Trump meets with Europe

Speaker 1 The first time Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky met President Trump in the White House, it didn't go well.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 3 God bless.

Speaker 3 God bless you. God bless.
You will not feel.

Speaker 5 Don't tell us what we're going to feel.

Speaker 1 Today, Zelensky visits again. This time, seven European leaders are coming to.
Why the show of force?

Speaker 6 They're not coming here tomorrow to keep Zelensky from being bullied.

Speaker 1 Oh, okay. 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.

Speaker 1 And on Today Explained from Vox, we're going to tell you what to keep an eye on. JD Vance.
Keep an eye on JD Vance.

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Speaker 4 This is Today Explained.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 To find out why, we called Julia Yaffe. She's a founding partner of Puck.
She's a longtime Russia hand, and she's author of the book Motherland about Russian women.

Speaker 1 Julia, what ended up happening at that meeting?

Speaker 6 I think what ended up happening is that for all of Donald Trump's insistence that he is the deal maker in chief,

Speaker 6 he was going in against a much savvier,

Speaker 6 much more seasoned opponent.

Speaker 3 The current administration, which as everyone knows, is making, in my opinion, quite energetic and sincere efforts to stop hostilities,

Speaker 3 stop the crisis.

Speaker 6 And he was going in thinking, oh, we're kind of friends, we get each other. We get along.

Speaker 12 There's a good respect level on both sides. And I think, you know, something's going to come of it.
I notice he's bringing a lot of business people from Russia.

Speaker 6 Whereas Vladimir Putin certainly does not see Donald Trump that way. And

Speaker 6 there was basically a bait and switch.

Speaker 6 I think Vladimir Putin told him, look, you can get a ceasefire now, but those things fall apart all the time.

Speaker 6 Not mentioning, of course, that usually it's Russia violating the many ceasefires that over the last 11 years have been implemented in Ukraine

Speaker 6 since Russia first invaded in 2014.

Speaker 6 And said,

Speaker 6 look, we could get a much bigger peace deal, bigger deal, end the whole war, big, big peace deal.

Speaker 6 And I think

Speaker 6 I'm guessing that Donald Trump fell for the much shinier object, not realizing that

Speaker 6 the Russians aren't just going to agree to it like that with a snap of the fingers. They love getting in the weeds, they love dragging things out diplomatically.

Speaker 6 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 a legitimization of his maximalist demands, a walking away from a ceasefire that would freeze Russia's momentum on the front and

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 1 Let's go toward the outlines of the deal. So Trump goes in saying,

Speaker 1 we want a ceasefire. He comes out saying, ah, we don't want a ceasefire, which, as you point out, is the same thing that Putin has said.
No, no, you don't need a ceasefire. What is on the table here?

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 In exchange, Russia would give up the little pieces of the Suma and Kharkiv regions that it holds.

Speaker 6 Apparently on the table is formal U.S.

Speaker 6 recognition of Crimea as Russian and a lifting of some, at least US sanctions, and some kind of security guarantee for Ukraine that

Speaker 6 doesn't involve NATO membership. So kind of a forswearing of NATO membership for Ukraine in exchange for some kind of security guarantee.

Speaker 6 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

Speaker 6 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's security. And you can just imagine that if they're

Speaker 6 two of the guarantors of Ukraine's security and Ukraine says, hey, we were just attacked by Russia

Speaker 6 and

Speaker 6 China and Belarus have veto power and say, no, you weren't.

Speaker 6 And therefore the collective defense that's promised in these security guarantees doesn't kick in, it's not much of a security guarantee at all.

Speaker 1 I want to talk about the way the administration is framing this. So, Marco Rubio goes on ABC's this week on Sunday, and he says progress was made, but he doesn't give any detail.

Speaker 5 Both sides are going to have to give, and both sides should expect to get something from this.

Speaker 1 Steve Witkoff on CNN more or less said the same.

Speaker 13 We made so much progress at this meeting with regard to all the other ingredients necessary

Speaker 13 for a peace deal that

Speaker 13 President Trump pivoted to that place.

Speaker 1 Do we have a sense of what the administration means when it says progress?

Speaker 6 It is progress in the sense that they're talking, and it's progress in the sense that it's not just Ukraine and Russia are fighting, nobody's coming to the table, and

Speaker 6 Putin and Zelensky are playing this game vis-a-vis Trump of trying to show Trump that the other guy is the problem, the other guy's the impediment to peace.

Speaker 14 You've now been in office for five months and five days. Why have you not been able to end the Ukraine war?

Speaker 5 Because it's more difficult than people would have any idea.

Speaker 5 Vladimir Putin has been more difficult. Frankly, I had some problems with Zelensky.
You may have read about him.

Speaker 6 And Trump being frustrated with Putin and threatening him with sanctions.

Speaker 5 I don't have to say there will be very severe consequences.

Speaker 6 So it's progress from that. They're at least talking about something more productive

Speaker 6 in the sense that they're talking about some kind of actual peace settlement and the parameters of it. The The question is,

Speaker 6 does it actually lead to an end in the fighting and a kind of durable and just peace? Or will Ukraine be sold down the river?

Speaker 1 And this is obviously a thing that Ukraine was deeply concerned about. The big controversy over the summit was that Zelensky was not there.

Speaker 1 And then, and then, kind of came as a surprise, we hear that Zelensky will come to DC.

Speaker 1 He will bring a handful, but a significant handful of European leaders with him. We are talking before he and Trump meet this afternoon.
But what do you think Zelensky is coming to Washington for?

Speaker 6 I think Zelensky is coming to Washington to make sure

Speaker 6 that he is heard, that

Speaker 6 Ukraine's interests

Speaker 6 are taken into account. Because from the very beginning, from

Speaker 6 the fall and winter of 2021, 2022,

Speaker 6 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

Speaker 6 settle it between the two of them, right?

Speaker 6 Because

Speaker 6 Russia does not see Ukraine as a serious country. It sees it as a kind of vassal of the U.S.
that actually should be part of Russia. That

Speaker 6 now,

Speaker 6 I think Zelensky's coming to Washington to make sure that he's heard, to make sure that

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 Because remember, You know, he is the president of Ukraine and he is responsible to the Ukrainian people. And we've seen what happens in territories that Russia captures from Ukraine.

Speaker 6 People are disappeared, tortured, killed.

Speaker 6 These places become,

Speaker 6 you know, the Russian government sends in its vast repressive apparatus and

Speaker 6 also its corruption. These are not pleasant places for people to live once Russia takes over.
And,

Speaker 6 you know, in ceding control of these territories, they're also leaving their own people behind. I think that's also very important to understand.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 Who came out of that the victor?

Speaker 6 The Russian leader,

Speaker 6 much like the American president, sees things as a zero-sum game. And so

Speaker 6 if one side is winning, then the other side must be losing. And Friday's summit in Anchorage was definitely a win for Putin.

Speaker 6 I mean, it's one thing to invite him and welcome him onto American soil.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 Okay. It's another thing for Trump to talk about Putin glowingly.
It's another for him to clap for him as he stands there and waits on the red carpet.

Speaker 6 Then at the press conference, Putin spoke first, which apparently took White House staff and the press that was there by surprise.

Speaker 6 And this was very much like Putin spoke first because the boss speaks first. It was a very weird moment.
And

Speaker 6 he didn't give Trump what he wanted. He was able to trick him onto his own side and get him to take his position without Trump getting much of anything.
I think it was frankly pretty embarrassing.

Speaker 6 And given the coverage of it on Russian state media and in loyalist Telegram channels, I think

Speaker 6 the Russians certainly see it as a win for Vladimir Putin.

Speaker 6 It's also an unforced error.

Speaker 6 Trump didn't have to do this. He didn't have to invite Putin.
He didn't have to set the expectations this high. I mean, Putin himself has warned him.

Speaker 6 He said when Trump was talking about how disappointed he was in Putin, Putin offered a kind of offhand remark without naming Trump. He said, you know, Disappointment comes from inflated expectations.

Speaker 6 This was a failure of Trump's own making. It was completely unforced and unprovoked, and it didn't have to be this way.

Speaker 1 Julia Yaffe of Puck, her book is Motherland. Thanks, Julia.

Speaker 6 Thank you, Noel.

Speaker 1 Coming up, Europe sends its A-team to Washington.

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Speaker 16 this is today explained

Speaker 11 I'm Oliver Carroll. I'm the Kyiv correspondent for The Economist.

Speaker 1 All right, so Volodymyr Zelensky is in Washington today.

Speaker 1 You are in Kiev, where he normally is. What's it like in Kiev right now? Is everyone talking about this?

Speaker 11 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. And that rhythm is basically what I would call survival.

Speaker 11 The most sort of popular psychologist in these parts is Viktor Frankel, a famous Holocaust survivor, whose basic treatise was about focusing on the day, not looking too far ahead and not being too despondent about the possibilities.

Speaker 11 So in Kiev right now, there is a real worry.

Speaker 11 It took a little while to filter through.

Speaker 11 But at the same time, you know, this war has been going on for nearly four years. And there is a sense among the population and among the politicians that it can't go on for much longer.

Speaker 11 Obviously, they want a peace on reasonable terms.

Speaker 11 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 interests.

Speaker 11 I was talking to a contact yesterday, and he talked about the idea of this being like the film speed. So everything is very dynamic.

Speaker 11 There is a sense things are speeding up, but the worry is that the bus has gone out of control.

Speaker 1 All right, so we hear the news that Zelensky is coming to DC, and then we hear that like half of the important people in Europe are also coming with him.

Speaker 1 Who else is going to be in Washington this week?

Speaker 11 Right. So this is perhaps the most surprising thing is that, you know, after being invited to Washington,

Speaker 11 the thing in everyone's memory is what happened in February when essentially

Speaker 11 Vladimir Mizelensky was

Speaker 11 attacked left, right, and center. And he, you know, obviously took the bait to a certain extent.
But there is a real desire to avoid that kind of scene.

Speaker 17 You're not in a good position.

Speaker 17 You don't have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards.
You're playing cards. Right now, you don't have

Speaker 17 to be missing the president. You're playing cards.

Speaker 17 You're gambling with the lives of millions of people.

Speaker 17 You're gambling with World War III.

Speaker 17 You're gambling with World War III.

Speaker 17 And what you said they should have. Have you said thank you once this entire meeting? No, in this entire meeting, have you said thank you?

Speaker 17 You went to Pittsburgh.

Speaker 11 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 Ruther to British Prime Minister Keir Stama, Macron, Miloney.

Speaker 11 It really is the list of everyone who has been supporting Ukraine. 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.

Speaker 11 But at the same time, it is a show of European muscle. The bottom line is that

Speaker 11 wider Europe has in fact provided far more support to Ukraine than the US. In fact, in early 2025,

Speaker 11 Europe had overtaken the US in military aid contributions alone, and that isn't including, of course, the macroeconomic and the humanitarian aid.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 So tell me, in addition to funding the war, what is at stake for Europe as Russia

Speaker 1 continues this war in Ukraine?

Speaker 11 I mean, obviously,

Speaker 11 the narrative of recent days has been, of course, that Alaska is very close to Russia, but let's put that aside.

Speaker 1 Recent years, in fact, the last decade or so, maybe.

Speaker 11 Indeed, indeed.

Speaker 18 There are next door neighbors, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.

Speaker 15 And I can see Russia from my house.

Speaker 11 I mean, you know, of course, this is a problem on Europe's doorstep. And this is a problem in the first instance, which is threatening the European post-Cold War order.

Speaker 11 And clearly, the immediate threats to security will be felt by the countries immediately neighboring Ukraine.

Speaker 11 And it's no coincidence that these states have been the ones leading the charge to arm and defend Ukraine from the start, Poland, the Baltic states, and so on. Now, there is a question as to whether

Speaker 11 the Russians are in fact serious about a conflict with NATO in the long term. Right at the moment,

Speaker 11 they wouldn't really stand a a chance. But

Speaker 11 it seems quite clear that

Speaker 11 five or six or seven years down the line, you know, the possibility of some kind of hybrid threat on the eastern flanks of Europe and NATO, that's a real possibility. So the fear is that even if

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 11 That's the fear.

Speaker 11 How realistic it is,

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 11 We don't know. But it's certainly a clear possibility.

Speaker 1 Does Europe, coming into these meetings today, does Europe trust the United States as an ally?

Speaker 1 We have done quite a few things in the last eight months that might be viewed as breeding or, you know, engendering mistrust. Where does the trust stand right now?

Speaker 11 Well, yeah, I think it really depends who in Europe you're speaking to. I mean, as far as the, you know, the Brits are concerned, well, the policy is to engage wherever they can.

Speaker 11 And we still believe our security cooperation is the closest in the world. And that's certainly true on security intelligence contacts and so on.

Speaker 11 It's too close a relationship and it's too integrated a relationship not to try and embrace. And that's certainly the policy.
And it's been shown to have some

Speaker 11 success.

Speaker 11 I mean, that view is not universal across Europe. There's a real sense of trepidation that

Speaker 11 the sort of policy approach, and it isn't a fragmented policy approach of the US

Speaker 11 White House, to put it mildly, some would say chaotic and completely absent. I'm trying to be politically correct here.

Speaker 11 But there is a sense that, you know, the Americans under the Trump administration, these aren't allies that we can really rely on.

Speaker 1 And of course, at the end of the day, there are

Speaker 1 real

Speaker 1 lives at stake here in Ukraine fighting a defensive war.

Speaker 1 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, and Ukraine saying, well, guess what?

Speaker 1 Neither will we, are people there hopeful, civilians, are they hopeful that this is coming to an end anytime soon?

Speaker 11 I mean,

Speaker 11 what is clear is the country is

Speaker 11 playing in different gears. There is one part of the country which is very committed to the war effort and without it, the war effort would stop.

Speaker 11 There are other parts of the country which are less committed and more ready to make concessions. What's clear in general is that Mr.
Zelensky is in a very difficult situation.

Speaker 11 If he agrees to everything that 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. He knows that.

Speaker 11 The Ukrainians will not be ready and it will not accept in broad, I would say, 80-90%,

Speaker 11 giving more Ukrainian territory without a very clear understanding of how that means the war would stop.

Speaker 11 So he has this on the one side, but at the same time, you know, this is a man under extreme pressure.

Speaker 11 This is probably the nearest we've been to a peace deal since the beginning of the war and the Istanbul process.

Speaker 11 And certainly, I understand that those people who are having contacts with the Russian side right now

Speaker 11 believe that these are the strongest signals the Russians have been sending, that now might be the good time to sort of try and find some points of interaction. So he has this sense that

Speaker 11 it might only be this window opportunity. It's open right now, it might not be open for long, and so this piece, if that is what it is,

Speaker 11 might need to be seized right now. So it's a really tight, tight line he has to walk.

Speaker 1 Oliver Carroll is Kiev correspondent for leading magazine The Economist. Denise Guerra and Rebecca Ibarra produce today's show.
Amina El Sadi is our editor.

Speaker 1 Laura Bullard and Avashai Artsi check the facts. Andrea Kristen's daughter is our only engineer.
Patrick Boyd is here too. I'm Noel King.
It's Today Explained.

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