Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
After last week's summit in Alaska between US President Trump and Russian President Putin, Ukrainian President Zelensky and more than half a dozen European leaders traveled to Washington.
Getting a group of European leaders to come in anywhere in August is sort of a tough task, much less in a few days, and I think it underscores the level of concern there was coming out of that Alaskamedian among Ukraine and Ukraine's allies in Europe over what President Trump's plans were.
Bloomberg's Justin Sink says, this group of presidents and prime ministers, NATO's secretary General and Germany's chancellor wanted to make sure Ukraine and the rest of Europe are included in the peace process, and that Trump understands what's at stake, not just for Ukraine but for the whole continent. First is a Lensky met with Trump at the White House, and that meeting unfolded much better than another one they had a few months ago in the Oval Office.
I think that we had a very good conversation with presidents, very good and it really was the best one.
Next Trump held a roundtable discussion with a group that included Francis Emmanuel Macron, Italy's Georgia Maloney, and the UK's Cure Starmer, and each of them emphasized the importance of security guarantees for Ukraine in any peace deal.
We're talking about the security not just of Ukraine, We're talking about the security of Europe and the United Kingdom as well.
There is a lot of discussion over the course of the day of next steps of President Zelenski and President Putin potentially meeting one on one and if there being a trilateral meeting with Ukraine, Russia, and the United States. But according to Justin Sink, there is nothing on the schedule and getting Zelenski and Putin together to talk is far from guaranteed.
The way that the White House and the way the President Trump framed it was that the meeting seemed like a sort of inevitable outcome. I don't think that that's true.
When the Kremlin read out the same phone call between Trump and Putin following his meeting with Celenski and the Europeans, they merely mentioned that there had been a discussion of the possibility of a meeting didn't confirm that they were working to make it happen, So there's a real question of if this meeting even happens, though I think Europe and Ukraine have to be happy that they've at least hot potatoed this back into Putin's lap.
Right now, I'm David Gera, and this is the big take from Bloomberg News today on the show. After separate bilateral meetings with the US and Russia and the US and Ukraine and a show of forest from European leaders at the White House, what's next in the peace process, what would be on the table at a trilateral meeting, and what a peace deal would mean for Ukraine and Europe as a whole. Last week, President Trump literally rolled
out the red carpet for President Putin in Alaska. It was the first time the Russian president had set foot on US soil in a decade. Well thousands of miles away. Ukraine's president and other European leaders were paying close attention, and Justin Sink, who oversees Bloomberg's coverage of the Trump White House, says that summit stirred them to action.
So we went from Putin and Trump leaving Friday in Alaska to Monday afternoon a basic mini G seven convention held at the White House, and that kind of underscores what they saw as a real moment of possible peril for Ukraine. But then out of that, we've now added this possibility of a first meeting between Zelenski and Putin and another meeting between Putin, Trump and Zelenski, with leaders saying that could happen the next couple weeks. Potentially the
entire thing wrapped up in three weeks. I think that's obviously the most optimistic version of how this could play out. But considering how long these talks have installed that the war has been going on for more than three years, we have seen this real sort of rapid acceleration.
Pyotr Skolamowski, who overseas coverage of government and politics in Central Europe for Bloomberg, also kept a close watch on the meeting between Trump and Putin and what happened next.
The visuals from the summit were really scary for European leaders, and they're really concerning. I mean, the fact that he rolled out the red carpet and the fact that he basically didn't even push back and immediately after it more or less adopted the talking points that Putin was having and raised concerns that, first of all, Zelenski going forward will be forced into territorial concessions, which is a big
concern there. And you know that Pudding is basically has Trump on his side, So for them, it was a serious matter just to go there and turn this narrative around.
Justin let's talk about what was a busy day at the White House yesterday. There was this one on one between President Trump and President Zelenski as well, and it wasn't difficult to draw contrast to the previous meeting between those two leaders. Could you just describe the atmospherics of this one, how it was different than the last time they sat down together in the Oval Office?
Sure, I mean the difference was sort of immediately obvious from when Zelenski pulled up at the White House wearing a suit and Trump immediately kind of slaps him on the shoulder and says, oh, you know, you wore a suit, which seems, of course, like an incredibly trivial thing. But for a president who so focuses on image, on style, on the sort of pageantry of the office, it was an immediate signal from Zelensky that he was setting a different tone for this meeting, and the reception from Trump
signaled that as well. They moved quickly to the Oval office. And you see there are different points in that meeting that could have gone south. There's a point where Zelenski says, is asked by a reporter, what do you need to agree to a peace deal? And he says everything. He wants security guarantees, he wants assistance from Europe, all of
these different asks. And he's making that ask in front of a US president that has basically gone the campaign trail and through the first eight months of his presidency. He said, time and time again, I think Ukraine has asked for too much. But Trump doesn't sort of take the bait and attack Selensky. And then there's this one sort of amazing moment to get back to the suit where Trump points out a reporter who had been the one who asked Lensky about the suit.
Yes, all this President, you look fabulous in that suit. Yeah, look you look good.
I said the.
Same and says, you know, this is the guy who gave you a hard time before time. I remember that.
I apologize to you.
Look you look one, and Zelenski quickly quips back and says, oh, yeah, you know, I changed my clothes. This guy's wearing the same suit.
No, my first question for you President in the same suit.
Trump loved it. He was one of the first genuine laughs that I think you can point to from Trump and off it's just cackling and and I think it showed that he was not only in a better mood, but understood the gravity of the situation and understood that if there was a repeat of what happened the last time around, Trump himself would face a lot of those same criticisms that dogged his first term about how he just rolled over time and time again.
There was this other meeting that followed that one with these European leaders, and President Trump gave each of them an opportunity to speak. How unified was the message from these European leaders who came to the White House.
I mean it was unified in one sense that they've really tried to lay it on thick in terms of charming him and trying to say all these good words about how he broke to that log.
I really want to thank you, President of the United States, Theodnalds for the fact that you, as I said before, it broke the deadlock basically with the President starting that dialogue.
And so that's been something that's definitely sort of a charm offensive was clearly in the process. What we saw when sort of the message strating breaking up a little bit is was the moment where British mets the new chancellor from Germany. He basically came back to this whole idea. Of of course the peace plan is important. This is something that came out of the meeting from in Alaska,
but we need to have ceasefire first. And I think he even got to the point where when we get the next meeting, we need to have a ceasefire by then. Clearly Trump was slightly taken aback by that, but it didn't really ruin the atmosphere. It seems they tried to stay on message, justin.
Where do things stand now? So there's this desire from President Trump to have a bilateral meeting, to have President Putin and President Selenski sit down with one another and then have this trilateral meeting. I guess it would be another summit involving President Trump as well. What's the expectation. How widely shared is that expectation of where things go from here.
European leaders said that they expected that it could be set within hours or hours later, and it hasn't happened. And yet, and this is something that's actually happened.
A couple times.
Throughout this process, there's been an international push to put Putin and Lensky in a room. Putin has said I'm interested in talking, but only after sort of get to the end of a piece deal on favorable terms that Russia wants. We heard Zelenski even after the meeting say, I think it's really important that there not be conditions on this meeting, anticipating that the Kremlin and that Putin
might try to scuttle the talks putting stuff forth. But what I'd say is, despite all the optimism and sort of excitement out of the summit in Washington and how it seemed like the US and Europe were largely unified or at least on the same page, again, there's this real question of if you're Russia, do you have this meeting?
And when you think long term, Russia's objective number one may be to get a sweeping deal that ends the conflict on their terms, but short of that, to get the US to get fed up and tired with this process, and get Trump fed up and tired with this process to the point that he walks away, he withdraws support, and then Russia can kind of use its larger size, greater resources to push through and to get the gains
that they wanted in the first place. So you have to kind of consider whether this was a success or where this is going, both in the context of the immediate term of will there be another meeting, will there be a progress towards peace, but also that longer question of is this way of just delaying and delaying and delaying for Putin to get to his eventual gains anyway.
One of the biggest sticking points for President Putin and President Zelenski has been so called security guarantees. Another one is land swaps. After the break, we'll get into what each leader wants from negotiations if they happen. On Tuesday morning, President Trump told Fox News that while he could see the US playing a role in guaranteeing Ukraine's security, it would not involve US troops.
President, what kind of assurances do you feel like you have that going forward, and you know, past this Trump administration, it won't be American boots on the ground defending that border. Well, you have my assurance here, I'm president and I'm just trying to stop people from being killed Jarli.
Look, that was a big indicator of what would be a key sticking point in negotiations. Ukraine and its European allies are seeking to involve the US in providing security guarantees for Ukraine, which would deter Russia from violating a ceasefire agreement. Bloomberg's Pyotr Skolamowski says that while we don't have many specifics, there are a few ways this could shake out, and the first option involves sending weapons to Ukraine.
So that's basically their best bet, just to arm them to the teeth and hope for the best more or less. But you know, the next step is much more harder for them. It's the concept that's been discussed for at least a year now. It started with mccron who raised
this issue of putting foots on the ground there. If you think about the Europeans, obviously we have the Coalition of the Willing and the Group of Countries and most of the leaders who joined Trump yesterday are part of that group, and they are discussing a potentially sending troops at some point. If you look across the EU, a lot of countries are against that. Take poland they've said already they're not going to send troops, even though they're
ready to support. So a lot of countries are willing to support, they're willing to send more weapons, but when it comes to troops, that's basically a step too far. Zelenski said yesterday that one of the potential security guarantees is actually membership of Ukraine and the EU. But then again here you know with the EU Younique consensus, and there is no consensus on that. And one example is Victor Orban Hungary is prime minister who's dead against that idea.
And joining you is, in normal circums as a very long process. In this case it can be even longer. So that deals us with sort of the third option, which which basically means how much US is going to be committed into that process. And at the end of the day, it's very hard to imagine that if we get to a situation, whether it's trilateral meeting or bilateral meeting, there is some kind of form where West secures or
guarantees security for Russia. We've heard from Putting so many times that he talks about the root causes of this war, root causes, NATO being very close to Russia, NATO as he sees it, being a threat to Russia, and any form of security guarantees, any form of troops or boots on the ground from Western countries in Ukraine will just be seen by Putting as another example of West just trying to to get into what he considered his sphere of influence.
You know, we have seen for more than a decade now Russia trying quite doggedly to gain control of this eastern part of Ukraine. Can you just explain for someone who's been watching this with some remove why that territory has been continues to be so important for Russia.
There are number of reasons. First of all, obviously it's part of the country that's at least to some extent Russian speaking, so that's where they see where they can have influence, and they've been trying to control that country even before the full scale invasion, where we have to go back to twenty fourteen. But there are other factors, and one of them is obviously it's the place where there is, or there has been, at least the industry
until it was completely destroyed during this war. And it's the industrial heartland of Ukraine. And what we have to remember strategically, this territory is very key for them. And Zelenski said that if he gives up down Bas, this will just be a springboard for pouting to start again. And I think that's the biggest concern for him, that if they give it up from strategic point of view, from tactical point of view, he will just come back
again in a couple of years. And now he's wrote towards reaching Kiev and actually capturing will be much easier.
Justin what would happen if this process were to fall apart.
Well, it's hard. It's always hard to predict the future, but what I would say is that it gets into very, very dangerous territory for Ukraine. President Trump has already slowed down or essentially stopped many of the pure aid deliveries that the US was offering. In moments of frustration, He's
cut off some of the intelligence sharing. A lot of that's come back, But if Trump feels that Ukraine was the impediment to the talks going forward, which undeniably will be Putin's narrative and something that he laid the groundwork for in Alaska. As Trump and Putin were sitting on stage, Putin said that he was committed to peace and that he hoped that Ukraine and the European capitals wouldn't interfere. And if that's something that Trump believes he has been
sincere about, it's a moment of peril for Ukraine. The alternate is we have seen Trump increasingly frustrated with Putin throughout this process. He said he thought this was going to be the easiest ward a broker. He said in a hot mic moment yesterday' summit that he thought, as crazy as it sounded, you understand that Astras Putin was really sincere about trying to strike a deal with him.
And if he feels that Putin was string him along, if he feels that Putin was lying to him and in fact has sort of embarrassed him as a president who has largely defended outreach in conversation with Russia, then it's possible that we could see the US rally around
and restart support for Ukraine. But there is this sort of fear that underscores all of this, which I do think that Trump understands that if there was a catastrophe in Ukraine where he was seen, you know, it seemed like Trump was at fault for Ukraine falling that it could reverberate politically in the way that the withdrawal from Afghanistan reverberated ically for President Biden and was the real sort of precipice from which his approval ratings fell, that
sort of thing, and so he's Trump was going to have to navigate it.
Peter up the last question to you, and we've talked about the fear in Europe broadly of this ending with that worst case scenario. So we see Russia get the territory that it's tried to claim, Ukraine's not allowed to
join NATO. If this war ends in that way, with what seems like a victory for Russia, how will Ukrainians tell the story of this war, of their fighting it, of it lasting as long long as it did, if it ends in a way that they don't want it to, how are they going to tell the story of this war?
Well, for Ukrainians, this war is just another episode of them trying to break with Russia. And you know, if you look at throughout the history of Ukraine, it's the stug of war in the country that's sort of stuck between Europe and its bigger neighbor, much bigger neighbor that's
trying to just control them and sometimes did so. Being abandoned and losing that war will be a huge disappointment, obviously for the country and for the young people who have been hoping that that will finally kind of bring them closer to Europe.
This is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gerrat. To get more from The Big Take and unlimited access to all of Bloomberg dot Com, subscribe today at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast offer. If you like this episode, make sure to follow and review The Big Take wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps people find the show. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.