Day twenty nine, Happy Tuesday to you. A great time to be tuned into the fifty five KRC Morning Show at this time every Tuesday would get the pleasure of welcoming retired Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis to get a Daniel Davis deep dive. We're going to continue our ongoing discussion over the status of the Russian Ukraine war. Excuse me, Daniel, and what appeared to be I don't know what's going
on with these talks. I know Ukraine's wanting a ceasefire, and Russia says the terms to bring about a ceasefire that Ukrainians demanding are a little bit too onerous. They aren't going to concede to that, so they continue to
fight while at the same time talking about ceasefire. I guess overnight Russia filed one hundred and thirty nine more drones into Ukraine, and Ukraine's response to these actions by Russia seemed to be rather anemic by comparison, and of course Russia has been much more successful at shooting down drones and other missiles that have gone into Russia or into the Russian occupied Bass and no end in sight.
I maybe maybe.
You can make some sense out of this for my listener's day, Yell, I certainly can't.
Yeah, well, I think I can make sense of it.
Actually, just the the what the sense is is not really good for the Ukraine side though, And I think that Russia is saying, hey, I'm in no rush.
Everything's on the advantage for me.
If if I can get a deal that's going to help me out, I'll do that, but only if it's going to work out the way I want.
If not, we'll just keep fighting.
Whereas kind of what I've been saying for a long time, Russia does not need a negotiated settlement.
Ukraine does.
And so once you're on that side of the negotiation, then all the leverage continues to accrue on the more powerful side with the Russians. So, for example, over not you had, I guess last night before I went to bed, the comment coming out of Riod after the meetings was that that the Russians in the US side were kind of close to some kind of an agreement that they expected to have a joint statement published today. Warning the Russian said, yeah, we're not going to publish any statement,
but we're still talking about stuff. The only thing that the Russian media is talking about is a Black Sea deal to open the sea back up for Russian grain and fertilizers, something that's really important to the Russian side.
They didn't even talk at all about the ceasefire on the energy system, etc. So that tells you where the Russian mind is that they're like not in a hurry on this, And of course that's aggravating both the US and the Ukraine side because they're still getting attacked every night. As you mentioned, they're still getting attacked on the ground every single day, twenty four to seven non stop.
So they're getting a little bit antsy.
But I think that's part of the Russian's negotiating strategy is to make them antsy.
Well, clearly, if you have the upper hand and the longer it drags on, the better your hand becomes. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of incentive to sit down and stop it unless you think about the loss of life and the ultimate goal and purpose of what you're trying to accomplis in your war with Ukraine.
So the way I understand it is these negotiations are not in a group where you have Ukrainian instead of the table with Russians in the United States or any other neutral country trying to act as a mediator between this.
It's sort of the United States talking with Russia and hoping to come up with a package of of proposals from Russia that will satisfy Russia to enter into the ceasefire, and then when Ukraine finds out about some of the terms of conditions that are leaked out or otherwise presented, they're like, no, So, I guess is it The Trump administrations hope that they can sort of convince Ukraine, Dude, you're gonna have to accept this. There is no other path.
Yeah.
I think that's exactly what they're doing, or more more
than asking, I think probably telling. And so I think the United States wants to first of all come with the joint situation that they're willing to or that we're willing to support, that the Russians can agree to, and then they'll have a separate negotiation with Ukraine, say here's what we're willing to do, are you Because I suspect that we're gonna get to the point of where the Trump administration finally comes up with something that's agreeable with
the Russian side. It's gonna be small, and then he's gonna tell the Ukraine side basically, take it or leave it.
This is what we're willing to do. I'm not willing to do anything else.
And if you don't get on board with this, you and the Europeans can figure this out, because we're gonna walk. I mean, I think that that's what the situation is set up for. There was a twelve hour talk yesterday between Russia and the United States, and then today there's talks with the Ukraine side that are scheduled. And so far, every time there's been joint talks from back to backside, the US Ukraine side is always much shorter than the
Russian side. So that tells you a little bit about where America's heads at.
Well, you use the word small and describing this this present negotiations. Is this negotiating over a cease fire of some length of time or are they really truly to go siating an end to this conflict? Or is it somewhere gray area in between? Yeah, it's it's definitely including both.
The Russian side this morning did say that that that that's one of the things they're looking at as a part of this they say, look, we can talk about the near term, which is, you know, some kind of a very limited cease fire. That's why I keep saying it's a small deal they're even talking about right now. But then they're also saying, look, and here's the bigger issues that you can't take these off the table because
this is where I'm going. The only reason we want to have is theas fire is to get to right here. And I think that there was a real message sent yesterday by saragay Lavrov. He was addressing an economic forum UH in Russia, and in the toward the end of the conversation he said and kind of by the way, we're gonna still insist upon the denocification of the Ukrainian government.
We're not going to allow you know that to.
Continue on, which so he's clearly saying we're not just negotiating and end of the conflict. We still expect all of our objectives to be met. One of the big oneses, which is their definition of denoxification, which either means the replacement of the Zelensky regime through elections or through military means.
I think that that's where they're at.
Well, And what of this request by some to have a certain amount of peacekeepers placed in Ukraine. I've seen the number ten thousand just recently, and I think it's been widely observed that ten thousand soldiers in Ukraine it could no way shape or form fendofs seven hundred thousand Russian soldiers or troops should they decide they want to make a move forward. And that seems obvious to me.
But the idea of placing NATO aligned countries, United States soldiers, European Union aligned forces, that just invites this thing to escalate into a broader war, which frankly, Daniel Davis scares the hell out of me.
You know, in a certain sense, it's kind of embarrassing for our side because you may recall, I think it was toward the the first of February, maybe the end of January, Zelenski said he wanted a two hundred thousand person peacekeeping force, and then several weeks later it was like, all right, well one hundred thousand, and then Kier Starmer and Macron we're talking well maybe forty thousand, and now then somebody's talking about ten thousand, and then Russia the
whole time that he's never changed and said there won't be one NATO soldier on the territory of Ukraine.
Will never agree to that.
Apparently they will consider non NATO forces to patrol and monitor. But you know, we're talking a two thousand kilometer front here. Yeah, so and you know ten thousand. I mean, if you put one guy over ten thousand spread over that period.
Of time, you wouldn't even be able to.
You might be at a cell phone range. So that's not enough to do anything. So it just shows that frankly, the West side is just not serious about this because they just don't have the resources to do it.
So is our negotiating position are of negotiating on behalf of the entire European Union? Are our NATO countries? I mean we are we the ones in that role because I don't see Macron sitting at the table. I mean he's over in France making grandom comments about what he might want, and Germany's making comments about what they might want, et cetera, et cetera. But the only people at the table are you know, the moderators from Saudi Arabia, the United States, and then of course Ukraine and Russia.
You may recall there was an interesting engagement between General Keith Kellogg, who is the Trump's envoy to the Russia Ukraine War, or he was at first.
Now he's just to the Ukraine side.
But at the Munich Security Conference he was part of a roundtable panel and the European moderator was asking him, you know, we're about to get into these negotiations and it's multi party and he said, and Kelly said, well, actually, you know it's two two antagonists.
It's the United States in Russia.
And she said incredulously, Well, so what you're talking in Russia or Europe won't even be at the table initially. Yeah, that's what I'm telling you. So they're not at the table, and we haven't been shy about telling them. And look, and why would they because the West side itself is so far.
Apart on what the European Union wants.
With this Coalition of the Willing, which is still born, it's not even gonna have a chance. And then where the US is, So why would we want people at a table with Russia when we're all over the map. So I think that Trump is calculating, We're going to see what I'll agree to, and then you guys can figure out if you're going to agree accept what I have up there.
So I think that's kind of where we really are.
Well, in a traditional negotiation, you know my litigation days when I was practicing law. Actively, you make a big ask up front. You know you want everything and the sun and the moon, and you're willing to back off of that and concede some points in your demands just to you know, become a little bit more reasonable, but you can secure the vast majority of what you want.
Is that what the Russians are doing right now? Are going to are they willing to if if Ukraine starts to entertain some proposal, listen, We'll say okay to a ceasefire, we'll say okay to the resolution of the war. But you've got to back off X, Y and Z or is Russia just like no, this is it?
Well, I would wager, probably from your litigation experience, if one party has all the cards and all the leverage, they're ask is not negotiable. This is what we're gonna get. You can either agree to it or we'll take it in open court.
I think is that.
I think that's closer to where we're at because too many people in the West don't have an appreciation for the existential nature of this. For the Russian side, when they say the denocification, they are connecting this to World War Two and they said, this is what the previous generation did.
We're not going to allow this to still exist.
We're not going to just stop the fighting and let the same what they view as the cause of all this stuff continue to perpetuate because they think it'll just come back later. And the other issue that's unappreciated is that the Russian speaking and Russian ethnic people in Ukraine are a non negotiable issue to protect right the Russians, and that means the ones on the Ukraine side of the current line of contact.
Complicated it is and it doesn't seem to get any better. Every week we talk Daniel Davis Steve Dae. Find his podcast online and tune in every Tuesday at eight thirty for this always interesting, if not frightening conversation that we have. Daniel love having you on the show, My friend Sex have a great week. It's a forty couple to eight forty one if you have Carsey the Talk Station. The incomparable doctor Megan Frew, part of the dental practice of
peck and Fru dynamic due of dentistry. They are She'll be on next Hope you can stick around. Thank you for taking