Matthew Luxmore
Appearances
Today, Explained
Vatever you vant, Vladimir
It all started around a week ago last Wednesday when, firstly, Trump's new defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, announced, quite surprisingly, that NATO membership for Ukraine is off the table.
Today, Explained
Vatever you vant, Vladimir
He later walked back some of those comments, but it's been quite a clear line for the Trump administration ever since. And then the same day, Trump announced that he had had a phone call with Russia's president, Vladimir Putin.
Today, Explained
Vatever you vant, Vladimir
Essentially bringing the Kremlin leader in from the cold after three years of isolation by Biden's administration. And then in a press conference, You know, batting away criticism from reporters, he said that the only way to fix this is to start with talks directly with Russia.
Today, Explained
Vatever you vant, Vladimir
And he announced that a meeting would take place in Saudi Arabia. between the U.S. side and the Russian side, which of course left the Europeans and the Ukrainians, most importantly, scrambling for a response since they had thought all along that they would be key players in any negotiation over the end of this war.
Today, Explained
Vatever you vant, Vladimir
Well, it's very unclear at this stage. Of course, we had this meeting between the US and the Russian side in Saudi Arabia. Trump has all along said that the war must be ended, that Ukraine is a huge killing field, many lives being lost, which is all correct. But he's driving towards a peace without really explaining how this peace would be negotiated.
Today, Explained
Vatever you vant, Vladimir
The main problem is that Russia's position and Ukraine's position completely don't overlap. Ukraine, until recently, was saying that it's going to regain at least a large part of the land that it lost. Russia was saying that it's going to keep all the territory that it's taken, and it's been calling for a complete disarmament of Ukraine and a kind of neutered
Today, Explained
Vatever you vant, Vladimir
neutral version of Ukraine that is not allowed to participate in any international military coalitions and would certainly not be a member of NATO, which is a key aspiration for Ukraine written into its constitution. So Trump, of course, is talking a good game about fixing this war. He's met with the Russian side
Today, Explained
Vatever you vant, Vladimir
Ukraine says there's going to be no deal that it accepts unless it's involved directly in negotiations. So I think we're very short on the specifics at the moment. All we know at this stage is that talks have begun and presumably Ukraine will be involved in those talks soon when, you know, all sides come to the table. But it's very unclear whether the Europeans will be.
Today, Explained
Vatever you vant, Vladimir
Yes, Trump and members of his team have suggested that the Europeans will not be at the table.
Today, Explained
Vatever you vant, Vladimir
Even though, of course, it's the continent that sits closest to Ukraine that will be directly impacted by whatever peace deal is made over Ukraine. But they cannot agree on the specifics of what their version of a peace deal would be.
Today, Explained
Vatever you vant, Vladimir
And this is one of the things that Trump's team has expressed very publicly, that Europe is divided and there is no cohesive narrative in Europe about how to end this war.
Today, Explained
Vatever you vant, Vladimir
Well, yeah, of course, here in Europe, in Ukraine as well, people have been quite shocked by statements made by Trump on Tuesday suggesting that Ukraine had started the war.
Today, Explained
Vatever you vant, Vladimir
Which, of course, is not the case. Three years ago, Russia sent hundreds of thousands of troops over the border into Ukraine and tanks and armored vehicles. and planes in a full scale invasion of the country. So this is obviously ruffled feathers in Ukraine.
Today, Explained
Vatever you vant, Vladimir
And there is very broadly a sense that the Trump administration, if it doesn't outright favor the Russian narrative on things, it seems at least to be sympathetic to it in a way that was almost impossible to expect from a US government a year ago when Biden was in power.
Today, Explained
Vatever you vant, Vladimir
Yeah, I mean, there's the transactional nature of Trump's approach to this conflict, of course. There's also the statements that you referenced that have been made publicly by members of his team, which to anyone in Ukraine sound very much like the statements that Russian officials have made since the war started.
Today, Explained
Vatever you vant, Vladimir
So people are very, very concerned that, you know, Russia has swayed the Trump administration.
Today, Explained
Vatever you vant, Vladimir
It suggests that there should be more truth coming from the Trump administration. As far as the kind of transactional nature of all this is concerned, the U.S. position is that it has sent billions of dollars in military and financial aid to back Ukraine since the war started, as have the Europeans, of course. and that the US side deserves to have something back.
Today, Explained
Vatever you vant, Vladimir
And it will give no more, as Trump puts it, aid for nothing to Ukraine. It wants something in exchange. And one of the things it wants in exchange is access to these so-called rare earths in Ukraine, mineral resources that Ukraine has in abundance, many of which are on Russian-occupied territory and very, very difficult to dig out of the ground.
Today, Explained
Vatever you vant, Vladimir
But it's one of the ways in which Trump is saying that Ukraine needs to pay the U.S. side back for the help that it's supporting and basically keeping Ukraine as a sovereign state. It's quite an incredible turnaround from the situation a year ago. Ukraine kind of scuffling with Ukraine
Today, Explained
Vatever you vant, Vladimir
the country that has been instrumental in keeping it alive, essentially keeping it surviving over the past three years since Russia invaded.
Today, Explained
Vatever you vant, Vladimir
I think it's kind of a mixture between defiance, resignation, caution over what this all means. When you walk the streets of Kyiv today, I think you definitely do sense this kind of tension, this mood of experiencing a calm before the storm. And Zelensky, the president, he, since the beginning of the war, has been recording each evening a video address to the people
Today, Explained
Vatever you vant, Vladimir
And this week, he's suddenly kind of stopped recording these addresses. Now, maybe this is not something that we need to read too much into, but some people, I think, almost feel like things are more unstable than they used to be and that Zelensky does appear to be flustered and frustrated because I think he's struggling to understand how to respond to this whole situation.