Inside Negotiations to End the War in Ukraine

Putin thinks he can outsmart us, he can outlast us, but he doesn't want to directly challenge us. Because he knows that if we actually took him up on it, it would go very badly for him.

Welcome to One Decision. I'm Sir Richard Dearlove, former chief of Britain's MI6 and your host. This week, several European leaders flew to Washington DC to convene with President Trump. and Ukraine's president, Vladimir Zelensky. And the goal was apparently straightforward, to work out a peace deal with Vladimir Putin, including... a ceasefire and perhaps exchange of territorial areas. Since the meeting, not much has changed. In fact, the whole issue is fraught with uncertainty.

In the aftermath of this unprecedented gathering of the White House, what next for the war in Ukraine? Now I'm pleased to welcome as my guest today... Ambassador John Herbst, who previously represented the United States in Ukraine. Ambassador, thank you so much for joining us. I think you and I would have been riveted by the extraordinary meetings, one in Alaska between Trump and Putin and then this assembly of...

European leaders. My first question, I think it's very general. How do you assess where we are with regard to any sort of agreement over Ukraine? We remain very distant from any agreement and from any peace over Ukraine. And the reasons are very simple. Putin does not want peace. His goal is to use my slightly stilted formula.

effective political control of the country, which means since the Ukrainians are not going to submit to a diktat for peace, he needs to take a good bit more territory, probably the cities along the Dnipro, the Ukrainian Black Sea coastline. And that requires a lot more war. And he's only going to offer terms or rather agree to terms for peace if he is forced to. And over the last two weeks, we've seen, I'd say, one larger step away from forcing him.

and one good step in the right direction. The good step is what came out of the meeting, the extraordinary meeting on Monday. I mean, like you, I've been watching international affairs for well over half a century. And I've never seen a meeting with that number of major world leaders held in the White House.

basically within 36 hours of the invitation and that speaks both to the importance of this issue the critical nature of this issue and trump's power to convene ambassador you're a diplomat and i was not I was an intelligence officer, although in the end I ended up being an intelligence bureaucrat and watching Putin.

In relation to Trump, I recognize some of the characteristics of what I would call an intelligence officer at work. Very few of the characteristics of someone who is playing the diplomatic game. I think that... Putin perhaps is over-invested in the belief that he can manipulate Trump, okay?

There is some evidence that he's had a degree of success, but we haven't really yet reached a conclusion. What are your reflections? In my world, I work with a lot of people from think tanks and former officials. as part of a network because that's the way to be more effective and most of my colleagues think that putin is doing a magnificent job of manipulating trump and that that's in part perhaps because trump has no real interest in his stated goal of achieving a durable peace.

that leaves ukraine independent sovereign secure and economically viable i think that actually trump does want that i think that trump recognizes he's vulnerable to being seen as a patsy if he were to allow putin to have his way and that ultimately These factors will push Trump to make the right decision and bring a hammer down on Putin, which, if that happens, would create enormous problems for the Kremlin dictator. But it is, I think you'll agree, very painful.

to watch us going through this extended process. I mean, I've described... Trump is doing diplomacy back to front. What I mean by that is doing the optics first and none of the preparation. I think you and I know that these complex international agreements would...

normally require months of what we call Sherpas negotiating the detail before the principles got anywhere near sitting down together. So, I mean, I think we're in a really confused position because having done the optics it now is quite clear from what's happened in the White House that we're back into the process and the detail which is looking very complex and very opaque.

Yes, reaching a peace agreement for a war that's been going on not for just three and a half years, but 11 and a half years, usually takes a great deal of work by people who really understand the issues at stake. Having said that, we really haven't even begun serious preliminaries because preliminary number one, absolutely essential first step to unlock.

The process which could lead to peace is to persuade Putin that he wants to negotiate a peace deal. Because he has no intention of negotiating anything other than a diktat, which of course Ukraine will refuse. Because as one Ukrainian official told to me, The only thing worse than living under Russian bombardment is living under Russian occupation. We have seen some efforts.

to put pressure on the Kremlin, but so far not sufficient. I credit Trump for an effort that lasted about six or seven weeks to put pressure on Russia, pressure in the form of arms to Ukraine. and sanctions on Russia and its trading partners. And that effort essentially ended on August 8. And the reason why I say it ended then is because...

Trump did something that Obama did in a different part of the world. Obama famously set a red line in Syria if the Assad regime used chemical weapons against its civilians. They did. He did nothing. Trump set a red line. The date was August 8th. Trump had said, I'd say pretty definitively and for weeks, that if Russian shooting had not stopped by that date, there'd be crushing economic sanctions and perhaps Western supplies as well.

going to Ukraine. You know, Witkoff went to Moscow on the 6th of August. He had a meeting with Putin where Putin continued his effort, pretty successful, I'd say, to charm Witkoff and to a lesser extent through Witkoff, Trump. But the reason why Putin spoke sweet words to Witkoff was precisely to avoid sanctions. So come certainly August 8, but even more, it's August 15. Friday 15th, Putin achieved his objective of having Trump, at least for a period of time, ditch the politics of leverage.

But I mean, this suggests to me there is real vulnerability in Putin's situation. I mean, he's desperate to avoid sanctions. So this ball is kicked down the road. He gets a little alleviation. It seems to me that the benefit of the European leaders forming up as a solid group in the White House has been perhaps to pressure Trump into realising...

that he's also got himself into an exposed position. So where do you think we go next? Well, I agree that we've seen Europe operate with a determination. and a boldness since roughly early March of this year that I had never experienced in my entire career in the State Department. And that's a good thing. That's a good thing. And Trump can properly... at least as regards defense spending, take credit for it. And you might say as a side effect.

He can also take credit because European leaders who are always dependent on the United States for their security realized maybe they couldn't be dependent that way anymore. But there's a psychological element to this, too. And that is Trump is pals with several of those leaders. And of course, and I say this with regret, he considers himself pals with Putin. So those personal ties make it harder.

to simply do stuff because his pal Putin is suggesting it. And it makes him take a second look at what Putin's actually doing. So this has all helped focus Trump on the right issues as he deals with...

an aggressive world leader who considers the United States to be its principal adversary. It would actually be a wonderful thing if we heard those words come from Trump's mouth himself, that Putin considers America to be its principal adversary. Because that could... put an end to all the happy talk about how there could be a wonderful relationship between the us and putin's russia

You talk about the unity of the European leaders, which I agree is rather extraordinary. I mean, there is an article which has been published in the Daily Telegraph by a highly respected analyst, which actually... is saying that the military advantage, if you look at what's happening with Europe's rearmament...

pretty much lies with the European, the main European nations, given the speed at which their defence industries are developing and rearming. I mean, particularly Germany, but it's much more... broader than that and the speed at which artillery ammunition is now being produced. I mean there's a really fundamental change psychologically, particularly on defence expenditure across the whole of Europe.

I mean, not so much driven by the EU, but driven by the nation states, the primary nation states, but even the smaller ones are getting their acts together. What it looks like to me is it's absolutely the wrong moment. for anyone to be thinking, if we can hold the line... to make concession. I mean, my own opinion is probably that we can afford to allow Putin to overplay his hand, which actually is not nearly as strong as people think or particularly as he thinks.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. Look, we've all learned that Putin's conventional forces were not, as many of us thought before the big invasion, the second or at least the third most. able in the world we've seen putin struggle to make very small gains in ukraine and in order to make those very small gains he's been reliant on arms from iran and north korea and on soldiers from north korea and soldiers that he can drag up from anywhere around the world

That's not the sign of strength. And in addition to that, we know the Russian economy is stumbling along. All of this means that really the cards are held in the West. The cards are held especially in Washington. And if we play those cards where we are so much stronger, we can make sure that Putin is unable to impose a peace on Ukraine that not only opens Ukraine to further conquests.

but also makes it more likely that Putin's provocations against NATO countries, especially the Baltics, will only grow. We just have to play our hands. It's that simple. But looking at this domestic politics in the States, are they going to accept the willingness of the United States, let's say, to really try to coerce?

Putin, I think you and I probably are in agreement that all he's going to react to is coercion. On one hand, you've got the possibility of redoubled sanctions, particularly secondary sanctions on those who are buying Russian energy. And you also have the possibility of continuing to arm and supply and to train the Ukrainian military, which, let's face it, is formidable. I mean, they have nearly a million men under arms.

Can we, do you think, step from where we are to this objective, which I think to those of us who are, let's say, geopolitical professionals, seems to be pretty obvious? Let me start by talking about Trump supporters.

We saw a significant development in that world when Trump decided, properly so, to help make sure that the most hardened Iranian nuclear facilities were at least severely damaged, if not completely destroyed. That provoked serious criticism of Trump from Tucker Carlson, from Steve Bannon. and other quote unquote MAGA luminaries. And Trump told him to stuff it, and he made the point, which is proved to be absolutely true, that he determines MAGA foreign policy. So if he says bombing Iran,

is MAGA foreign policy, that's MAGA foreign policy. And only a tiny sliver, or let's say a small sliver, think that Tucker Carlson or Marjorie Taylor Greene or Steve Bannon had that right. So Trump decided tomorrow that American boots would be on the ground in Ukraine. And I'm using that example because he just said they will not be. Most of MAGA world would go along. No question. Now, again, Trump has this. let's just say peculiar view of Putin in Russia and

He has obviously been reluctant to put pressure on the Kremlin because he's been talking about it since May. And we had a period of about six weeks where Trump said two or three times, we'll know in two weeks if Putin is serious. And then if he's not, I will take strong steps. But Trump knows.

if he if he were to broker a deal based upon his hectoring ukraine and pressuring ukraine to make ill-advised concessions and putin takes advantage of those concessions which he inevitably would trump would look like one of the world's biggest patsies and that would dwarf the hit that Biden's reputation took for the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. And I think it's pretty clear that people around Trump understand that. What worries me is the fact...

that it's taking so long for this sensible approach to dealing with this extraordinary problem to be the dominant factor in US policy towards this crisis. I certainly agree with that. I hope. what I'm about to say is wrong, and I'm not predicting it, but looking at possibilities, I can imagine we'd be in the same position eight or 10 months from now. Many of my colleagues, most of whom, again, are deeply skeptical about Trump.

I think I'm too rosy on my outlook. I think that that would be a complete disaster, risking defeat. And I suspect, given the measures that the collective West has taken, including Trump, this can hold on because I don't think... ukraine's position is so dire i mean the russians are predicting the fall of pokrovsk for probably a year now and even when some russian forces entered the city they got kicked out by azov so the situation is not as dire as it is of course

it's very painful for ukraine it's nerve-wracking for all of us who understand the stakes but maybe not not again we're not at quite the tip of the precipice But I'm hoping this will all happen sooner. And while I've been somewhat negative right now on, you might say, the length of time for this to play out.

What happened on Monday was positive. The discussions are now going on, led by Rubio on the U.S. side, regarding security guarantees are real. There's similar conversations about weapons on the defense side. So stuff is moving in ways they were not moving before Monday. Trump's personal relationship with three or four of those leaders who showed up in Washington is another reason to think we'll get sooner to the necessary point than I just spoke of.

Yeah, I'm encouraged by the presence of the Finnish prime minister, partly because he's a very low handicap golfer.

But more importantly, because if any European country understands the reality of sharing a border with Russia. and the problems and the difficulties and the strategic issues at stake, it would be the Finnish prime minister in my book. There's a bad idea, which apparently has cachet in the Trump administration.

about handing over to Putin unoccupied territory in Western Donetsk that Putin covets. Now, that's a bad idea just out of the face of it, to give over land which Russia is not even occupying. But it's even worse because that... a territory that area is strategically important their high grounds hills cities or towns kramatorsk slavyansk pokrovsk would make it easy to defend

So why would you want to give that to the Russians when they've lost a lot trying to take it? And how is that consistent with your idea of security guarantees, which involve European troops on the ground, who would be far more vulnerable? in that part of Ukraine, if Russia held those heights. No one has really thought about that in an intelligent way at this point. The only security guarantee which I think would be...

Sensible and practical is a very sophisticated air cover which could be provided by a combination of the United States and the individual nations who are represented in the White House. And of course, those aircraft could be stationed. outside ukraine i mean what what's your view of this idea i mean the coalition of the willing seems to i understand why it's being discussed politically but it seems to me an unachievable idea

One of the reasons why I've been impressed by European leaders this year has been the way they threw themselves into this concept, again, starting around March. That concept actually came from Trump world. or Team Trump, even before our elections. And I think that's one of the things that has persuaded Trump that the Europeans are serious. But this may be one area where you and I don't agree, because I take your point that the Ukrainian army is a serious army, a formidable force even.

And so what would tens of thousands of European troops do? But the answer to that question is tripwire. That adds a risk to Russian restarting war after a deal is reached. So a combination of European forces with a clear American backup commitment to them, clear American backup commitment, because otherwise I don't think they go in, could play a very important role here.

There's another aspect to this conflict which doesn't affect the United States to the same extent as it affects Europe. In fact, I don't think it affects the United States at all. And that we are experiencing, not just on the European continent, but in the UK as well, what I would say, significant grey warfare. There is a lot of Russian activity.

probably mostly driven by Russian military intelligence, the GIU, which largely was established to have the capability to, as it were, fight or destabilize behind enemy lines. If I spoke about this to an American audience, I think... they would think I was a conspiracy theorist but it is actually a real European problem and there are many now documented incidents which have been caused.

by Russian interference. I mean, I think this speaks to the fact that Putin still harbors, you know, a much bigger ambition in terms of Russian strategic attitudes towards European states. Putin's aim.

is not simply to have political control of Ukraine. It's to essentially have the amount of control Moscow exercised over the territory of most of, if not all of, the... soviet union so that includes that the all the independent states that emerged when the soviet union collapsed including three members of nato right the baltic states and he also would like to have

some measure of security influence in the entire space of the former soviet empire which brings in the warsaw pact nations another gaggle of nato members that's his objective and as part of his objective which is restoring Russia's power and influence. He retains the old Soviet goals of decoupling the United States from its European allies and weakening

The unity that we see in Europe in the form of not just NATO, but the EU. Those are all his goals. And what we've seen with Putin is, I think, perhaps an even more aggressive use of gray warfare or active measures.

than we saw in Soviet times. While we think that Putin is clearly the decider in Moscow, we know that the military and the intelligence agencies have their own interests.

and obviously they will knuckle under to the boss but they still have their own interests and you'll be amused to learn that to me the best the best takeaway we got from that exercise were that the intelligence forces the russian intelligence agency persuaded putin reacting to a strong western stand on the war especially american stand to increase uh gray warfare especially in the baltics also in the balkans

So kind of predicting what the Russians began to do in much greater measure in the spring of last year. So you're absolutely right about this. But our own cravenness has let this happen. Why do we let Russian missiles and drones fly over NATO airspace to attack Ukraine? That's a violation of airspace. We should do what the Turks did in 2015 when they shot down the fourth Russian intruder into their airspace.

near the Syrian border. If we did that, we might have a different Russia policy. And you're right that maybe some Americans would consider your description of what the Russians are up to as conspiracy theory, but that's only because they're uninformed. The Russians played some very serious cyber games with the United States in the first year of Biden's administration, right? They wreaked havoc on food supply distribution and oil supply distribution. And Biden...

to his discredit, tried to ignore it until the Republicans began to make a political issue out of it. So they've been doing stuff here, too, in ways that have affected Americans. And the reason why Americans don't know this is, and this is true also, to a lesser extent in europe the leadership doesn't want to talk about it because then they have to do something about it so political cravenness as well as geopolitical cravenness is at the root of this at least from the standpoint of the west

I mean, my feeling is that Putin is really in a pretty deep hole and he's still digging downwards. And that within the Russian elite, there's almost certainly a clear understanding. of this situation. But of course, you and I know that there's no real mechanism for challenging him. But how secure is this brittle and ultimately fragile?

regime, but it's only fragile if you hit it in the right place. We can't sort of see this as a solution to the problem of Ukraine, but I must say I sit there at night thinking, well, this could fall apart. The Kremlin could fall apart very fast. if the right precursors were all switched. Again, the Russian economy is wobbly, although we don't know when it could hit a true crisis.

We know that Russians are not marching to the front, which is why you have these extraordinary bonuses, I mean, efforts to pull in soldiers from different countries. And we know that this is Putin's war. You go back and look at those extraordinary videotapes. When he met with his security advisors a few days before the war, he launched a big invasion. And there was no one happy in that room except for Putin. And also that extraordinary videotape.

a day or two after the war began, when it was just Shoigu and Gerasimov, and they talked about raising nuclear status. And neither Shoigu nor Gerasimov were happy. So this is clearly Putin's war. And we also know... that for a period of about 10 days after the big invasion, Russian oligarchs began to express concerns about this and Russian...

Political commentators or foreign policy experts were also expressing concerns. And you had hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in many cities across the breadth of Russia. The hammer came down within two weeks and everyone, you know. locked into a little step So everyone knows that the unfortunate, even disastrous consequences Russia has experienced as a result of this war, meaning two new NATO members, meaning all those sanctions, meaning the clear drop in the standard of living.

and the much slower economic growth are all on Putin. We also saw in the Purgosian episode that had Purgosian not decided to turn around, Who knows if Putin would have been in power by the end of 2023? Now, I don't know what persuaded Purgosian to stop. And if you have some striking new development, plausible, but we can't predict when, again, like the collapse of the economy, like some new Ukrainian feat on the battlefield, that could do it. But maybe not. We just don't know.

If you had ever said to me earlier in my career, you know, we would have a major conflict on the European continent, which, as it were, was between Russia and part of the former Soviet Union backed. by the West, which was contained within the borders of that part of the Soviet Union. I just wouldn't have...

believed that this was a possible geopolitical situation. So I think the most extraordinary thing for me is that this war has actually been contained. I mean, it's lethal, it's extreme, and of course we all want to see it end. On the other hand, the fact that it hasn't broken out and destabilised the whole of Europe. In fact, it's unified Europe militarily, I would say.

is to me an extraordinary thing to come to terms with. And it has actually a positive aspect in the rebirth of NATO and the rearmament of Europe. It's been contained for several reasons. One are the two additional positive factors for the West that came from this meeting, a restrengthening of NATO and a new determination in Europe to defend themselves. It's also been contained because despite Putin's regular threats of nuclear escalation designed to intimidate, sadly, with some success.

especially under Biden, but also in Trump world, that same fear of Russian nukes produces, let's say, something less than strong policy. Despite that, overall... The Western response to this very serious crisis has been at least adequate. I mean, the Biden team used to dislike my criticism of their policy.

the fact that they were intimidated by putin's nuclear threats to slow rolling of weapons limitations on weapons use all that stuff but i always said that policy was adequate because the amount of support we gave made sure putin could not win trump has in some sense, made the policy less adequate with cutting off American aid. But Europe can and is stepping up. And as long as we're willing to sell weapons, it all works.

So the policy has been at least adequate. And again, Russia knows they really don't want to take on NATO or the United States. So that's also a factor. Putin thinks he can outsmart us. He can outlast us.

But he doesn't want to directly challenge us because he knows that if we actually took him up on it, it would go very badly for him. Well, I think that's a very good... optimistic note which i endorse on which to conclude our conversation ambassador thank you very much for your fantastic insights and your analysis of this extraordinary ongoing crisis my pleasure i enjoyed this conversation

And that is it for this week's edition of One Decision. For more conversations like this one with leading experts in their field and world leaders too, you can check out onedecision.com and our YouTube page, of course, where you'll find additional... videos, short stuff, commentaries and explainers. I'm Kate McCann. Thanks for listening.