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On Monday, President Trump's Special Envoy for Peace Missions, Steve Witkoff, headed to Moscow. He's expected to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin to present the latest proposal for a ceasefire and peace plan between Russia and Ukraine. The plan is amended from an initial twenty eight point plan the US and Russia developed. On Monday, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenski said the new plan looks better.
What we do know is that the US has been trying to run different scenarios past each side.
Nick Wadams leads Bloomberg's national security coverage from Washington, d C.
There are still so many unknowns and so many questions about whether Ukraine's apparent support for the latest agreement is just a negotiating strategy trying to put the ball back in Ukraine's court. At this point, we really actually have no good sense of whether we are any closer to a deal than we were about two weeks ago.
Monday unfolded like a split screen as Witcoff journeyed to Russia. Zelenski was in France meeting with President Emmanuel Macron to rally European allies.
The big question is going to be, you know, where does Trump land in this perpetual ping ponging between having Zelenski's back and then shunning Zelenski, being more favorable to Vladimir Putin or getting tough on Vladimir Putin.
And that leads to the biggest question, will any of this flurry of activity bring about the end of the nearly four year old war between Russia and Ukraine. I'm David Gera and this is the big take from Bloomberg News Today on the show the state of play between Russia and Ukraine, the developments of the last few days, and whether an end to the war could be in sight.
Nick Wadhams has covered the relationships between the US, Russia, and Ukraine for Bloomberg for years, including during President Trump's first term before Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine in twenty twenty two. He's seen firsthand how Ukraine or Russia has had the upper hand in different moments. I asked Nick to lay the groundwork for me as US Envoy Steve Witkoff travels to Moscow and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky
appeals to European allies. Where do things stand? Who has more leverage right now?
What we know right now is that at least on the battlefield, Russia has the upper hand. This is a situation that the longer it goes on, the more it plays to Russia's advantage, both than terms of manpower and military power and current trend lines. The Russians have been making slow and very costly progress against Ukrainian forces, but
they have been making progress. Ukraine is an increasingly in an untenable position in terms of the strikes that it's been enduring, the strain on its electricity grid, the size of its army, and its ability to recruit new troops. Russia is just a bigger country with a bigger economy and a better ability to keep this going.
Steve Witkoff heading the Moscow with Jared Kushner, the President's son in law. What has the administration said about what they're hoping to accomplish in Moscow this week?
So what we know is that we had that initial twenty eight point plan that was apparently worked out between the US and Russia. Then that put the ball in Ukraine's court. So we've had successive meetings between Marco Rubio and Ukrainian officials, first in Geneva and then in the last few days in Florida, where they've been hashing out some of Ukraine's objections to the initial elements of that
twenty eight point plan. Now, at least if you hear what the US and Ukraine are saying, they've gotten to a point where the US and Ukraine are in broad agreement about the current contours of the nineteen point plant reduced from twenty eight points. Now Stwidkov is taking that
back to Moscow. I should say, though, that we really don't have any indication that the two sides are any closer to bridging what is essentially their fundamental difference, which is that Russia basically wants Ukraine to be a rump state. They want capsizing the size of Ukraine's military, They want Ukraine to essentially declare neutrality. They want NATO membership to
be completely off the books. They want to take land that they occupied as part of their invasion, and also they want Ukraine to see land that it still occupies, and Ukraine has said that is an absolute red line. There's no way it's going to be willing to do that. As a sovereign nation. It wants the ability to determine its own future, and it doesn't want to have to see land that Russia captured in its vision. So we really don't have any indication that the two sides have
been able to bridge those gaps. In fact, everything we have heard is that Ukraine is just saying, no, We're going to punt those thorny decisions to a late date. Nick.
We learned through a phone call, the transcript of which Bloomberg published, that Steve Whitcoff has been coaching his Russian counterpart on how to make his case to President Trump. What did we learn from it about the relationship between the US and Russia as it stands today.
It was an extraordinary transcript, not only for its level of detail, but for the attitudes that the Trump administration seems to be taking. I mean, normally, when you would have a negotiation of this contour, of this shape, the US would not take such an accommodating stance toward an adversary. They would essentially say, Okay, here are red lines. You know, if you're going to come at us with this particular negotiating demand, I'm just going to tell you, right now
that is absolutely not going to fly. You would have a much more stand offish attitude by the US side because you are dealing essentially with an adversary and one
that has been an adversary for many years. But what you see in those in that call is essentially Steve Whitcoff taking a much more accommodating stance to Russia, essentially saying, as you say, you know, he's coaching the Russians on how to get onto Trump's good side, and should say, of course that when President Trump was asked about this, he just said, listen, Steve is a great negotiator, and what he's doing in that call is not really any different from what I would expect him to do, and
he's doing a fantastic job. And it does make me think of that hot mic moment you had with President Barack Obama and the then Russian President Dmitri Medvedyev some years ago around twenty twelve, where he essentially said, Hey, just let me get through the election and then we can have a conversation.
My last elections mo. Yeah, and after my election, I.
Have more tuxt movies. Part of it is it's pretty extraordinary to see how this administration takes this much friendlier attitude toward Russia. But part of it is also just the fact that the conversation has been put out there. So many of these conversations from administrations passed on both sides.
We have no idea what they would have said, and you can be sure that you know probably is not the first time, and there would have been similar sort of approaches by envoys from both parties when dealing with Russia in the past.
Aside from the parts of this plan that deal with territory, what are the main tenants of the piece plan that is being handled over right now?
You have Ukraine losing control potentially over this massive nuclear power plant in perpetuity. You have Ukraine potentially giving up the prospect of NATO membership, and also a cap on the size of Ukraine's military The original twenty eight point plan put that number at six hundred thousand. I mean, just this extraordinary situation where you would have these countries essentially telling Ukraine in a pretty unprecedented way you are not going to be allowed to make sovereign choices for
yourself in the future. So NATO membership being a perfect example, it asks that Ukraine put in its constitution the commitment never to see NATO membership. Of course, that could be
changed later. But the interesting part of this plan too is the sort of economic web that it seeks to spin, which would be not only the US Ukraine economic partnership, but a US Russian economic partnership that would be unlike anything we've ever seen, where there would essentially be US involvement in Russia's oil sector, in tapping and extracting natural resources. So it seeks to appeal very much to Trump's businessman part of the deal instincts, So that's something that sort
of escaped a lot of notice. Much of it has been on the limits to Ukraine. But what we're also seeing is this sort of incentivized structure where the US would really benefit from this piece deal and seek to develop a much deeper and broader economic partnership with Russia, which also would mean, by the way, of course, that you would have all the lifting of the sanctions against Russia, which would benefit Vlaimir Putin enormously.
What Ukraine wants to make happen and the maneuver it's doing this week after the break as US led negotiations have gained steam. Another development in Ukraine has picked up speed. There's been an ongoing investigation into an embezzlement scandal that's rocked President Zelenski's government. I wanted to unpack what Zelenski is attempting to do to rally European allies and what he's dealing with on the home front with editor Nick
watams Nick. Because all of this has been playing out, Ukraine's President Volombia Zelensky has been trying to rally the support of European allies. He was in Paris on Monday meeting with Emmanuel Macron. What specifically is he hoping to get from them? What kind of support at this moment? One is military support. So what President Trump had done in recent months was say, listen, we're not going to give Ukraine weapons and material and our ammunition the way
that the Biden administration did. But what we will do is allow Europe to buy those weapons and then give them to Ukraine. So he really wants Europe to step up the purchases of weapons and ammunition, especially at this
critical time for the Ukrainian military. The other thing he essentially really wants more than anything is for European countries, which they have done to use their leverage with President Trump to try to pull him back from the Russian side, and basically also what he really wants is for them to just slow down the process. You know, Trump wants this thing done as quickly as possible. He wants a deal, he wants that handshake, and he wants to move on.
But what you saw from the Europeans almost immediately once this twenty eight point plan came out is to say, Okay, hold on, let's take some time here, let's think about this, let's slow it down, let's do the conversations.
We'll meet in Geneva. Then we'll go for round two and then maybe round three, just to try to bring Trump back on side.
Someone noticeably absent from those toxes andre Yurmak, President Lenski's now former chief of staff, who has been by his side through the entirety of this war. He resigned after being swept up in this wider corruption investigation in Ukraine. The how big of deal is it now that as Ukraine goes through this that he is not party to these talks, he's not active in negotiation.
It's a huge deal because andre Yermak has in a lot of ways been such an intermediary and a point person in the conversations with the United States, so they have to sort of reboot a lot of those relations. The other thing it's going to do is create this sort of sense of suspicion from the Trump administration. I mean, corruption has been endemic in Ukraine for a long time. I mean when I was covering the first Trump administration, we were doing a bunch of trips to Ukraine well
before the invasion, and corruption was always a conversation. How are we going to deal with this? How are we going to root it out? What do we do? What are the incentives, What are the carrots, what are the sticks. It's something they just have not been able to solve. Trump has really pounced on this, and it gives you a sense of his thinking. When when there's this corruption scandal in Ukraine, Trump sees that as a weakness that can be exploited to pressure Ukraine into doing something he
wants it to do. In other words, to say, listen, your position is extremely untenable. You have this corruption problem. You have to agree to a deal with Russia now, even if it's on terms you don't like. And so that really gives you a sense of how he's playing this. He sees this as a serious problem for Ukraine that can be exploited. So it comes at just such a bad time for President Zelenski.
That twenty eight point piece plan gives us a window into what Russia thinks it would take to end this conflict. How about for the Ukrainians, what would it take for them to declare this over?
I mean, I think what they want is their freedom back. They don't want to have limits on the size of their military. They want Russia obviously out of the territory that it invaded, both in the least couple of years but also in the invasion in twenty fourteen. They would
love to get Crimea back. I think what you would see them potentially settle for, and this is something that is very, very hotly debated, is there would be some willingness to concede some territory, if not by law then de facto, so not a formal recognition that Russia has that land. But you know, there are examples of this all around the world where you see these conflicts, whether it's between Greece and Turkey or North and South Korea, or elsewhere, or where you have this land that both
sides claim but is left in a legal limbo. There is some indication we're seeing that Ukraine would be willing to agree, at least in the short term, to a situation where the land was de facto Russian but left legally ambiguous.
I'll ask you lastly, as the Thrill negotiation takes place, what's your sense of how much longer Ukraine can hold out if it decides this piece steal as drafted as a non starter, given the predicament that it's in, given Russia's ability to prosecute this war, and it's seeming willingness to continue doing that.
What we know from Vladimir Zelenski's own comments on this is that it's going to be a very very difficult winter. That Ukraine can get through the winter, but looking into next year is going to be really, really difficult. And there is this theory of the case. Again, you can talk to one hundred analysts and former military officials and Ukrainian officials and American officials and Russian officials and get one hundred different predictions about what's going to happen next.
But one theory out there is that things happen very very slowly, and then they happen very very quickly. So you have these very incremental, tiny changes where Russia slowly takes little bites out of Ukrainian territory and then something really big happens and they take a whole bunch of land all at once. That's why you see Ukraine trying to do this thing now of Essentially some of the conversations out of Europe is we need to make Ukraine like a porcupine, or we need to make it indigestible.
So we just want to create the condition so that Russia can't swallow it up, or at least swallow up a significant chunk of territory in the east. That is really one of the big concerns. I think you would see Europe try to push and step up its purchases of materiel, and you will start to see over the next year to even more defense weapon reproduction going online.
But the question is how do you bridge the gap between getting through this winter and when that weapon reproduction can get online so that Europe can flood the weapons of material to Ukraine.
Nick, thank you very much, my pleasure. This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm David gurat To get more from The Big Take and unlimited access to all of Bloomberg dot Com subscrib today at Bloomberg dot Com slash podcast offer. If you liked 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