00:00Well, for some insight into the latest developments, we can bring in Stefan Wolff,
00:03a professor of international security at the University of Birmingham.
00:07Good morning, and thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us.
00:11Good morning.
00:13I want to start with this deadline that Trump gave Putin to avoid new sanctions.
00:17It looks like it's almost certainly going to be missed.
00:19Do you expect that Trump is going to take any action today,
00:23or is he just going to kick the can further down the road?
00:27Well, I think it will depend on what will happen.
00:30Today, I would think it's quite possible that we'll see an announcement of a meeting,
00:35and that meeting will probably be enough for Trump to then say,
00:40OK, he's going to not implement the sanctions immediately.
00:45What we have also seen yesterday was that just after the meeting between Ritkov and Putin had ended,
00:51Trump actually put out another executive order in which he already imposed additional tariffs on India.
00:59which has been in his side as one of the main Russian oil buyers.
01:05But even these tariffs will only come into effect in about three weeks' time.
01:09So there's still a window for Trump to make an announcement today
01:13that actually delayed the implementation of any additional sanctions by a couple of days,
01:17possibly until next week when a meeting, should it go ahead, actually happens with him and Putin.
01:23Do you think that the threat of new sanctions and these tariffs already announced for India
01:28is going to have any effect on Putin?
01:33Well, I mean, it seems that there has been some effect of this,
01:37because, I mean, Putin until now has been very clever in really trying to string Trump along
01:45and not really commit to anything.
01:47So the fact that they actually managed to agree to a meeting next week,
01:55I mean, that doesn't tell us anything about the outcome of the meeting,
01:58anything about the agenda of the meeting.
01:59But it does seem that Putin is moving at least somewhat into the direction that Trump wants,
02:06which is to have a little bit more summit diplomacy,
02:11potentially subsequently also including President Zelensky of Ukraine.
02:16And given that Russia and Ukraine are so wildly far apart in their demands,
02:20I mean, what could possibly come out of a meeting this early between Trump and Putin?
02:27Well, that I think is the danger, that this meeting is actually in the end
02:30not really going to be about the war in Ukraine.
02:33But rather about a reset of relations between Russia and the United States,
02:39which is clearly something that has been on Trump's mind for a long time,
02:44even before he returned to the White House.
02:47At some point, he gave an interview to Tucker Carlson,
02:49in which he said that it was on his agenda to ununite Russia and China,
02:55make a deal with Russia and bring Russia closer to the United States again.
03:01And Putin and his people have repeatedly said that they are interested in a reset of relations
03:09with the United States.
03:11So just having a meeting between Trump and Putin, which seems to be the Russian agenda here,
03:19might actually be a way for Putin to reset relations with Trump,
03:24and then potentially hope that Trump will lean on Zelensky to make more concessions as part of a ceasefire or peace agreement.
03:34That's certainly the fear of the Ukrainians.
03:36But Trump has been pretty volatile when it comes to Russia and Ukraine.
03:40I mean, he has been frustrated with Putin as of late.
03:43What's sort of guiding him in his choice of allegiances?
03:47Well, that's very hard to tell.
03:53I mean, as you said, he's very volatile.
03:56You never know what you wake up in the morning in terms of what he has posted on Truth Social the night before.
04:02So I think at the moment, his frustration with Putin is very palpable.
04:07He has been very irritated.
04:10That seems to have calmed down a little bit now.
04:13So he said that yesterday, great progress was made in the meeting.
04:17He seemed quite optimistic that actually negotiations can go back on track.
04:24And so far, he has not indicated that he will turn on Zelensky again.
04:29But at the same time, it is quite worrying that there is no talk of any proper negotiations at the moment
04:38that would, for example, involve European allies of Ukraine.
04:42Meanwhile, Zelensky seems to be in a sort of a weakened position at home.
04:47Is that also a concern that that could impact these talks?
04:52Absolutely.
04:52And I think this is partly what also swayed Putin that now might actually be a good time to partially re-engage in negotiations at the moment.
05:03Because Zelensky clearly weakened after the disastrous handling of the anti-corruption agencies over the last 10 days or so.
05:15And it gives, of course, again, more to Putin in his claims that actually Zelensky is not a legitimate leader,
05:24that there need to be elections in Ukraine, all of which, on the one hand, will further delay a ceasefire, let alone a peace agreement.
05:35But also what I think it does is it manages, again, or gives Putin more leverage to manage his relations with the United States above managing an end to the war in Ukraine.
05:49And just briefly, how is what's happening on the battlefield impacting these negotiations to end the war?
05:55I think it makes Putin much less concerned in terms of the urgency of that.
06:05I mean, at the moment, the Russians are still making gains both on the ground, but also with their air campaign against, in particular, critical national infrastructure in Ukraine.
06:17So Putin on that front is clearly not under pressure.
06:21I mean, the pressure that he's experiencing right now is from the potential economic disruption, if Trump really goes ahead this time and imposes his sanctions.
06:29And in the longer term, if the new Western plans to support Ukraine militarily actually come off the ground,
06:38then Putin's war effort itself on the battlefield might be somewhat blunted.
06:45But this is probably still a couple of weeks, potentially months away.
06:48All right, Stefan Wolf, thank you so much for your insights.
06:51We'll keep an eye on developments throughout the day.
06:54Again, that's Stefan Wolf, a professor of international security at the University of Birmingham.
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