Hello and welcome to the forecast.
So Ukraine has agreed to a 30 day ceasefire, the American
defence and intelligence is flowing again into Ukrainian
defence forces and everyone is waiting to see what Vladimir
Putin does. The phrase everyone is using
from Washington to London to European capitals is the ball is
in the Russian court. But what's likely to happen?
What's it likely to mean? And will a ceasefire lead to a
peace? Joining me from Kiev, the
Ukrainian capital, our international editor, Lindsay
Hills. Lindsay, there's there's lots
that's confusing about this in that you would have thought in
the past that if the Ukrainians were told to freeze the lines,
having lost 20% of their territory, they would throw
their hands up in horror. Yet they seem to be pleased at
this. Can can you explain what people
are thinking and saying? The most important thing about
this is the rapprochement between UK, Ukraine and the
United States. That is what this is all about
because after that disastrous meeting in the Oval Office
between President Zelensky and President Trump, and then the
way that the US cut off intelligence and military aid to
Ukraine, the Ukrainians knew that they had to scramble to get
back into the Americans good books.
And that is what this shows. Because the fact that there was
a joint statement by Ukraine and the US saying they both agreed
that there should be this 30 day ceasefire and that it was now up
to the Russians to reciprocate and up to the Americans to get
the Russians to agree to it. That in the cliche that Marco
Rubio used puts the ball in the Russians court.
And that is exactly where the Ukrainians want it to be at the
moment. Do you think the Ukrainians
think this process is actually going to lead to a ceasefire?
I think that they're not quite sure.
What they want is for it to become clear to the Americans
that Russia is the obstacle, not them.
That is how they see it. They say, look, we want an end
to this war, but we have various terms, one of which is we want
our country back. We want our sovereignty.
We want our children back, the children who were abducted by
the Russians and are being brought up in Russia under
Russian rather than Ukrainian names.
We want our prisoners of war back.
There are all sorts of things that they want.
But yes, they too want an end to the war.
Whereas they think that President Trump has
misunderstood the situation. And this is, of course, what
President Zelensky was trying to explain in the Oval Office,
which went so disastrously wrong.
They think that what the Americans need to understand is
that the problem is Russia and the fact that Russia wants to
control Ukraine and not to allow it to have its own sovereignty.
So that is what they are hoping, that this will lead to, a
clarifying moment that I think they think is more likely than a
ceasefire, at least one which might endure.
From the Trump point of view, they will portray this as a
enormous victory for Trump thinking because they will say,
well, the trouble with the Ukrainians was they didn't
really want peace. They weren't serious about
peace. That's what that showdown in the
Oval Office revealed and that we needed to bring them to heel by
showing them just how tough we were.
And now they have changed their minds and they are serious about
peace. And that's why we can re engage.
Do you think there has been any change in Ukrainian thinking
since that disastrous meeting in the Oval Office?
I mean, did it work in any way from the Trump point of view?
Well, there's certainly been a change in thinking in terms of
understanding how to deal with this American administration.
Absolutely. They totally realised that the
way they were trying to deal with the administration,
particularly at the highest level, was a disaster and and
would not work at all. Now in terms of what they
actually want for Ukraine, which is an enduring peace with
security guarantees, which will stop the Russians coming back
and distorting Ukrainian politics, controlling Ukraine,
making demands to keep Ukrainian territory, none of that has
changed. But how you get to where they
want to go and how you handle this administration, that has
completely changed. And in the short term, I suppose
you could say that the what should we call it, the Trump
Doctrine has worked because they are working alongside the
Americans now. And they are also extremely
relieved that the Americans have agreed to switch back on the
intelligence, including the including the Max, our satellite
system, and get military aid back on back on track again.
I suppose what I mean is, you know, the, the, the balls Trump
analysis is they didn't want peace.
They weren't prepared to compromise.
Now they are. Is that a change that has really
happened, or did Ukraine always know that in the final analysis,
there would be a compromise on territory?
We are nowhere near that. And that again, I think is one
of the things which was misunderstood when when
President Zelensky said to the Europeans that the end of the
war is a long way off. And President Trump was furious
about that because he wants to think that the end of the war is
going to happen very quickly because that's what he decrees,
you know, as if he had a magic wand and say, woof, it's all
over. The Ukrainians understand very
well that a 30 day ceasefire, even if it were to happen, is
really not a lot. Both sides actually would rather
like a 30 day ceasefire. I think give the soldiers a bit
of a rest, you know, and then you can get preparing and
planning for the further fighting that's to come during
the fighting season, which is in the spring.
It hasn't changed anything on what the Ukrainians want in the
long term. Now, there are a lot of people
within the Ukrainian government and military who know that they
are not going to be able to get the territory back at the moment
under the Ukrainian constitution.
They are not going to and they cannot give away the territory
and say that belongs to Russia now.
But it's perfectly possible to say, OK, the lines stop here,
it's frozen, but that is still our territory and we'll get it
back one day. But of course, what the Russians
are demanding is far more than that.
They're saying they want a lot of territory which they don't
control at the moment. I mean, there's even reports
that they're saying that they want Odessa, they're trying to
take as much as possible, and those are aligned.
You know, they have maximalist demands.
So the Ukrainians understand perfectly well that any kind of
negotiation over a longer term peace is a very, very long and
complex thing. It's not just a 30 day
ceasefire. Now, from the Russian point of
view, you know, there's a question as to why they why they
would go along with this beyond the 30 day ceasefire.
As you say, they may well say, well, the 30 day pause is quite
useful for us, but but right now, particularly in the cursed
region, they're doing pretty well.
So, so, So what? What is in it for them to settle
at this stage? Yeah, I think there's short,
medium and long term. In the short term, I suspect
that the Russians might try and spin this out for quite a while.
I mean, they've said, you know, that they need to have a direct
term contact with the White House before they're going to
make any answer on this. And I think we're going to, you
know, see quite a bit of backwards and forwards because
in the coming days they are pushing the Ukrainians very hard
out of curse, which is this small bit of Russian territory
that the Ukrainians moved into and held part of since last
summer. And it's.
There, a big bargaining chip isn't.
It yeah, it's a bargaining chip for the Ukrainians and I suspect
it's a bargaining chip that they may soon lose because they are
retreating and everyday we hear about more about the about the
the Ukrainians having to to retreat.
So it may be that that gets spun out.
But then if you look in the medium term, the Russians are
losing a lot of soldiers, a lot of people.
And, you know, there's a question of how much longer they
can carry on doing that for. And they are you losing a lot of
equipment because the Ukrainians are in a defensive position at
the moment and the Russians are trying to move forward.
And when you're trying to move forward and when you're being
proactive in that way, you often do have greater losses than the
other side, which is just trying to hold the line.
So in the medium term, I think some kind of ceasefire is quite
useful for the Russians because they can use that to regroup, to
get their weapons manufacture up.
Maybe they would like to bring in and train more soldiers from
other countries they've already got in ones from North Korea.
So all of that, a pause in that way will be very helpful to the
Russians. And in the long term, the issue
of what are the Russians war aims, and this I think is where
certainly President Trump appears to have not accepted or
understood the war aim of Russia is to control Ukraine.
That is what they want to do. Now, they have various ways of
doing that. Militarily is one way.
Politically is another way. So if they succeed in persuading
President Trump that what Ukraine has to do is have
elections six months after a ceasefire, there's all sorts of
mischief they can do. The presidential election is one
thing. What about local elections,
Local elections in the territories they control, Local
elections in the territories which are border where they
control. It's all sorts of possibilities
of bribing people and interfering and turning
Ukrainians against each other. Because, you know, elections are
always competitive, aren't they? And then you're not all fighting
Russia, you're fighting each other.
These are the kind of things that the Russians want to do.
They want some kind of settlement that enables them to
have power over Ukraine. That is their long term goal.
I mean, you say that Putin is likely to string this out for a
few days at least and that there'll be a negotiation over
the ceasefire. What are his options beyond
that? Well, his options are what they
always are, to go into a negotiation where he has the
advantage and where he will use every KGB trick in the book.
And I've spoken to people who've negotiated, been on the
Ukrainian side negotiating the Minsk accords.
And, you know, everything is down to the last detail that
they'll, the Russians will suddenly come in and say, we're
going to spend a whole day negotiating the 100mm cannon.
And then they will say, and then we're going to do this, then
we're going to do that. And then suddenly they come in
with 100 pages that you've got assigned tonight before you go
back. So they do all of that, that
stuff, all of the, the time. They make it very, very
difficult. And they, they have lots of
lawyers and they have, you know, they have incredibly skilled
negotiators. And one of the things I think is
very, which maybe President Trump hasn't sort of seen in
that way is President Trump is a fairly blunt instrument.
Either there's fighting or there's no, no fighting.
That's all he cares about. He doesn't care about the
detail. Vladimir Putin cares about every
single detail and will try and make sure that in any
negotiation every single detail is to Russia's advantage.
So that, I think is what he is likely to do.
And Trump can't do to Russia what he did to Ukraine, can he
in in reality, which is to get furious and throw his weight
around and insult them. That is not how he deals with
Russia and it is not how he deals with Vladimir Putin.
However, he could put on more sanctions.
And the other thing which maybe would we can put him more than
anything else would be if the price of oil went down.
Now, President Biden tried to make that happen with his
negotiations with Saudi Arabia. The Saudis told them they
weren't going to do that. President Trump, you know, it
would be to his advantage in some ways if the price of oil
came right down, partly because it would be very good for
inflation in America. But it would also mean that the
Russians had very, very little money because they are entirely
dependent on oil, on the shadow fleet, which, you know, takes
their sanctioned oil around the world.
So if he wanted to, President Trump could try and push that
angle and that might make a difference.
It's it's worth then talking about the European position
which remains, that they are prepared to send peacekeepers or
Britain and France's position at least.
And others are are considering it, which is looking
increasingly daft, frankly, because Russia's not going to
accept it. Yeah.
And and it never was. The whole talk about
peacekeepers is pushing the cart before the horse because there
is no peace to keep. And certainly one of Russia's
main concerns is NATO and they want Ukraine as a buffer zone, a
neutral buffer zone under their their sway between them and
NATO. If you bring in British and
French forces who control who are going right up to the
Russian border, then NATO's right on their border.
That's done exactly the opposite of what they what they want.
So it's very hard to see how that kind of peacekeeping force
could ever be acceptable to the Russians.
Yes. And and so it also makes you
wonder whether Russia is considering the wider diplomatic
victory that it can possibly see, because even if Donald
Trump is back on Ukraine's side today, I'm guessing nobody in
Ukraine feels that they can rely on that.
There's a lesson that for, you know, there for all the other
American partners, which is that you cannot rely on Washington
really to be a, a sort of a steady security partner in the
future. And it's very difficult to see
how that comes back anytime soon, even beyond the Trump
period, because, you know, the the Trump ideology could return
in the form of JD Vance or somebody else in the future.
So there is serious damage to the whole question of Western
security stability. And that's an enormous victory
for Russia in the longer term. Absolutely.
The other thing, the Russians obviously want the far right
parties in Europe to succeed and you know, increase their their
influence and so on. So you look at my Le Pen in
France and you know she had loans from Russia at one point.
This came out in a in a court case, even though she did deny
it. The Afd in Germany, all of these
various parties, they will continue to try and exert as
much influence as they can within the European political
system as well as they are doing in in Ukraine.
So, yeah, none of that is going to change.
And from the Ukrainian point to view, Europe becomes ever more
important. And I think that the issue about
weapons is very important because, you know, we talk about
the American weapons, which have been so useful to Ukraine.
But at the same time, Ukraine has been developing its own
weapons industry. It now produces 40% of the
weaponry that it uses on the battlefield.
A lot of that is very high tech drones.
Ukraine is ahead of almost anywhere else in the world in
the use of high tech drones, all sorts of extraordinary things
that drones couldn't do before this war started.
So the technology they are developing is also going to be
very useful for Europe as it spends more and more on defence
and actually, you know, it would be useful for the Americans as
well. It's hard to know whether
they're going to whether they're going to the bite on that, but
Ukraine has an opportunity to integrate its defence production
with Europe, which would strengthen Europe and Ukraine
and that could leave America on the side.
Just to come back to the question of security guarantees,
this is something that has dominated the conversation for
weeks now. And I think, you know, the the
Trump side have been saying, look, don't get ahead of
yourself when it comes to security guarantees.
Security guarantees may be the final part of the jigsaw once
we're at negotiating stage. And from the Russian point of
view, as you, as you've laid out, there can't really be the
kind of security guarantee that Ukraine wants because there's no
way that Russia will accept NATO troops on its border of any
kind. So the security guarantee is
going to have to be something different, isn't it?
And and not what we're talking about at the moment.
Yeah. And I don't know what that's
going to be. You know, if I did, I'd, you
know, probably be in charge of a small country somewhere in
Europe. But the point is, is because the
Ukrainians have this long experience of negotiating with
the Russians. So after the Russian invasion
and annexing of Crimea in 2014, as you'll remember, you had a
lot of rounds of peace negotiations in Minsk, the
capital of Belarus, Minsk 1, Minsk 2, all of these
negotiations and you had a ceasefire which both sides
actually violated, but particularly the Russians.
But the whole point about Minsk was the security guarantees
didn't work. And that's why Russia was able
to come back for for more. And that is the great concern of
the Ukrainians and that is what the Russian, the Russians want
to leave that open. So even if they do do a deal,
they want to leave that open that they come can come back for
for more at some point. The other thing which I think is
really difficult for the Ukrainians and this again is a
longer term thing, is that if you leave this as a frozen
conflict, you're not going to get something like, for example,
you have in North and South Korea where South Korea was, you
know, has been able to to blossom and to develop
economically and so on, even though it has never had a formal
ceasefire with the North because the North, you know, it frankly
hasn't interfered. I mean, it might, you know,
there might be occasional raids and so on, but but it hasn't.
And that's because China doesn't want it to.
But here what you might get would be a diminished and
diminishing country. You've already got a lot of
Ukrainians who are living overseas.
There's a demographic crisis. One of the reasons that Zelensky
has not called for a full scale mobilization of men under the
age of 25 is that they're really worried about destroying that
generation of there being no men left and the women having left
the country. And then the population getting
smaller and smaller and smaller and always having this massive
threat to the east so that Ukraine in the end sort of
dwindles away. These are the long term fears
that Ukraine has. Of course there are NATO troops
on Russia's border already in a way, aren't there with with
Finland. Why does Russia tolerate that?
Yeah, Finland, the Baltic States and so on.
The reason it tolerates that and it doesn't tolerate Ukraine is
because it sees Ukraine as part of Russia.
It has a different attitude to Ukraine.
It does not see Ukraine as an independent country in any way.
But also there are many who say, well, after Ukraine, it would
like to move that way too. Finland they can't do anything
about but that they've got their eye on the Baltic states.
And certainly if you talk to any of the Baltic state leaders,
what they will say to you is after Ukraine we are in the
firing line and that is why we are so supportive of Ukraine.
They certainly think that Ukrainian soldiers are dying,
not just for Ukraine's independence, but for theirs as
well. Now, just finally, there's going
to be a temptation for people to have a look at the way we've
been thinking about Donald Trump and say, well, you know what?
He, he's the one who does make the difference.
And for all the chaos and for all the confusion, he has got
one side to agree to a ceasefire.
And who knows, he may get Russia to agree to a 30 day ceasefire
as well, whether or not it actually happens in in fact.
So. So what do we make, then, of
whether the world has been too quick to judge Trump as a man
who doesn't understand the way things are, when the facts on
the ground might show he's the one who's actually making a
difference? Well, the one thing he said,
which is absolutely true is that too many people are dying in
this war and too many, you know, soldiers on both sides are
losing their their lives. Of that he is absolutely right.
And I think that what he has done in trying to push some of
this through, yeah, you can say that this is not all bad.
In many ways this is positive. A ceasefire would be great.
The issue is what happens after a ceasefire.
And that, I think, is the problem because from the
Ukrainian point of view is this. If the ceasefire just enables
Russia to rearm, regroup and then come back for more, maybe
in a year's time, maybe after Donald Trump is no longer in
office, then that hasn't solved the problem in any way.
It has just delayed the the problem.
And so that, I think, is the key.
There are some things he has understood and he has pushed
through. And you cannot say that it's a
bad idea to stop the killing. Of course you can't.
But if it just makes Russia stronger and so there's more
killing later on, and Ukraine gets swallowed up, then maybe
Donald Trump wouldn't look like such a brilliant thing after
all. Lindsay Hilson, thank you very
much indeed. That's the forecast for this
morning. Until next time, bye bye.