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Turning overseas Now where Ukraine was hit overnight by a barrage of Russian drones igniting a fire at an energy facility in the Odessa region that had emergency workers racing to the scene. A drone from that attack crashing of the Poland Poland and EU and NATO member claiming the crash was a provocation from Russia. That coming the same day that NATO military chiefs met remotely as we await more details for a potential trilateral meeting between Presidents Trump,
Putin and Zelenski. For more, we want to bring in Leon Panetta, former US Secretary of Defense and former director of the CIA. Thank you for joining US. Director Panetta. We want to start tonight with this whole question of security guarantees, which has been the main and driving topic of Ukraine this week since the meeting on Monday at
the White House between President Trump and European leader. To your view, what do security guarantees need to look like to essentially prevent a repeat of what happened in nineteen ninety four with the Budapest memorandum that really left Ukraine of the long run, short of an adequate defense against a potential Russian invasion.
Well, the primary point that needs to be made with these security assurances is that the United States and our European allies, particularly those that are part of NATO, will in fact make clear that they will come to the assistance of Ukraine if Russia should attack in the future. And so Europe has indicated that they're prepared to move in that direction. I think the President indicated that he was prepared to support security clearances, even though he was
pulled back on boots on the ground. He did say that they would look seriously at providing air support to help in those security assurances. The one problem right now is that Russia is saying that somehow it needs a veto power over what those assurances look like. And since the primary purpose of those security assurances is to be able to protect Ukraine from a Russian invasion, I'm not so sure that's something that's going to happen.
Well, and mister Secretary, we did have Bloomberg viy's reporting today actually that European leaders are discussing a guarantee for Ukraine that would commit allies to decide within twenty four hours whether to provide military support to the country if it was attacked again by Russia. Much to your point, but just to drill down a little further on this, I'm wondering what is realistic what should we expect from the US when it comes to their side of contributing
it to these guarantees. For example, we hear a lot about air cover and that seems to be an emerging theme in these discussions.
Well, I think to be fair, security assurances are not going to work unless the United States is part of that agreement. We bring a lot to the table, obviously from a military point of view and from the ability to try to support any military effort that might have to occur on the ground. So it's very important that the United States be part of those security assurances. It's very important that Europe agree that they will come together
and support Ukraine in that event. I think twenty four hours is probably makes some sense, but it really has to look like implementation of a Title five kind of approach that once Russia decides to invade Ukraine again, that all the nations of NATO will again respond as they have now.
Director Panetta last night and Balance of Power, we spoke with William Taylor, former US Ambassador to Ukraine. Here's what he had to say about the prospect of Vladimir Putin really participating in a bilateral or even trilateral meeting with Vladimir Zelenski.
Putin doesn't want to end this war. Putin wants to drag it out. He wants to keep pounding the Ukrainians until they give up. They're never going to give up, but he's going to keep pounding until he's forced to come to the table for a ceasefire. So no, I don't think he's eager to I don't think he has
any intentions of coming to a bilateral meeting. He may say something on the phone to President Trump to tell President Trump that he's willing to do it, but they're not serious about these negotiations, and Putin does not either. Putin wants all of Ukraine and he wants to pound them until he gets that.
Director Panetta, we have yet to hear from Moscow about whether they will or will not agree to a meeting between vladimir's Lensky and Vladimir Putin. How much time should Donald Trump give the Russian leader to agree to a sit down, and what happens next if Putin balks or refuses.
Well, again, there is a fundamental principle here that Bill Taylor referred to, which is that you can't trust Vladimir Putin in these issues. You just can't. I think it's eighty eight percent of the American people in a recent poll said do not trust Vladimir Putin. That's pretty good judgment on the part of the American people. That's the reality is that it's very difficult to really try to find a way to get Putin to negotiate seriously right now.
I think he's largely playing for time. He's continuing the war. He's refused to agree to any kind of cease fire. He even talked about the need to eliminate the root causes.
Of the war.
Well, the root cause of the war was that Russia invaded Ukraine on the basis that it is a part of Russia and not a sovereign democracy on its own. So he basically is saying he wants to win. I think it's very important for President Trump to make very clear to Putin that he wants them to participate in this trilateral or meeting with his Vilenski and if it doesn't happen. I think the president really does have to.
He's got to come back and hold tough with Putin by implementing sanctions, by providing weapons, and by making very clear develop Vladimir Putin that he cannot win this war. That is going to be very important to our ability to negotiate.
A US secretary of Defense and former director of the CIA, we thank you so much for joining us on Bloomberg