Hope for Ukraine peace as Trump meets Zelensky in Washington

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This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Valerie Sanderson, and in the early hours of Tuesday, the 19th of August, these are our main stories.

Talks have been taking place at the White House involving President Trump, President Zelensky, and European leaders in efforts to end the war in Ukraine.

Hamas says it's accepted the latest Gaza ceasefire proposal from regional mediators, while Israel is said to be reviewing the details.

Also in this podcast.

Kids singing not just that song but also others that Thompson used to sing before that are connected with mass crimes that happened during the Second World War.

How symbols from Croatia's Second World War fascist party have infiltrated the country's rock music scene.

As we record this podcast, talks have been taking place at the White House following a meeting between President Trump and the Ukrainian President Zelensky, who were then joined by European leaders.

The goal to move forward on ending the war in Ukraine following the Russian invasion in 2022.

Monday's event came in the wake of Donald Trump's meeting with Vladimir Putin at a summit in Alaska last week.

The mood music at the Oval Office was cordial.

Mr.

Zelensky called it his best meeting so far.

The talks have been focusing on Ukraine's security.

President Trump said he'll help European nations provide Ukraine with security guarantees in the event of a peace settlement with Russia.

President Trump is sure a peace deal is attainable.

I don't think there's any issue that's overly complex.

It's at a point now where people want to do things.

I really do believe.

I've known him for a long time.

I've always had a great relationship with him.

I think that President Putin wants to find an answer to.

And we'll see.

And in a certain period of time, not very far from now, a week or two weeks, we're going to know whether or not we're going to solve this or is this horrible fighting going to continue.

We'll do our best to get it ended.

And I believe you have two willing parties, and usually that's good news, but two willing parties that want to make a deal.

President Zelensky said he was looking forward to a future trilateral meeting with the American and Russian presidents.

What is very important that all the sensitive things,

territorial, etc.,

we will discuss on the level of leaders during trilateral meeting, and President Trump will try

to organise such meeting and he said that he will come or not come.

Ukraine will be happy if

you will participate.

Thank you.

And I think this is very important.

Yes, so security guarantees, bringing kids back and all our people, not only warriors, first of all, warriors, and all the civilians, journalists, a lot of people in prison.

So we need them back.

The NATO chief, Mark Rutter, praised Mr.

Trump.

From today onwards, we get this thing to an end as soon as possible.

I really want to thank you for your leadership, what you are doing for Lord Mir, but of course also all the European colleagues.

It is really crucial.

And the fact that you have said I am willing to participate in the security guarantees is a big step.

It's really really a breakthrough and it makes all the difference.

So also thank you for that.

The German Chancellor Friedrich Mertz, while praising the US President for meeting Vladimir Putin last week, emphasized his view that there should be a ceasefire in Ukraine as soon as possible.

The next steps ahead are the more complicated ones now.

The path is open.

You opened it last Friday.

But now the way is open for complicated negotiations.

And to be honest, we all would like to see a ceasefire, the latest from the next meeting on.

So let's work on that and let's try to put pressure on Russia.

Our correspondent in Washington, Arunide Mukherjee, told us what had come out of the meetings so far.

In terms of progress, well, I think given the kind of air of positivity and the statements that we've heard coming in from people who were involved in the conversations and the leaders who've spoken, it seems to be a fairly positive meeting with Vladimir Zelensky himself saying that these were the best conversations I've had on this and then sort of smiling and later saying, well, hopefully there will be even better conversations.

A lot of leaders essentially talking about how these were constructive conversations.

Yes, in terms of progress, they seem to be all responding positively.

At least, you know, there were fears given what we saw the last time Vladimir Zelensky was at the Oval Office.

You know, we all know how that turned out.

So this definitely is a marked change.

There were concerns that, you know, what would have happened after the Alaska summit, what kind of concessions they would be talking about.

But clearly, today, given the statements, the body language, things seem to have gone relatively well, at least for now.

Interesting, though, that we're getting reports that President Trump called President Putin during the meeting with European leaders.

He didn't wait till that had finished.

We have seen some of these reports, but we haven't gotten an official confirmation on this.

But yes, I did see some of the conversations.

But what I did hear President Trump say is that he is going to be having a direct conversation with President President Vladimir Putin after the conversations.

He said Vladimir Putin is expecting a call from me.

Now he is relaying all the developments of today now to Vladimir Putin.

Now, this is where it's going to be critical because the next steps that a lot of people are hoping to expect is that possibility of a trilateral meeting between Ukraine, Russia, and the US.

If they are able to get to that point is when we will be able to confidently say that yes, there has been progress, visible, tangible progress that has been made.

But at the moment, Donald Trump himself saying that I'm not sure whether we're going to have a trilateral meeting.

I'm going to speak to Vladimir Putin and then let's see what comes of it.

The leaders of Germany and France, they want an immediate ceasefire.

They say that is necessary while negotiations with Russia continue.

Is that any closer?

This is where we saw President Trump sort of depart from his earlier stand, right?

When he had said that, look, I don't think a ceasefire at the moment is required.

We're looking at a permanent peace, because he felt a ceasefire may not hold.

He reiterated that during a press interaction today with Vladimir Zelensky sitting right next to him.

He said that, look, I don't think a ceasefire is necessary.

And again, he pointed out why they need a permanent peace.

The fact that European leaders continue to push for that suggests that there are diverging voices when it comes to this very critical issue.

But it doesn't seem, at least in the conversations for now, that Donald Trump has changed his mind.

And another point of concern is, of course, the pressure that President Zelensky is under to cede territory as a price for peace.

There was a huge concern among European diplomats that when President Zelensky comes, President Trump might just sort of pressure him into agreeing into some sort of deal.

And given the interview that President Trump had given to Fox News, he'd said that, look, I would urge Vladimir Zelensky to make a deal, which is why you saw this kind of rallying of support around Vladimir Zelensky of these European leaders.

They all sort of came together, sending out the message that we have your back, so they are united in this.

We haven't heard much about conceding territories or territorial swaps, something that President Trump has talked about in the past.

We haven't gotten any kind of confirmation about where they stand on this conversation, but Vladimir Zelensky has made it very clear on two points.

One, there will be no compromise on Ukraine's territorial sovereignty.

That's something that they have been very clear about.

And two, he's also cited constitutional constraints.

He said that is not a possibility because it's not going to be allowed by the Ukrainian constitution.

So we can't even go on discussing that.

Arunade Mukherjee in Washington.

Well, for any peace deal to be agreed, Ukraine will need to be certain it's safe from future Russian aggression.

With his assessment of how such a guarantee might work, here's our security correspondent, Frank Gardner.

When is a security guarantee not a security guarantee?

The answer that Ukrainians point to is the failure of the US, Britain, and Russia to honour the promised assurances given to Ukraine when it agreed to give up its Soviet-era nuclear weapons in 1994.

Justin Krump, a military analyst who runs the private intelligence firm Sibyline, says the history of distrust will be hard to surmount.

Ukraine senses very much that promises have been broken in the past, and also that the two areas west of the Donbass, April and Herson, have also both been formally taken by Russia.

So in theory, that's unfinished business for the Russians anyway.

All right, so what would a security guarantee for Ukraine look like in 2025?

Membership of NATO is off the table.

Donald Trump has made that clear.

Instead, what's being talked about is something called an Article V-style guarantee that would come into force once the fighting stopped.

The idea would be that if Russia attacked Ukraine again, then a multinational force, possibly including the US, would come to its defence.

But even with US involvement, which with Donald Trump in the White House may be a movable feast, this prompts a number of awkward questions.

Do Europe and the West collectively have enough troops and weapons to deploy to Ukraine, perhaps indefinitely?

And most most critically, is this force really going to be robust enough to deter a massive, rebuilt Russian army if President Putin decides to come back for more in a few years' time?

Frank Gardner.

So we know that discussions have been focusing on security guarantees and prospects for a trilateral meeting involving Presidents Trump, Zelensky, and Putin.

Andrei Zagorodnik is a former Ukrainian defense minister, and he gave his reaction to the talk so far to the BBC's Sumi summer Somerscanda.

So, there's been a serious worry about

the possible pressure on Zelensky, and basically, that Putin had mentioned some of the terms which he wanted to promise some sort of ceasefire or a cessation of hostilities, at least for some period of time.

And obviously, that was quite dangerous for Ukraine because there is no single indication that Putin wants to stop the war, at least at the moment.

And any promises, with with verbal promises, and especially promises you can't enforce,

coming from Putin, basically, we had like many, many cases when he gave something and then changed his mind later.

So, yeah, so that those words seem like we still have to assess what happened, but from the early indications,

that didn't happen.

So, there's been a very constructive discussion.

They returned back to the ceasefire demand, which is obviously good because Putin, as you can see, uses his pressure, military pressure on Ukraine every day.

So any demands of ceasefire will remove that card from him.

But we'll see.

That's much more difficult than many people thought, especially in DC.

And

at least the process so far is not going in the wrong direction.

That's very good.

And I believe that that's also because there's been a very substantial representation there from Europe and also from NATO, EU,

you know, like a massive allied meeting.

And that's a very good format to proceed with decisions, I think.

Yeah, Andrew, we do get the sense of relief from many of the Ukrainian voices that this meeting so far has gone much better than back in February.

At the same time, we heard President Trump repeat again that Russia has said for a long time that Ukraine should not be part of NATO.

Are you worried that that is something that President Putin is insisting on, and President Trump is perhaps standing behind, at least appears to be at this point?

Well, yes, because it's not about NATO and it's not about these terms.

Putin, unfortunately, had much, much bigger goal than that.

And we just need to understand that.

He brings up various kinds of terms in order to derail the process and put the process in a different direction.

In reality, it's not about NATO, it's not about Donbass.

It's about him trying to destroy Ukraine and the Eastern European and probably European security architecture.

And Europeans know about that very well.

All the heads of states, including the Prime Minister of the UK and NATO General Secretary, and so on, they know what our real goals of Putin are.

So we need to be careful when

we discuss something which is not really the issue.

But

we'll see where it goes.

It's very difficult to predict where this process will go, but to see such a massive,

very powerful team working together on the resolution,

well, I mean, that's the best, that's absolutely the best we can wish for.

Former Ukrainian Defense Minister and now fellow at the Eurasia Centre, Andrei Zagodyuk.

Still to come.

This wasn't a very good projection because of that very distortion, with Greenland appearing to be the same size as Africa.

Why an African group wants to replace the traditional world map?

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Could the latest Gaza ceasefire plan proposed by Egypt and Qatar succeed where previous ones have failed?

Hamas says it's agreed to the latest proposal.

Israel has so far not responded.

The plan is based on one put forward by the US earlier this year in a bid to end the conflict between Israel and Hamas, which has now lasted for 22 months.

More than 62,000 people have died, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, and out of 50 Israeli hostages, just 20 are still believed to be alive.

A correspondent in Jerusalem, Emir Nada, told us more.

This is a plan that was originally proposed by the US Envoy Steve Witkoff as early, far back as June and was negotiated on as recently as last month in Qatar with the delegations there.

And it broke down.

And it broke down over a number of key sticking points, we understand, including the withdrawal of troops, where Israeli troops would withdraw to in this initial 60-day ceasefire period, and how it would ultimately lead to a permanent end to the war.

So we understand that that is back on the table.

It would involve two stages of hostages and Palestinian prisoners who are in Israeli prisons being exchanged over two stages.

What we don't know is how Hamas's position has shifted.

We have heard from a Hamas source who's been speaking to the BBC saying that Hamas has now agreed the current proposal unconditionally and without amendments.

So it does sound like there is a softening of Hamas's position perhaps.

What's unclear is how Israel will respond to this proposal as we've heard in recent days from Prime Minister Netanyahu here that a so-called partial deal, which would see hostages released in stages, he had ruled that out and it said that Israel was going just for a comprehensive all-in deal.

Has there been any reaction from Israel at all so far?

Well, Prime Minister Netanyahu has made a statement but hasn't directly addressed this news so far.

But he did seem to acknowledge that there is huge pressure on Hamas, as he called it, appearing to refer to the plan by Israel to invade Gaza City, which has been extremely controversial both here in Israel and internationally.

It could have untold catastrophic consequences for the million Palestinians who are in Gaza City.

And it has indeed seemed to revitalise the energies of the mediators in Egypt who've brought now this the discussion this far.

However, we've also heard from members of Prime Minister Netanyahu's cabinet coalition, including one far-right minister who said that it would be surrender to stop fighting now and not push for the total defeat of Hamas.

So it is unclear how Prime Minister Netanyahu might respond, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of protesters here in Israel who've been on the streets this week calling for a deal and an end to the war.

Emonada in Jerusalem.

It was Croatia's biggest ever music concert.

Huge numbers of young people came to see Marko Perkovich, better known as Thompson, perform in Zagreb last month.

But Thompson isn't just any rock singer, he's an ultra-nationalist who performs a fascist salute at the beginning of his most famous songs.

The Croatian government has defended him for his nationalist views, but human rights groups say he's normalizing neo-fascism and creating dangerous divisions.

Our Balkans correspondent Guy Daloni reports from Zagreb.

Thompson's management claimed they'd sold more than half a million million tickets for last month's mega gig at Zagreb's Hippodrome.

That's a startling turnout for an act who's been banned in multiple countries for his alleged Nazi sympathies.

But Croatia's Prime Minister Andrei Plenkovich didn't see that as a problem.

The left-wing opposition and media are not happy that 500,000 people came to this concert, that young people came in an atmosphere of unity.

But in fact, it's not just left-wing groups who have a problem with Thompson's use of the phrase zadom spremny.

It means for homeland ready, and it was the call and response salute of the Nazi-allied Croat nationalist Ustasha movement during the Second World War.

Croatia's highest court has ruled its use unconstitutional.

That explains why rights groups were alarmed when the Prime Minister posed for a pre-performance picture with Thomson and outraged when governing party MPs joined in the chants.

That really opened, as people are trying to describe it, Pandora's box.

Tena Banjaglav works for Documenta, Center for Dealing with the Past.

Kids singing not just that song, but also others that Thompson used to sing before that are connected with mass crimes that happened during the Second World War.

And the government is creating a kind of atmosphere now when this is okay to do.

Thompson's supporters claim that his use of the chant should be viewed in the context of his time in the military during Croatia's War of Independence in the 1990s.

Matija Stahan is a conservative commentator.

And just like Slava Ukraini today does not mean the same thing as in World War II, so Zadom Spremny also means something different.

But there's no altering the unsavoury history of Zadom Spremny.

It was coined by the murderous Ustasha, then revived in the 90s by an extreme right-wing militia called the Croatian Defence Forces.

But now, the government seems keen to rehabilitate the chant.

Thomson's popularity has ebbed and flowed over the past three decades.

His detractors say his current peak is an unwelcome reminder that Croatia still has to reckon with the troubled past before it can truly move into the future.

Guy Delony in Zagreb.

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Jordan's crown prince has announced the kingdom will soon reintroduce compulsory military service more than three decades after it was suspended.

The move comes as the country's forces face mounting security concerns tied to Israel's ongoing war in Gaza and heightened instability across the region.

Hesham Shabesh from BBC Monitoring told us before.

The official reason that was given was that it would reflect a profound national vision to strengthen Jordanian national identity and shape the character of young people, but we can't ignore the regional context taking place.

The latest announcement comes amid mounting regional tensions in view of Israel's expanded offensive in Gaza and the announcement of its latest settlement expansion plan in the West Bank.

We've also seen Israeli violations of holy sites in the West Bank, in Jerusalem, like the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, where Jordan still retains its custodianship of holy sites.

So that is another reason why Jordan sees a threat possibly from Israel.

We've also seen remarks from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week of a greater Israel vision that was condemned in Jordan and by other countries in the region.

So we have been witnessing over recent weeks a real ratcheting up of tensions.

But in the latest announcement, which was given by Crown Prince El Hussein bin Abdullah, we didn't see any mention of Israel.

Instead, the real focus of all the reporting was that it would strengthen Jordanian identity amongst the country's youth.

The Jordanian government delivered a press statement and they said that 6,000 males born in 2007 who will have turned 18 by the 1st of January will be called up and that will eventually rise to 10,000 over the next few years.

And each conscript would receive a modest monthly stipend as well.

And they'll be trained in physical training, field skills, and small arms training as well.

Hesham Shawish.

Look at a map of the world and compare it to, say, a globe or a picture of the world on Google Earth or equivalent.

The continent of Africa is too small on the map, and Greenland is too big.

Indeed, Greenland is almost the size of Africa.

It's a well-known flaw in the way we generally convert the three-dimensional world to a two-dimensional representation.

No map projection can be perfect, but the much-used Mercator method, introduced in 1569, is now being challenged by the African Union, which has thrown its weight behind the idea of changing that map to better reflect Africa's size.

The former president of the British Cartographical Society is Mary Spence, and Evan Davis asked her why there are distortions in size on so many maps.

Well I think it's probably historical because the Mercator map was invented for navigational purposes as most people know because the distortions come into land and south, north and south of the equator.

But it was easy to draw.

However it was always recognised that this wasn't a very good projection because of that very distortion with Greenland appearing to be the same size as Africa.

There was an attempt in the 1970s to, well not an attempt, attempt, a successful attempt to create what the Gauls-Peters projection, where every country was equal area.

And that was very popular because it did exactly what underdeveloped countries wanted to see the countries in their true size relative to the rest of the world.

But it looked funny.

Everything was very tall and skinny.

Yeah, I remember that one.

Yeah, not the right shape.

I think sort of trendy students might have had it up on the wall in their university bedroom or something.

But the countries and continents didn't look like the...

Yeah, you have to make some compromise, though, don't you, if you're taking 3D into 2D?

You can't do everything correctly.

But after the Gauls-Peters one, that ran for a long time.

But then people got fed up of it not looking quite right.

So the Robinson projection and other equal area projections came along, which were neither equal area, equal area being the thing that makes it comparable with another country.

But the things just looked right.

And now this equal Earth projection that they're talking about adopting instead is good in that it is better than the Robinsons because it's actually equal area.

Mary, talk me through where you think the kind of serious map people are, the people like members of the Cartographical Society, when it comes to which should be the default map, for example, used in schools and in atlases and in newspaper pictures of maps for purposes of where things are happening in the world.

What would you say?

Would you say it's time to move on from the Mercator projection?

Oh, totally, totally.

I mean, that's long, long since.

And there have been so many newspaper blunders where they've used the wrong map projection to illustrate that, for example, North Korea couldn't get its missiles as far as North America.

But if you put it on the right projection, you think, Bolly gosh, yes, it can go all the way to the other side of North America.

So it's almost very important.

And in the cartographic world, we're always wailing against this because these maps are being created by people who, through no fault of theirs, don't understand the significance of this.

Mary Spence speaking to Evan Davis.

And that's it from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later.

If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, send us an email.

The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.

You can also find us on X at BBC World Service.

Use the hashtag Global Newspod.

This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll.

The producers were Carla Conte and Oliver Berlau.

The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Valerie Sanderson.

Until next time, bye-bye.

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