Kiev correspondent for leading magazine The Economist.
--:-- Noel King: Denise Guerra and Rebecca Ibarra produced today's show.
--:-- Noel King: Amina El-Sadi is our editor.
--:-- Noel King: Laura Bullard and Avishay Artsy checked the facts.
--:-- Noel King: Andrea Kristen's daughter is our only engineer.
--:-- Noel King: Patrick Boyd is here too.
--:-- Noel King: I'm Noelle King.
--:-- Noel King: It's Today Explained.
--:-- Noel King: Thank you.
--:-- [Sound of music fades out]
