The Ukraine War: What happens next?

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Speaker 9 From the BBC World Service, this is a special collaborative edition of the Global News Podcast with our colleagues from Ukrainecast.

Speaker 9 I'm Jackie Leonard, and in the studio we have Ukrainecast presenter Vitaly Shevchenko and our chief international correspondent Lise Dusset. And in Kiev we have James Waterhouse.

Speaker 9 We are recording this edition at 16 hours GMT on Friday the 7th of March. That's 1,108 days since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Speaker 9 Events are moving very fast and we'll be putting your questions to our experts and trying to unpick some of the issues that have come to the fore in the last week.

Speaker 9 Now, we want to get through as many questions as possible, so let's begin with Denise.

Speaker 11 Hi, my name is Denise and I'm from Auckland, New Zealand.

Speaker 11 I'm exploring worst-case scenarios, and my question and concern is: what happens if the US stops supporting Ukraine and eventually they will have no choice but to surrender to Russia?

Speaker 9 Now, for the last three years of war, America has been Ukraine's largest donor.

Speaker 9 The decision to freeze military aid follows that very public disagreement in the Oval Office between Volodymyr Zelensky, Donald Trump, and Vice President J.D. Vance.

Speaker 9 James, if we begin with you, what if the US never restarts its military support? Would a Ukraine surrender be the most likely outcome? Mr.

Speaker 1 Well, I mean, what any Ukrainian will tell you on a Kiev Street is that they would never surrender.

Speaker 1 I mean, the idea of sticking it down in weapons and allowing Russia to occupy, take over the country, install a puppet regime is, and has always has been, a non-starter.

Speaker 1 I think when you speak to those in military circles, it is accepted that Ukraine could probably fight on for months, maybe a little bit longer, but that is the reality, such as the quality and quantity of what America does provide.

Speaker 1 Now, it is true European allies as a whole have donated more military aid collectively than America, but when we're talking about American intelligence, its quality, the broad scope of it, we're talking about sophisticated long-range missiles like HIMARS, which have been pivotal for Ukraine's war effort.

Speaker 1 I think without that, and we saw this when there was that big disagreement in the US Congress about a military aid package for Ukraine, when that was delayed, Ukraine lost land and lives as a direct result.

Speaker 1 You know, the eastern town of Avdivka, it was a fortress at one point, it fell because you had Ukrainians, along with their own manpower issues, run out of kit and be forced from their positions.

Speaker 1 So I think rather than surrender, it may well deteriorate to a point where Ukraine would have to engage in a far less or an even less arguably favourable peace deal where they would have to, for example, meet Russia's continued demands that it would have a shrunk military, that President Zelensky would be forced from power, that any NATO talk would be paused completely, and that there would be no foreign troops in Ukraine.

Speaker 1 So things really would deteriorate. And even if Europe got its ducks in a row, increased defense spending, channelled more resources to Ukraine, it would likely not happen in time without America.

Speaker 9 Italy, what's your take?

Speaker 3 Well, there are different degrees of victory and surrender in this war.

Speaker 3 The extreme version of defeat for Ukraine would, of course, be if Russia were to capture all of its territory.

Speaker 3 However, I don't think this is realistic or even something that Vladimir Putin will be seeking because controlling that vast territory, that's going to be difficult.

Speaker 3 More realistic, he would be happier with controlling the four regions in Ukraine's southeast that Russia claims as its own, Donetsk, Glohans, Kerston, and Zaporizhia. Maybe a bit more.

Speaker 3 And the rest, it's not inconceivable to imagine a scenario where Putin would be happy for it to be run by a pliable Ukrainian government.

Speaker 3 After all, if we were to rewind history, this is how it was until, well, 2013-ish, 2014-ish, when Ukraine was perfectly happy to be in Russia's orbit, the moment Ukraine started looking westwards, Putin cut gas supplies to Ukraine, sent in troops.

Speaker 3 So that gives us an idea of what Vladimir Putin may realistically be seeking.

Speaker 9 And Lise, everything's been changing so quickly. Weapons already have been stopped from crossing the Polish border.
Intelligence is no longer being shared. What else can the US do to withdraw support?

Speaker 10 I think when you look at US military support to Ukraine, you have to look at it from a number of vantage points. One is the quantity of the weaponry that the United States is providing Ukraine.

Speaker 10 That Europe, even though Europe is providing a lot, in some cases more, it cannot double that to provide what the United States is doing.

Speaker 10 Secondly, it's the quality of what the United States, as the world's mightiest military power, is able to provide.

Speaker 10 We've already heard about intelligence being discontinued, which creates a huge problem for Ukraine. We've heard also of the HIMARS, those are multiple launch rocket systems.

Speaker 10 There's the ATACMs which are ballistic missiles with a range of 190 miles and there's howitzers as well.

Speaker 10 I know this is all military jargon but I would say Chaki one of the most important things for Ukraine is not just the physical material but the muscular, moral, political backing.

Speaker 10 That is what they feel. That's all that's going to deter Vladimir Putin.
Not British troops, not French. There has to be an American thumbprint of some kind.

Speaker 9 That brings us to our next question. Let's go to Alex in Shanghai.

Speaker 7 Hi, BBC Global Podcast Team. Big thanks for your excellent work.

Speaker 7 My question to you regarding the war in Ukraine is: in light of the US decision to suspend providing military aid, meaning no more attacks, I'm curious whether the UK, France, and Germany can supply Ukraine with sufficient ammunition of such kind to fill in the gap.

Speaker 7 Could you provide some insight into this? Thank you very much.

Speaker 9 And not just ammunition. Can Can Europe step in to fill the gap, Lise?

Speaker 10 No, not quickly. I remember last year, the EU foreign policy chief telling me with great frustration, our cupboards are bare, our manufacturing cannot keep up with

Speaker 10 the volume, the intensity of the warfare. I don't know what it is like now, but in some cases, coming down to their last bullet.

Speaker 10 I'll just tell you one story, one thing which is seared in memory is that

Speaker 10 I was in Ukraine when they were waiting for that more than sixty billion dollars that was held up by the United States.

Speaker 10 And I was really struck that everyone I spoke to, whether it was the guy serving coffee, the national security advisor, anyone I would meet anywhere would say to me, that's $60 billion we need it. It

Speaker 10 had so penetrated the thinking that every delay in American aid means an increase in lives lost and inches of territory that Russia is going to take.

Speaker 10 That's how consequential it was.

Speaker 9 And James, we've had questions from listeners, Angela and Wendy, about lead times on manufacturing weaponry.

Speaker 9 How long could this increased support from Europe, especially from Germany, take to get to Ukraine's front line?

Speaker 1 That is just unknown. What we've seen from European leaders, a lot of talk over the past week, a lot of pledges.

Speaker 1 I remember the European Union setting a target for manufacturing a million artillery shells in a year, and it missed that target.

Speaker 1 Whereas Russia can manufacture shells three times faster faster than the whole of Ukraine's Western allies combined. So

Speaker 1 just how Europe can ramp up its production in this way is the crucial question. But we have to imagine the war that Ukraine is fighting, weathering Russia's full-scale invasion.

Speaker 1 Lise mentioned that slowing of American aid last year. I mean, when you're on the front lines, the only artillery you could hear was from the Russian side.

Speaker 1 That's changed in some areas, but it's about suppressing fire.

Speaker 1 It's about targeting targeting supply routes to hinder the sort of relentless Russian assaults you see on so many parts of the front lines.

Speaker 1 And if Europe is likely to struggle to fill that gap, as America continues to pull the rug as part of this reckless negotiating strategy, there would be a lag. And I think you could see, I mean,

Speaker 1 the status quo is Ukraine's biggest enemy as well here, in that just because the map doesn't change much, just because the front lines move here or there

Speaker 1 in such a big country, that's not to say there couldn't be a catastrophic collapse at some point and Russia could break through and suddenly entire highways fall into Russian hands and cities start to

Speaker 1 sit nervously. So I think there would be a lag, but we just don't know yet what the lead time will be for the likes of Germany and the more hawkish UK and France to step up.

Speaker 3 The fact is that America's military machine is the biggest in the world with the furthest outreach when it comes to satellites, intelligence gathering, intelligence sharing.

Speaker 3 This is just something that European countries would struggle to match, frankly.

Speaker 3 Ukraine was getting the vast chunk, I believe eighty percent of its intelligence that helped it target Russian energy infrastructure, ammunition, storage facilities, intercept missiles.

Speaker 3 Eighty percent of that intelligence came came from the United States. Replacing that would be an enormous challenge for Europe.

Speaker 3 When it comes to producing weaponry, as we heard from Keir Starmer, there are plans to produce missiles in Northern Ireland. But that means new jobs, new production facilities.

Speaker 3 That takes a lot of time.

Speaker 10 Just want to jump in here because James mentioned the word one million, and well, both of Italy and James would know that I heard MPs bitterly telling the story of the one million bullets.

Speaker 10 2023, the EU said, promised Ukraine, in one year we will send you one million bullets. In one year on, they had only sent half.

Speaker 9 Well, we also have many questions about how the events in Ukraine are being seen within the United States and what the American public think of President Trump's decisions and indeed the pace at which he is making them.

Speaker 9 Let's go first to James in Oxford in central England.

Speaker 12 Dear Ukraine CAS, I am deeply concerned by the desire of the Trump administration to impose a quick peace deal, seemingly irrespective of the consequences.

Speaker 12 I cannot help but think about the peace deal that was done for Afghanistan by Trump's first administration, that we watched unfold chaotically within a year and a half.

Speaker 12 Does the specter of a repeat of such scenes concern the American public? And should supporters of Ukraine be raising this specter in the American media?

Speaker 9 And we have a similar question from Pauline.

Speaker 13 Hi, this is Pauline from the Philippines, and I've been following the Ukraine-Russia war and all of President Trump's decisions and was curious about what the American people think of this.

Speaker 13 Have there been any protests?

Speaker 9 And before we go to our experts, we thought we'd share some views from our American listeners.

Speaker 14 Hello, BBC.

Speaker 15 I'm Michael from north central Florida, USA.

Speaker 15 From the moment that Russia invaded Ukraine in February of 22, I as well as my family and the broader community fully and enthusiastically supported Ukraine's struggle for freedom.

Speaker 15 And then last Friday happened. Now I don't know.
It's as though I'm wandering through some alternate dimension.

Speaker 15 I like to think that this is an aberration, that my country will come to its senses eventually. I fear it won't.

Speaker 14 But for what it's worth, many of us believe in Ukraine and Europe.

Speaker 15 Hopefully we find our voice.

Speaker 16 Hi there, my name is Carter and you know it's been said that Donald Trump is a transactional politician, which leads me to believe, or at least hope that there is some sort of a strategy behind what feels like this complete 180 in the relationship between the US and Ukraine and really what feels like a warming of a relationship between President Trump and Vladimir Putin.

Speaker 5 they might not have if this continues. America can't support another endless war.
We've had our own issues with that.

Speaker 5 Ukraine was never going to win the war in the sense that they would get back everything they've lost.

Speaker 5 Winning for them at this point can only be that they were not defeated and can have the prospect of an independent and sovereign country for their children.

Speaker 9 We've also had questions on whether the other branches of U.S. government can curtail President Trump's policies on Ukraine.

Speaker 9 We called up our North America correspondent, Anthony Zerker, who is also presenter of another BBC podcast you should subscribe to, AmeriCast, and he sent us this voice note.

Speaker 17 Hey there, Ukraine cast. It is good as always to be on with you.

Speaker 17 I'd say it's a bit too early to have any kind of accurate polling on what Americans think about that Oval Office Trump Zelensky dust-up last week.

Speaker 17 But there was a recent CBS poll that showed the United States narrowly divided on whether they approved of how Donald Trump has handled the Ukraine war so far in the month he's been president.

Speaker 17 Americans also are evenly divided on whether the U.S. should continue to send arms to Ukraine.
But when you dig down into those numbers, you'll see a very sharp partisan divide over the issue.

Speaker 17 Democrats, they overwhelmingly support continued U.S. aid to Ukraine, and Republicans overwhelmingly oppose it.

Speaker 17 And after that tumultuous visit by Zelensky to the U.S., we did see some pro-Ukrainian protests in the U.S. across the U.S.

Speaker 17 in a variety of different cities, but the demonstrators numbered in the hundreds, not the thousands at most.

Speaker 17 Now, as for your question about whether anyone or anybody or anything could be done to stop Trump's decision to suspend aid, it is possible, but all of that is part of what is a larger legal battle.

Speaker 17 Congress approved continued funding for Ukraine. That's just the bottom line.

Speaker 17 assigned the money and it's up to the president to distribute it. It's his obligation.
But as with many other areas of government spending, Trump is simply refusing to do so, at least temporarily.

Speaker 17 It's going to be up to the courts and perhaps ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court to decide how much scope, how much freedom the president has to simply ignore the instructions of Congress.

Speaker 17 So when push comes to shove, U.S. presidents generally do have broad authority to conduct foreign policy, and that's something that the court is going to take into consideration.

Speaker 17 And it's not as though Trump wasn't clear in last year's presidential campaign how he felt about the Ukraine war, how he felt about Ukraine, and for that matter, Russia.

Speaker 17 So I would say chances are Donald Trump is going to be able to do what he wants here, as he has with so many other things.

Speaker 17 And the rest of the world and the American public who would object to it are just going to have to find a way to deal with it.

Speaker 9 And Lee's, both Lee and James made the comparison to Afghanistan. Do you see similarities?

Speaker 10 Yes, and Afghans certainly are mentioning it a lot. You see it conversations on social media.
I mean, they're very, very different societies, very different wars.

Speaker 10 Afghanistan became America's longest war. It lasted through two Republican, two Democratic administrations.

Speaker 10 But the way President Trump is approaching the end of the Ukraine war has a lot of similarity to how he approached the Afghan war.

Speaker 10 First of all, he had promised, at that time, Afghanistan was at the top of the news, not Ukraine. It was before the Ukraine war, before Russia's full-scale invasion.

Speaker 10 And President Trump promised in his election campaign the first time around that he would bring all the troops home from Afghanistan. President Biden had spoken about that as well.

Speaker 10 But when he did it, he gave away the most important thing at the beginning. He said, I'm going to bring all my troops home.

Speaker 10 Same as the concessions when we heard from, after President Trump's conversation with President Putin, we heard the U.S. Defense Secretary saying there'll be no Ukrainian membership of NATO.

Speaker 10 It's unrealistic for Ukraine to get any of its land pre-2014 back.

Speaker 10 And also the way they treated, there was noticed, I remember at the time how shocked we were that he would treat the Taliban leadership with such respect, in the same way he's treating President Putin with such respect.

Speaker 10 And he would snipe and dismiss and jeer.

Speaker 10 And Pompeo, his secretary of state at the time, did the same thing, dismissing the government, the Afghan government, which in principle should have been the main partner of the United States.

Speaker 10 But mostly, Afghans sort of throw it out there and say to the Ukrainians, beware when someone, an American president, says to you, we are with you for the long run, because we found out how long that run is.

Speaker 10 And President Trump himself has been saying recently, it wasn't that we ended the war, it was how we ended it.

Speaker 10 And he blames President Biden, which I think he has to, for a very chaotic pullout, but it was a President Trump policy that President President Biden continued.

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Speaker 9 Well, the day of that catastrophic Oval Office meeting, President Zelensky had gone to the White House to discuss, among other things, a rare minerals deal, and that's prompted questions too.

Speaker 20 Hey, BBC, this is Grenon from Portugal. And my question is: what is the deal?

Speaker 20 What is actually on the table for Russia, US, Ukraine? Where is the money coming from? How is Russia relaxed about this?

Speaker 20 Does she get what she wants in the end?

Speaker 20 What is happening?

Speaker 9 And this is Anthony in Thailand.

Speaker 21 Let's just stop a moment and consider what Trump has said about American businesses in Ukraine and that the Russians would never dare touch his people. What do you think about this?

Speaker 21 Can this be analysed and has there been any other precedent in history where an economic entity has provided a military security guarantee? Despite the bravado, could this actually work? Thank you.

Speaker 9 Well back to James Waterhouse in Kiev. James, what is it that Ukraine's got that the US wants?

Speaker 1 Well, Ukraine says it's got around sort of 5% of the world's what are called critical raw materials.

Speaker 1 So we're talking about graphite, granite, lithium, titanium, things that are used to make electric cars, turbines, electronics, weapons. They're worth a lot of money, billions of dollars.

Speaker 1 President Zelensky himself at the end of last year, as part of a peace proposal said, look, you know, we could negotiate, we could say to America, you can have a slice of this pie in exchange for some of these critical minerals.

Speaker 1 What he probably didn't anticipate was Donald Trump saying, okay, great, we want complete access to $500 billion worth and you'll get no security guarantees in return. There has been some movement.

Speaker 1 It was thought President Zelensky was going to sign on that trip to the Oval Office. Of course, that did not happen.

Speaker 1 And I think as a reflection of the political road he has run out of, he is still willing to sign this deal without any kind of security guarantee by America in return.

Speaker 1 Kiev is saying there'll be a domino effect of agreements.

Speaker 1 Once you have American companies here drilling, it will give Donald Trump and future presidents a reason to step in and protect their interests.

Speaker 1 The problem with that is that it wasn't exactly the presence of American companies in Ukraine which stops Russia from launching its full-scale invasion.

Speaker 1 The other complicator from speaking to people in the industry, we were at this enormous graphite quarry close to the central city of Uman. This is a quarry that was built in 1964.

Speaker 1 It takes a decade just to work out where to dig. It then takes decades to yield any kind of profit.

Speaker 1 But what was interesting in talking to people there, these hardened workers, you work in really difficult conditions, they were saying, look, we need the money.

Speaker 1 Investors have pulled out because of Russia's invasion. We're not functioning for most of the year.
Any money will be gratefully received. Let's worry about the security guarantees down the line.

Speaker 1 So clearly, against a backdrop of hostility, President Zelensky wants to give Donald Trump some kind of win, sign the deal, and then it might allow their relationship to grow in some way.

Speaker 1 But just quickly on that point about Russia, Russia itself is drawing up its own plans, its pitches on critical minerals in both Russia and the territory it occupies in Ukraine.

Speaker 1 So you have this sort of bidding war, these elevator pitches, both from Moscow and Kiev in the direction of Washington.

Speaker 9 Vitali, though, could the US deal be beneficial in any way to Ukraine? We also had one listener, Carol in the UK, she asked if Europe could make their own separate deal with Ukraine for rare minerals.

Speaker 1 I wish we knew.

Speaker 3 At this moment in time, I don't think anyone outside of the White House and possibly even Kiev knows what's in the deal.

Speaker 3 The dictionary definition of the deal is that you get something, we get something.

Speaker 3 But most, if not all, of the talk about the deal that we've been hearing from Washington is about what Ukraine should give.

Speaker 3 So, when we use the word transactional, this isn't a straightforward business transaction. We're dealing with a country that's fighting for its survival.

Speaker 3 When it comes to American citizens acting as a human shield, potentially, well, they're there now.

Speaker 3 And just yesterday, Russia targeted a hotel in central Ukraine where American citizens were staying, as well as British citizens as well. That didn't stop Russia from attacking.

Speaker 3 American companies are still operating in Ukraine. McDonald's, it's there.
It doesn't stop Russia.

Speaker 10 I'm allowed to have a question for James too.

Speaker 10 I saw an estimate, I don't know if it's the official view, that about 40% of the critical minerals are in occupied territory.

Speaker 10 As soon as President Putin heard that this deal was in the making, he suddenly didn't interrupt the news to say that he was ready to make a deal as well on critical minerals.

Speaker 10 So some of the minerals that President Zelensky wants to talk about with the Americans may actually be under Russian control now. Is that what you've heard, James?

Speaker 1 It's blurry. I mean, what I know is that some of Ukraine's more valuable minerals are indeed in occupied territory, but the bulk still appear to be, from what I've seen,

Speaker 1 in land, Ukraine still controls.

Speaker 1 But it is, I mean, the only reports, if we're trying to sort of string these together, the proposal seems to centre around this shared pot of money, co-owned by America and Ukraine, and 50% of Ukraine's profits from from natural resources, including oil and gas, will go into this pot of cash and then they would be reinvested into Ukraine's recovery.

Speaker 1 But you're both right. I mean we there's so much we don't know.
And I really wonder if we're going to see President Zelensky or his officials in Riyadh next week meeting with American counterparts.

Speaker 1 You wonder what is he going to sign? What is he going to subject his country to? And Vitaly knows more than most.

Speaker 1 When it comes to his international agreements, this is a country that has been stung time after time with its very future being put at peril because of what are seen as deep betrayals here from either the US or, of course, Russia itself.

Speaker 1 And what Ukrainians do not want is for this mineral deal to amount to a sacrifice of its future wealth and its ultimate capitulation even against Russia if America still doesn't want to step in.

Speaker 9 Well, let's look at the impact on the global economy. We had a question from Bruce.

Speaker 22 Kia Aura from Aotearoa, New Zealand. My question is on President Trump's tariffs and other America First policies and the effect they are having on the global economy.

Speaker 22 Is it possible that this is an opportunity for the rich to get richer, a manipulation of shares on a global scale?

Speaker 22 The Ukraine minerals deal is fairly obviously an asset grab, but the other actions seem to be creating a great deal of volatility in the markets. Could this be deliberate? Thank you, Namihi Nui.

Speaker 9 Well, for this question, we thought we'd go to our Asia business reporter, Surinjana, to worry.

Speaker 23 Major stock markets tumbled this week as investors around the world are trying to get a handle on Donald Trump's sweeping and shifting policies.

Speaker 23 Tariffs and the uncertainty over trade are causing the most concern, but the America First policy on Ukraine is having an impact too.

Speaker 23 In response to the conflict and increasing US isolationism, Germany has announced plans to increase defence spending, and Europe plans to borrow borrow more than $150 billion to lend to EU governments to bolster defence.

Speaker 23 The Euro and European shares are surging as a result, as are German government bonds, as investors expect more spending to mean more borrowing. Is there an opportunity for some people to benefit?

Speaker 23 Possibly, but there's still a lot of uncertainty and it's impossible to predict what might come next. And stock markets don't do well with uncertainty.

Speaker 23 Analysts say that while some investors may be taking profits during the stock market highs, there continues to be a great deal of volatility and fear and concern around the constant chaos.

Speaker 9 And our thanks to Suranjana Tawari and our Asia business team in Singapore. Back to you now, Lise, because we've had some questions about how US policy might change towards other adversaries.

Speaker 9 Caroline in Switzerland asked, how can a Trump administration be against Iran but supportive of Russia?

Speaker 10 Of course, I'm a Canadian. President Trump talks about the 51st state and having an eye on

Speaker 10 our society and our economy too. Iran is very interesting.

Speaker 10 Let's drill down to what President Trump really wants. He loves the high profile, high publicity, quick deals that he gets credit for.

Speaker 10 As he said in his inauguration speech, my second term, I'm going to be a peacemaker. Iran is even more complicated, if that's possible, than Ukraine and Gaza.

Speaker 10 But just before I joined you, Jackie, there was a video by President Trump saying that he's written a letter to the Supreme Leader of Iran, Hamanai.

Speaker 10 He didn't say what the letter was in, what was in the letter, and he repeated again. He was very open about it.

Speaker 10 And we know that there are many on his team who want President Trump to authorize military strikes against Iran to prevent Iran from, they say, acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Speaker 10 But President Trump keeps saying, I don't want to go for military. I want to do a deal.
And he said again today, as he said in this latest video, which he has said before,

Speaker 10 the Iranians are such nice people. They're such successful people.
I want the people of Iran to be successful.

Speaker 10 It's very strange how he has approached the Iranian FA because we do know that Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel, who does have very close relations with President Trump, has been pushing him in that direction.

Speaker 10 We have to deal with Iran. But President Trump has made it very clear that when it comes to Iran, the same as with other things, he doesn't want there to be more death, more killing.

Speaker 10 He wants the deal.

Speaker 9 Please, thank you. Well, we also have this question from Lukash.

Speaker 24 Hi, and I live in Stockholm in Sweden.

Speaker 24 Looking beyond the first ceasefire, has the Trump administration commented on what they think a peace should entail in regards to territorial changes and political terms and conditions?

Speaker 24 Ukraine would not need the US to surrender to Russia, but to me it sounds like the US believes that Ukraine would recede all the territory they have lost control of, as well as to agree to various other things such as no NATO and no Selensky.

Speaker 24 Thank you very much for a great show.

Speaker 9 And we want to hear from all three of you, but we better speak to James first because I think we're going to lose you otherwise, James.

Speaker 9 And Ashley from Scotland also wants to know whether there could be a situation where we see UN peacekeepers on the ground and how the UN would be involved. What does a peace look like?

Speaker 1 Well, America's kind of left Ukraine and Europe scrambling to come up with their own proposals. But I think what I will always remember is the sight of Pete Hegsif,

Speaker 1 the Defence Secretary of America, in an innocuous meeting in Brussels where he said, right, it's Ukraine. Getting all of its territory back, that is an illusion.

Speaker 1 Also, any kind of NATO membership, that is a non-starter. And it was quite something to hear in these parts, to hear those concessions that America thinks Ukraine will have to make.

Speaker 1 As for the practicalities, I mean, we've seen President Zelensky propose an initial ceasefire, which could include a naval pausing of hostilities in the Black Sea,

Speaker 1 aerial ceasefire where civilian infrastructure wouldn't be targeted by Ukraine anymore, as well as large-scale prisoner of war exchanges.

Speaker 1 But of course, the dangling question is, dot, dot, dot, if Russia agrees to do the same.

Speaker 1 Those are the kind of foundations for peace which Ukraine is trying to drum up.

Speaker 1 As for what would happen happen on the ground, we're seeing the likes of UK, France, now Turkey saying they would provide troops.

Speaker 1 America said, you know, we're not up for this, but this is why we're seeing Europe saying, okay, we're willing to do that.

Speaker 1 We'll have troops there to police a frozen conflict line, but we need you there if fighting was to break out. But it's still hard to imagine.
We're talking about a 600-mile-long front line.

Speaker 1 We're talking about Russia likely keeping hold of a sizable chunk of Ukrainian territory with all of their military presence and hardware remaining.

Speaker 1 The country will remain on a war footing. It will look to replenish.
There will be sizable troop numbers.

Speaker 1 You know, what happens if you have 20,000 British troops in one part of Ukraine and then there's a surprise offensive somewhere else?

Speaker 1 Could they be contained? Would America want to step in? You know, these are really important questions that Kiev will want answering as this peace process develops.

Speaker 1 But as of now, you know, it's also hypothetical and it's the lack of detail which is creating vacuum which is causing a lot of concern here.

Speaker 9 James, thank you. That was James Waterhouse in Kiev and we will let you go now.
Vitali though, the same question to you. What will a peace look like? What could a peace look like?

Speaker 3 Because we've got to be clear that Ukraine is getting really desperate. So any pause in attacks is good from that point of view.

Speaker 3 But as James just pointed out, the elephant in the room is what's Russia thinking about it? Because we can spend all day talking about various suggestions of a peacekeeping force or a truce.

Speaker 3 However, Russia is clearly indicating that its appetites are absolutely undiminished.

Speaker 3 Various officials in Moscow are saying that the special military operation will go on, its original objectives will be reached, more land will be captured, peacekeepers forget it, that's unacceptable.

Speaker 3 Truce, no, because fighting will rekindle with renewed force. So European allies, whatever countries are still supporting Ukraine, they will need to answer the question that James just asked.

Speaker 3 Are they ready to go and fight if Russia says no?

Speaker 9 And Lise, we know that events are changing. They're changing quickly all the time.
Meetings are taking place. Talks are being held.

Speaker 9 When we look back on the events of the past week, does this feel like a pivotal moment?

Speaker 10 It does in the sense of ending the war in Ukraine is now at the top of the agenda in a way that it wasn't before.

Speaker 10 I don't think you can say they're any closer to ending it, but it certainly is the main focus. That's the narrative now.

Speaker 10 It is about providing more military assistance to Ukraine so they'll be in a stronger military position once they actually get to the battlefield.

Speaker 10 But the focus now is how to find a way to end the war and for Ukraine and the Europeans. That's also about security guarantees.

Speaker 10 The question was about peace, but of course we have a whole lexicon now of how to describe it. Could be a frozen conflict.
It could be, there's a new word they're using now, a sustainable ceasefire.

Speaker 10 They talk about in Gaza. In other words, it has to be one that we're pretty sure is going to stick.
It could just be the end of the war, the end of the fighting.

Speaker 10 I think it will be hard to have UN peacekeepers. That has to be authorized by the UN Security Council.
Would Russia agree with that? Would the United States agree with that?

Speaker 10 They're sort of on the same side now. Russia Russia would not want UN peacekeepers

Speaker 10 there. Even in the Biden administration,

Speaker 10 there were leading figures saying to Ukraine, you're not going to get Crimea back. Forget about Crimea.
We're not going to argue for Crimea.

Speaker 10 Okay, so maybe they won't get Crimea back, although they still say that they want it. Every Ukraine Vitaly's looking at me.

Speaker 10 And also, I remember the beginning of the war where President Zelensky entertained the idea there could be some discussions and compromise to say that the East you know, eastern Ukraine, Dunetsk and Luhansk, where there's there's predominantly Russian-speaking populations and ties to Russia, that perhaps we could discuss them.

Speaker 10 Right now, the official line is: no, we want all of our land back, but in the cut and thrust of making a deal, there's also been a suggestion about that you leave it for later, you kick it down the road.

Speaker 10 So, these will be some of the issues, but at the end of the day, for Ukrainians, peace has to mean control of our land, control of our borders, and we must be sovereign, able to defend ourselves, in control of everything that affects us.

Speaker 9 And that's it from us for now. Thanks to Lise Dusset, James Waterhouse, and of course, Vitaly Shevchenko, and to you for all your questions.

Speaker 9 If you don't already subscribe to Ukrainecast, you should, and you'll find it wherever you get your BBC podcasts. There will be a regular global news podcast later.

Speaker 9 If you'd like to get in touch, please do. Our email address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.
You will also find us on x at bbc world service. Use the hashtag globalnewspod.

Speaker 9 This edition was mixed by Daffy Evans. The producers were Ella Bicknell, Ben Carter, Ryan Johnson, and Tim Walklate.
Our editor is Karen Martin. I'm Jackie Leonard and until next time, goodbye.

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