Stop the world.

Welcome to Stop the World, the Aspy Podcast.

I'm Olivia Nelson.

And I'm David Rowe.

Dave, we're back with another video podcast this week and we have a timely conversation between you and Mark Gagliotti.

But I want to understand Russia.

Mark is the go to guy.

Yep.

He's a brilliant thinker on this live.

I quite agree.

He's one of the few repeat we've guests we've had on the podcast, and of course we'll happily have him back anytime he provides a hard headed perspective about what is realistically going to happen rather than what he wants to happen.

So it's sobering but necessary analysis.

And I've noticed in fact in the hours since we recorded it, that a lot of the other commentators who I respect and trust have been coming out with similarly cautious assessments.

I.

Agree, Dave.

For our listeners who haven't come across him, where have you been?

But a little background.

Mark is a globally renowned expert on Russia.

He's host of the podcast In Moscow Shadows, a prolific author with books including Putin's Wars, The Weaponization of Everything in my personal favourite, We Need to Talk About Putin.

These are just a few of his credits.

If I had to continue, if I had to talk about all of them, I'd be talking for the next 10 minutes.

Indeed, and you miss one of the the most important ones live, which is he's got a new book out titled Homo Criminalis, how crime Organises the World.

And I think that's one of the most brilliant titles I've come across.

It's out in Australia already.

So for our Australian listeners and viewers, you can grab a copy now.

It's coming out in the US shortly, I gather.

Mark was very generous with his time.

We discussed obviously the Trump Putin meeting at Trump's meeting with Zelensky and European leaders in DC and whether the critical question whether we're any closer to an end to Russia's war on Ukraine.

I really liked Mark's phrase of not yet being optimistic, but that he's more optimistic about becoming optimistic than he has been at any point since the start of the war.

I think your conversation provides a really useful overview of recent events, but also outlines the many steps ahead to achieving peace and security for Ukraine and Europe.

Yep, and optimistic about being optimistic is about as positive as Mark gets at the moment.

But I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation.

I felt much wiser.

Let's hear from Mark.

Welcome to STOP THE WORLD.

I'm here with the incomparable Mark Galliotti.

Mark, thanks for joining me.

Oh, my pleasure.

So what's happened in the last two or three days?

I want to start by getting an overview from you.

Just give us a quick sort of burst of a minute or two on your key takeaways of the various meetings where you think things are AT.

And I suppose are you more or less confident than you were, say, a week ago that we might end up with a peace agreement out of all of this?

All of that in a minute.

No problem.

Yeah, I, I would say that I'm not yet optimistic, but I'm sure I say more optimistic about becoming optimistic than I have been, frankly, at any point since the start of this war.

And in some ways, however much I will confess, it does tend to stick in the craw to praise Donald Trump.

I think that his his willingness frankly to be fairly brutal in advancing American interests, but also in saying the unspoken about, for example, the fact that Ukraine is not about to join NATO, about the fact that there is no real theory of victory that allows Ukraine in the foreseeable future to take back the occupied territories has in many ways I think unblocked a process.

Now we've had this, this faintly surreal Alaskan summit between Trump and Putin in which clearly Putin frankly had the the whip hand and was very much more competent and even sort of putting Trump on the spot at the end by suggesting he come to to Moscow.

But nonetheless, I think from that it is clear that some sense of not an agreement, but shall I say a framework for an agreement has emerged.

And although the White House meeting that then followed with Zelensky, I mean, it was positive in the sense of it wasn't essentially an ambush and a punishment beating like the the previous Oval Office meeting.

But on the other hand, I don't really think it necessarily advanced the process in, in, in, in detail much more.

And it really has just reminded us that the usual process, after all, with summits is that you have weeks and months in which the Sherpas, all the experts and technocrats do all the hard work.

And then the presidents just come together to sign a document and maybe resolve one or two final sticking points.

This way with with Trump, it's the other way around.

So in some ways, we've still got all the detailed negotiation.

And that's frankly where it may well breakdown, but nonetheless, at least we are at the point where we have the opportunity for detailed negotiations, which we haven't really had since the start of this war.

OK, that's great.

All right, let's I'm going to try and work through things systematically here because there's there, there is a lot to it.

Let's start with this, this question of a ceasefire.

Clearly the Europeans are still pushing for it.

And in fact, perhaps the the the closest thing to an awkward moment in the the on camera part of the the interview where the all of the European leaders were were sat with Trump was when the German Chancellor, Friedrich Metz said, well, we, we are, we still think there needs to be a ceasefire and Trump sort of shutting down and then and then moved on to Macron having no ceasefire clearly advantages Putin, because he can keep claiming momentum tried to shift the the facts on the ground in in his favour.

Plus, it encourages presumably a more rushed negotiation, which can, I suppose, harness or even weaponize Trump's inherent impatience.

Whereas a ceasefire would have, I suppose, allowed Ukraine to regroup, although it would have allowed Russia to to regroup as well.

I mean, how important in your view is it that there is a ceasefire in order to create the breathing space for Ukraine to actually, well, Ukraine and its supporters to, to negotiate properly towards the best possible agreement from their point of.

View Look, let's be clear about this.

There is going to be no ceasefire in advance.

And I must admit it was interesting seeing Italy's Prime Minister Maloney, her response when when Mertz ventured into his little lecture almost speaks to every single crass German stereotype that, you know, he even that he feels he still needs to get deliver a little sort of morally superior lecture.

The point is this for exactly from the Russians point of view, they have the the momentum on on the battlefield a cease fire just simply means that they sacrifice that in the the promise that there will be some talks that quite possibly will get nowhere.

Because frankly that will give the Ukrainians the opportunity to basically stall constructively haggling over every single comma in any single document because that's what the Russians would do in their circumstances.

So I think in that case actually this continued previous European demand for a ceasefire before negotiations was actually preventing there being any negotiations.

And so in the circumstances and look, you know, this is this is by no means unusual.

I mean, if one looks at, for example, the resolution of the Korean War, which offers quite a few parallels, given that it's likely to be a similar sort of de facto partitioning that we're going to see, unfortunately.

Well, there the the negotiations took place concurrent with with the fighting on on the ground.

And again, I think this is this idea that somehow there's something inherently wrong about a negotiation.

Yes, of course it's wrong from the Ukrainian's perspective because they would like not to be having to hide in bomb shelters every night.

They would like to be able to negotiate with, as you say, that lessened pressure.

But to be perfectly honest, this, this is again one of the areas in which actually trump by, if we're blunt, not really caring about Ukraine, but just simply regarding this conflict as an inconvenience that he'd like to have swept away as quickly as possible, actually has perversely forwarded the cause of some kind of potential negotiations.

Security guarantees, I mean, that's, I mean, the ceasefire seemed to be the focus of a lot of the public commentary around the Alaska meeting.

Security guarantees has been very much top of the, the discussion around the, the, the, the meetings in, in the White House.

Interesting.

Well, I mean, there seems to have been shifting on, on Trump's, Trump's part in, in this respect.

And that was welcomed by European leaders.

So Trump posted that they would be Trump posted that they would be quote provided by various European countries, referring to the security guarantees here with a coordination with the United States.

He he said, I think verbally, we'll help them out.

We'll be involved.

Everyone's pretty excited about that.

Even if it's not clear what he means, I'd I'd point out that Trump also said on the matter of deterring future Russian aggression against Ukraine, that quote, I actually don't think I'm sorry, I actually think there won't be IE referring to to future Russian aggression.

He said, I think that's even overrated, largely overrated.

But we're going to find out now that's that's clearly a bit worrying as to where he he sees things.

Can you break down for us what a a reliable set of security guarantees looks like?

Obviously there's continued material support for Ukraine's military, some form of European backup, which I know you've expressed scepticism about over over a period of time.

And then US backup for the European backup, including in the areas that the, the the Europeans aren't terribly good at, but not involving presumably Europe, US boots on the ground.

Just just talk through what what it what the best realistic scenario looks like.

Yeah, I mean, this is the absolutely crucial issue because the whole point is not only that if the Ukrainians aren't going to have to swallow any bit of pills such As for example, recognising de facto, though not Jay Jury, in other words, practically but not in under international law that they have lost at least for the moment, 20% of their territory.

They need to be absolutely certain or as certain as is possible that the remaining 80% can actually develop in a sovereign, democratic, stable and above all secure manner.

So this is also actually about selling peace to the Ukrainians who, you know, after all, ultimately get the final veto, whatever Trump may think.

So I think in in that context there is a problem because there's now talk about, if not NATO membership and NATO like Article 5 security guarantee.

And the trouble is that that implies that people haven't really read Article 5 particularly well because Article 5 is a very, very woolly wording.

And people, there's this assumption that it means all an attack on one is an attack on all.

And therefore all your, your friends will rally round.

Actually all it just says is the other members of the alliance will react appropriately.

And the definition of appropriate could mean anything from a mechanised brigade to a stiffly worded communique to the Russian foreign ministry.

And I think that given that up to now we've seen absolutely no enthusiasm for the Europeans sending their troops in to fight and die for Ukraine, why should Ukraine think that they would in the future because they've reached some kind of an agreement.

But even more importantly, why should Russia believe that?

Remember, deterrence depends on credibility.

If the Russians don't actually believe that the Ukrainians would would be end would actually be backed up by the Europeans in any meaningful way, then even if in fact the Europeans would, we'd only find out when it's too late.

So I think the first point is in terms of sort of European guarantees, I think we have to, you know, be realistic.

And this is not saying all the Europeans are that we can flabby and so forth, though some of the Europeans are indeed we can flabby.

It is rather also talking about kind of capabilities and political intent and actually how important Ukraine is really to many European countries.

You know, it's very different perspective if you're in Poland or if you're in Portugal about the the imminence of the, the reality of a security threat.

So we're often talking about things that in practise don't mean, you know, NATO battle groups in Ukraine, which is also an absolute red line for the Russians, we should note.

But instead, you know, how can they provide, for example, air cover, which is something that can be provided from bases outside Ukraine, which would then presumably move into Ukraine in the time of a conflict, but would actually leverage where Europe actually has strengths rather than it's weaknesses, which are precisely in the kind of, you know, knock down and drag out ground fighting that we might see.

So yes, there's a certain amount of provision that the Europeans can provide.

But when it comes down to it, ultimately the primary security guarantee for Ukraine is a powerful, well resourced military, which also does not depend on the largest of outsiders.

So it's not just about building up Ukrainian forces.

It's also about building up Ukraine's defence industries so that they can produce what they need and they don't have to ask anyone else's permission to use them in whatever way they want.

And I think that is really the sort of the crucial element because, you know, the one thing that Ukrainians have been lacking has been manpower rather than kit or more than kit, shall we say, except in very specific capabilities like, you know, Patriot missile interceptors and such like.

But on the other hand, you know what, what we can do is ensure that to go back to actually a formulation that Zelensky had been talking about back in 2022, which is, as he put it, Ukraine as a big Israel.

That sense of a formidable regional military power with, yes, inevitably an economy and a society that is disproportionately skewed towards the military, but which is able to do that precisely because of the political, economic and indeed military assistance that it gets from its allies.

That is a conceivable model.

And it's also a plausible 1 not just because the Ukrainians have demonstrated extraordinary resilience and will to fight, but also because, remember, when Putin went in to Ukraine in February 2022, he did not anticipate that he was starting a major war.

And the whole point was he thought this was going to be a pushover, that the Ukrainians wouldn't really resist that.

Yes, there would probably be some small scale fighting with some particular sort of, you know, hard line elements.

But the main potential risk would be St protests, which is why a large proportion of his invading force was actually National Guard, paramilitary riot police rather than soldiers.

And that essentially, you know, a few weeks, maybe a couple of months and it would all be a done deal and some kind of friendly proxy regime will be installed in in in Kiev.

So in that context, now he's in a war, clearly he's going to fight it to the best.

Well, I say his abilities, best of ordinary Russians abilities.

But at the same time, it doesn't necessarily mean that if he's thinking that a second war would be another massively bloody, economically ruinous enterprise, he would necessarily venture into one.

OK.

So just I guess the first, first question out of that is can Ukraine in some reasonable time frame pull together what you're actually talking about there to create a sustainable future for itself?

Or I mean, what what you've laid out does sound like.

I mean, there, there is an option for continued supply to the Ukrainian military at least for an interim period while they get their defence industry, their, you know, I guess their national mobilisation in place to, to describe what you're talking about there with some kind of European back up in, you know, again for, for a, for a set period.

And then with, with the US playing some kind of supporting role.

I mean, do you think that is a that is a feasible way forward, you know, if if there is some kind of agreement in the next say six months?

Feasible, yes.

I think that again, this is in some ways where the American role comes in.

Yes, maybe, you know, America is well, at first it was, you know, providing kind of a, a backstop for the Europeans.

And then we have Trump talking about coordinating the Europeans, which is more, I think how he sees his role, you know, very much he he is the world king and, and the Europeans are his, his, his loyal and sometimes recalcitrant vassals.

But if, let's say this was part of the some kind of comprehensive peace structure, Well, the issue up to now is that obviously the Americans have essentially yanked their, well, not all their military systems.

We're still getting a lot of intelligence sharing and so forth.

But they're no longer providing the the military aid.

What they are willing to do after the largesse of their hearts is to allow the Europeans to buy kit to give to the Ukrainians.

Now, the problem with that is that unless the White House is willing to basically put political pressure to bear you, what that means is you are at the back of the sales sort of lines.

And so even if you've got the money to suddenly say, let's buy 100 Patriot missiles, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to get them quickly.

And in fact, that is already a problem we're getting is that a lot of these pledges are pledges that will actually play out in months or in some cases years to come.

On the other hand, if the if the United States was willing to move back at least even in a temporary frame to simply say, well, OK, yes, as part of this peace deal, we need to make sure that within four months the Ukrainian military is really sort of back up to the best shape, at least in terms of its kit as we can provide.

Well, yes, we can.

We can surge various, you know, lend least or just given kit to to the Ukrainians and also to the Europeans to allow them to cascade down some of their stocks to the Ukrainians.

I mean, I think there there is the scope for for movement quickly.

And we've got to realise also that the Ukrainians themselves are actually developing their defence industries at quite a rapid rate.

And it's amazing how far wars tend to be engines, not just of innovation, as we've seen, particularly with the with the proliferation of drones and like, but also actually allows nations to push away a lot of the inertia and the cobwebs of regulation and such like and really build fast.

So anyway, the Ukraine has already got a good start with an influx of money and money is, after all, what the West certainly can provide.

Then actually that that could move fast.

And we shouldn't forget that also the Russians will will want and indeed need to regroup and there will be a lot of disruption.

It will be hard for the Russians, for example, to hold on to the various soldiers who have signed up, you know, because their contracts end at the end of the so called special military operation.

Now, Moscow could always say, well, it's not really over yet, but if you've signed some kind of an agreement, it would be very, very politically problematic to keep these people in the ranks when in a way, the war that they that they agreed to fight is over.

So actually we're going to see a massive haemorrhaging, I think of many of these people back to their various sort of impoverished home regions.

So, you know, I think we, we, we shouldn't understate the degree of disruption that will also be taking place on the Russian side of the line.

OK, that's, that's fascinating.

I want to come back to where, you know, what Russia's position is in a moment.

Just sticking with Europe though.

I mean, you're, I mean, you're a, you're, you're AI suppose a, a realist analyst of, of these issues.

And, and, and, and, and I, I mean, I recognise that as extremely important.

I suffer from a, from a quite a different affliction, which is a, which is a hopeless idealism and, and always wanting to sort of say what, what should happen.

But I mean the European, the Europeans, even if they're not.

Prepared to fight and die for Ukraine in any significant and serious way that you know, that that that their own national politics won't permit it or they just don't, you know, they're just not up to that.

That task.

I mean, isn't, isn't there a degree of self interest here in the sense that European security is ultimately at stake?

So I suppose an alternative proposition, if I can just put it is, I mean, even if we don't know what the next step is that Putin might take, let's say he is successful in, in Ukraine in some way that would, you know, could consider to be, could be considered to be a victory and a success on his part.

I mean, you know, and, and even if we can't say, well, obviously, you know, the next step would be say one of the, the Baltics, for instance, the, the mega trend beyond Ukraine is clearly that Europe is going to have to look after its own security increasingly that the US is not prepared to continue playing that role in it to such a degree as it has been.

And whether Trump, you know, however, however long Trump remains around or whether he's succeeded by JD Vance or whoever it is, that seems to be a sort of a, a structural larger trend.

So I mean, it just seems to me if the Europeans don't step up on this first, most important test of their willingness to do that, then they are potentially sort of consigning themselves to a future of weakness riddled with all sorts of security risks.

I mean, don't they sort of have to do this to to prove that they actually can in the in the interests of their long term security future?

So in other words, that the Europeans in order to deter war, must invade, engage themselves in war.

I mean, I think I, I, I would, would counter on, on a variety of fronts.

I mean, first of all, if we take away the rhetoric and I think this is one of the problems that a lot of the, the, the, the public narrative has been sort of hijacked by these high flown mantras.

I think about Ukraine without Ukraine, you know, as whatever it takes, as long as it takes and all that.

And then when you talk to people off the record, you get a very, very different perspective.

And I think that that's been one of the real problems for Europe is actually an inability to have a serious conversation amongst themselves about their interests.

Because no one really wants to be the first to break ranks or else they end up being sort of regarded as, you know, the likes of, you know, Hungary as Viktor Orban or whatever, some kind of Russophile.

No, I mean, I think, you know, realistically speaking, first of all, there is an acceptance that that Ukraine is is something separate.

I mean, the very reason why, you know, frankly, it is not surprising that Trump is, you know, has basically said that NATO membership is off the table because NATO membership has always been off the table.

And every time they say that, you know, Ukraine joining NATO is inevitable, what they're saying is not in my lifetime or certainly not in my political lifetime.

Secondly, look, now I could easily be wrong, which is why Europe does need to sort of think otherwise, but nonetheless, I see no evidence that Putin has any aspirations to a war with the largest and most powerful military alliance in the world.

Ukraine is different.

Ukraine, we can go back to his writings and and speeches even before he was president, and it was clear that he does not really regard Ukraine as a real country, that he thinks Ukraine.

All you know is all of Ukraine really is part of Russia's rightful sphere of interest and indeed historical patrimony.

But actually the eastern Ukraine anyway is really a part of Russia.

That it was Lenin who stole from Russia to create the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic way back in the beginning of the 1920s.

In a way that he doesn't think that Russia is incomplete without Helsinki, without the Baltic states, let alone Warsaw.

So, you know, yes, there is always the possibility, but nonetheless, I think we have to realise the difference between Ukraine and and and Europe in in Putin's geopolitical imagination at least.

And again, to go back to that earlier point, in any case, you know, if Putin had known what kind of a war he was going to be stumbling into in 2022, I honestly don't know.

I suspect that he would not have gone into it because Putin is notoriously risk averse for all the sort of macho persona.

But yes, I could be wrong.

Or indeed, Putin could could die tomorrow in someone even more hawkish and smarter could actually come come to power.

So, you know, circumstances, absolutely, Europe does have to look to its own security, not least because frankly, its long term dependence on America was also, frankly an infantilizing process.

That it meant that, you know, this is one of the reasons why Europe today does not have the kind of geopolitical clout that it feels it's right to.

You know, it's all very well Europe saying, well, we are a regulatory superpower.

But you know, just as Stalin asked how many divisions has the Pope, how do you regulate A mechanised brigade out of existence?

So I mean, in in this context, yes, Europe can no longer automatically assume that it has a blank cheque from the United States.

And it's about time it realises this because it's not just Trump, it's successive American presidents have been warning this is the case.

And that will also help give it a a greater degree of of autonomy, but also security.

So when it come come down to it, I mean, actually if one looks at, well, if the Russians were going to try anything in Europe, where would that be?

Would it be the Baltic states, which yes, are small but nonetheless have multinational forces there.

So if you'd invade the Estonia, you're going to be fighting and you're going to be killing Brits, for example.

You know, it's not just simply about an Estonian issue.

Poland, well, Poland is currently going through a massive armament programme.

I mean, they've ordered 1000 tanks and well, one, one can argue that that actually may be a little bit more than they can possibly digest, but nonetheless, it says something about the Poles commitment to their security.

Where else are you going to go?

Finland?

I mean, this is a nation that more or less has made a national characteristic, I would say, of bloody mindedness.

They, they, they call it Sisu.

But certainly, you know, the Finns could not by any stretch of the imagination be called an easy target.

I mean, actually, if one looks at it, it's going to take about, I would say, eight years for the Russians to reconstitute their forces after the end of fighting in Ukraine.

Now, first of all, in that eight years, Europe is already heavily committed to arming itself properly.

And people say, well, Russia doesn't need to fully reconstitute its forces to try something in a little green men going in across the border into Nava or something.

But The thing is, this is no longer 2014 or even 2022 for that matter.

We see little green men without Insignia and Moscow says, oh, nothing to do with us.

We're not going to be bamboozled next time.

What the Estonians are going to do is basically shoot every one of them they can.

Likewise, unlike the situation just before the invasion, when we have the inevitable intelligence reports about massings of, of forces and such like, we're unlikely just to shrug that off.

I mean, you know, the Brits and the Americans in particular were saying Putin's getting ready to invade.

Ukrainians themselves were saying no, no, no, we're sure that's not the case until 72 hours before when they began picking up communications intercepts, making it clear that there was a lot of very surprised Russian senior officers along the front who just opened their sealed orders and thinking what the Hell's going to happen.

Now this time again, I, you know, I can't see the the Estonians saying no, no, I'm sure those Russians don't mean anything, you know, so we won't be in the same position.

And a final point, and I'm run a bit of a soapbox, but I will climb off in a moment, is precisely that, yes.

So the Russians could send some little green men into Nava, whereas again they, they, they would not have a happy experience.

But if you haven't fully reconstituted your forces, you then lack options up the escalatory ladder.

You basically have got little green men or thermonuclear Armageddon and really not much in between.

And again, that is not a situation that I think Russia and certainly not Russia's military commanders would want to find themselves in.

So yes, because it it is entirely possible that Mark Galliotti is wrong.

But nonetheless, I think we have to recognise that the strategic realities of the situation do not mean that the the presence or the lack of presence of, of European troops in Ukraine is going to determine whether or not the the Russian legions roll westwards because they haven't been able to roll westwards across Ukraine, let alone in NATO.

OK, that's, that's really fascinating stuff.

I want to, I want to, I want to sort of apply that now to, I guess what Putin's incentives are in the, in the Ukraine negotiations for a moment.

Because I mean, the, in the sense he's got the upper hand because he's happy to keep fighting where, you know, to work to a much greater degree than the Ukrainians are.

But the way you're, the way you're portraying it, I mean, the, the, the, the cost is not negligible to him, or I mean, obviously not negligible, but not even insignificant.

I mean, the, the, the cost to Russian, you know, in terms of, you know, human lives in, in terms of, you know, economic costs, material costs and so forth.

The, the way you're describing it, military costs are, are substantial.

I mean, he has a number of constraints on him that are obvious in terms of the the negotiations with, with Ukraine via the USI mean he needs to keep Trump on side at the very least.

He he, you know, he if he fears upsetting Trump if Trump says right, I've I've finally had enough.

Vladimir's making me look ridiculous.

And, and, and Trump then turns and either imposes some costs on, on Russia in the form of sanctions or, or, or starts providing greater support to to Ukraine.

That's obviously an issue for for Putin, but just talk about, I mean, what, what other constraints does he have following on from what you were just talking about then in terms of, you know, even if he had his time again, then he then he might well he wouldn't have done it because it has come at such a greater cost than he actually expected.

I mean either that the economic costs, political pressure from Russian elite, Russian elites, for instance, how much constraining forces are those are those putting on Putin now as he negotiates?

Yeah.

Look, I, I wish that the constraining forces were greater.

I mean, we have to accept that, that that they are limited.

I mean, if one you mentioned keeping Trump on side, I think it's likely that the worst case scenario, frankly, would be in effect that Trump reverts to the Biden era policy.

So we have more assistance and so forth.

You know, the, the days when we could even wonder if Trump was actually going to be that much more vicious an enemy if if alienated, I think have gone and sanctions, look, sanctions on on Russia are at the moment, you know, from this point of view, the sort of things that that Trump is talking about meaningless.

We're talking about tariffs, 100% tariffs on Russian exports.

That's $3 billion worth of stuff.

You know, it's, it's, it's not even worth mentioning.

The issue which could have hurt Russia would be the secondary sanctions on countries buying Russian oil.

Well, he's put sanctions on the Indians.

And yes, some Indian companies are now diversifying their supply.

But India as a country, as a nation, as a government is not bowing.

And interestingly, we now, you know, we, we have had, if anything, an uptick in bilaterals between India and Russia.

And now Narendra Modi after seven years is going to be going to China.

So if anything, there's actually been a sort of closer link there.

And as regards the Chinese, I mean, they've been much more, you know, intransigent themselves and they just simply said, we are not going to bow to illegal tariff sanctions.

And they're, they're, they're still buying.

So, you know, it's clear that that particular sort of armour pressure actually, if anything is, is pushing these countries closer together rather than anything else.

So, you know, I think I think the Trump factor is more that from Putin's point of view, there is a window of opportunity that is worth exploring to the fullest.

But as you've suggested, with also a sense that if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out because I think Putin doesn't need to fight a forever war.

He just needs to be able to fight longer than the Ukrainians can.

And, you know, we often focus on the pressures on on the Russians, and I'll talk about those in a moment.

But I think we sometimes forget to also look at the pressures on the Ukrainians, which particularly at the moment is in terms of manpower.

I mean, a recruitment process which is increasingly beginning to look more like press ganging than anything else, you know, and is beginning to generate something of a political backlash.

And it says worrying things.

And as we can see at the moment, you know, Ukrainian forces are exhausted and overstretched and in order to deal with incursions by what were often sort of 20 to 30 man diversionary sabotage reconnaissance groups, the Ukrainians have actually had to move whole brigades from other parts of the front lines.

So you know, again, the Russian strategy is precisely pressure all along the front line to overstretch the Ukrainians.

Now that said and said, there are pressures on, on, on Putin.

And yeah, the key one is, is economics, because it's not just economics from the second of the country as a whole.

But the recruitment model that is being used at the moment is not to send conscripts, not even to, to mobilise reservists, but to offer eye watering sums of money to Russians to, to sign up.

And at the moment it's still very successful.

I mean, they're recruiting more people than they're losing.

And in that context, fine, but that means you have to be able to constantly offer and indeed actually up the offer because you sort of begin to sort of use up your obvious reservoir of potential recruits and therefore you need to attract other people.

And that in turn is leading to a tight labour market.

There's just not enough workers at the moment.

The police are about 25% under strength for example, because people are thinking, well I can earn a lot more money by signing up for the SVO or going and working in the defence industrial complex.

So there's all kinds of economic knock ONS.

And The thing is we're increasingly getting Putin made aware of that.

Putin on the whole is not interested in economics.

I mean, he's not in any way a communist, but he has enormous Bolsheviks sense that the political always dominates the economic and somehow you, you decree something and elves off stage, elves not being a particularly Bolshevik concept, elves off stage somehow sort it out.

And for example, he's shown himself to be increasingly tetchy with his phenomenally well talented chairwoman of the central bank, Elvira Nabulina, simply because she hasn't been able to.

If I can get continue my my mixing of metaphors, wave her magic wand and deal with inflation, everyone, everyone complaints about their central bank as not being magicians, but she is frankly as close to a magician as you get in the modern financial world.

But Even so, you know, he's he's clearly getting irritated.

But the point is more and more he's being forced to become aware of this.

At the recent Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum, he actually had to address the question of potential recession.

Now he addressed it by simply saying, well, this is clearly, you know, this is unacceptable.

If only economic recessions could be deflected as easily.

But the point is, he's having to talk about it now in a way that for a long time he didn't.

He at the beginning of last week had a a meeting of key economic advisers and officials.

Usually these things are actually open, televised, formulaic meetings where everyone says how wonderful things are.

This was a closed meeting and interestingly, all the various officials present, all but one are on what you might think of as the economic liberal angle of things who have all been going public about how there are serious risks.

And I think there is a sense that frankly, next year is, is when a lot of very large chickens come home, home to roost.

Now, that's not that means the economy is going to constantly crash or collapse.

We are closer to sort of late Brechtian of ISM, you know, a sort of slow stagnating grind down because too many of the resources are being sent to the defence industrial side of things rather than anything more showy and catastrophic like sort of like Gorbachev.

But nonetheless, you know that that is a possibility.

Now can, if need be Putin sustained that.

Well, yes, because it takes time for that to have the political impacts.

The moment, you know, we're not talking about for example, mass unemployment or anything like that.

Quite the opposite.

There's actually sort of more pressure on on the workforce, but in due course it will lead to protests and strikes and slowdowns and such, right.

But that's somewhere down the line.

And at least in the earlier stages, that's something that can be dealt with with repression rather than anything else.

So, you know, I think from his point of view, there are risks coming up, risks that sort of concatenate the economic and the political.

And remember, this is someone who has seen not one, but two authoritarian regimes collapse around him, East Germany and then the Soviet Union.

So, you know, this is this is a man who somewhere awareness of the risks, but a, the lessons he took from those wrongly but nonetheless sincerely are that the reason why those two regimes collapsed is because they weren't forceful enough in defending themselves.

And he knows that he will be forceful.

And so for the moment at least, you know, he he he can ride out a considerable amount of pressure.

And he also thinks that Ukraine ultimately will face much more catastrophic problems.

So this is what I mean about if I can loop back to end on where I started.

From Putin's point of view, I think he regards this as a moment that is worth exploring.

He may well get a deal that he will be able to sell as a triumph at home.

And frankly, Russians will be so relieved by the end of the war that they will accept that the emperor has whatever clothes he wants to claim that he has and also create transatlantic rifts and create a Ukraine that probably will be actually, despite whatever assistance is provided, in a state of turmoil, which will give him opportunities for political and economic leverage in in the future.

So, you know, this could lead somewhere.

But ultimately, he is in that blessed position of being able to feel.

But if it doesn't, that's fine.

I can walk away and I can still win, but at greater cost to myself and my state.

Yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm glad to hear you say all of that about the Russian economy and the politics of the economy, because it it I've, I'm always a bit confounded when people point to the, the, you know, the switch to a wartime economy.

And I think I read a figure somebody's saying, well, the economy's actually not doing too badly.

It grew by 4% last year.

I mean, I don't know whether that's actually accurate or not.

But I mean, even if it is true, it's the most meaningless number on paper you've ever heard.

Because, I mean, obviously the more, the more of your factories are building ammunition and, and weaponry and the fewer are building household goods, cars and all those sorts of things.

What whatever your economic figures say, the quality of life of your, of your citizens is not improving in a wartime economy.

Is that as it ought to be and therefore it should bring political pressure.

So I, I, I, I do.

I'm glad that you said all of that.

Just on sanctions, just quickly, I mean, there are a couple of things that you didn't mention.

One, I mean things like the shadow fleet, for instance, sanctions on targeting energy, maybe some of the Russian banks that haven't already been.

Being sanctioned in some way.

I did read somewhere that the, the, the Gazprom bank, for instance, is still on the SWIFT payment system.

Perhaps some of the national institutions that that Russia, you know, deems important their version of NASA or their version of a of the sort of nuclear that the, the national nuclear institution.

Is there not space to sanction those some more and put some of that pressure which it just doesn't.

I mean, one of the things that bugs me, I suppose, is just watching this, this all being negotiated without any added pressure on Putin that should be brought to bear.

The problem is that we're now at a stage where further sanctions are possible, but also self harming.

Now, again, one could say, well, actually the, the balance is that they, they, they still should be adopted, but just just go through some of those things.

The, the shadow fleet, yes, one can sanction the shadow fleet.

Remember the sanction the, the shadow fleet was precisely a way round other sanctions.

And you know, if the Russians have demonstrated themselves to be good at something, it's, it's getting round inconvenient rules and regulations.

They have had a lot of experience doing it.

And the real reason why that exists is the supply and demand.

I mean, the fact of the matter is there are a lot of countries, not just in India and China who can be supplied in alternative means anyway, but there are a lot of countries that want to buy cheap Russian and hydrocarbons.

Remember that for most of the world, this is not their war.

And if anything, they regard secondary sanctions.

I mean, just to, I was talking to a a little while back, a W African diplomat who, you know, it's not a, you know, not a, a Russophile particularly, but who very much was describing secondary sanctions as economic imperialism.

Because what he was saying was we are basically being told that we have to give up this particular cheap source of, of, of oil and buy more expensive stuff simply because there's a war going on.

Now, how many wars did you Europeans not care about?

You know, how many wars did you not get envened?

But this well, and I mean, he explicitly made the point, you know, is it because they're white?

And there's there's a certain point now, it's more than that.

It's also because they haven't been on the borders of Europe and all the other issues.

But nonetheless, you know, for a lot of the world, it's not that they necessarily are supportive of Russia, but they don't see this as actually a big deal.

They don't see it as their conflict and they certainly don't think they should pay for it.

So, you know, there are other, there are fall backs after fall backs.

So yes, sanctioning the shadow fleet would have some effect, but actually it would also create more, more problems down the line.

Likewise, I mean, the reason why Gazprom bank is is still connected is precisely because it is used for the supply of energy into Europe.

You know, let's not forget that Europe is buying massive amounts of, of Russian gas still, you know, and then they're surprised that people regard them as sanctimony, as hypocrites when complaining about other people buying Russian oil.

But oh, but gas, gas that, that that's apparently absolutely fine.

You talk about hypocrisy.

Yeah.

I mean, you talk about the the Russian Space Agency.

Well, it's in part precisely because actually that is needed for, you know, it is important to have continued connections for our our mutual of, you know, operations within, within space.

So, you know, I think that, you know, we are at the point where there is basically everything that that can be sanctioned easily has been sanctioned.

The what's left and not just because no one thought of it was because actually when when we worked out the same way as we saw when first sanctions were placed on Russian aluminium, which lead led to a massive spike in prices and therefore that had to be sort of weakened back.

We're now at the point where further sanctions, yes, there's room for closing loopholes, but dramatic extra pressure is not going to come from sanctions.

I think we, we kidded ourselves that we are in that much more control of the global financial system than we really are at the moment.

The sort of sanctions we're talking about would would, if nothing else, only make Russia more and more dependent upon China.

And there is this other issue about the fact that, you know, we don't necessarily want Russia to become entirely a Chinese vassal state, something ironically that many within the Russian elite don't want to see either, you know, so, so again, I mean, it's, it's, it's a very banal way to end this point.

But you know, it's actually bloody difficult in a globalised economy to do this.

Fair.

All right 2 two other things that I want to cover before I let you go.

One is territory the the other, you know, big piece of the negotiation puzzle.

Now, if, if Ukraine were to submit to everything that Trump is that sorry Putin, pardon me, is currently demanding, it would I mean, my my understanding of it and I'm going to get you to talk through the military strategy side of things.

It would make it very difficult for Ukraine to to defend itself.

So the, the, the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Donetsk in particular, despite, I mean, sorry, beyond the symbolic issue of conceding territory that Ukraine has been so passionately defending for so long and, and all of the blood that's been spilt and all that kind of thing.

Conceding that territory that, that, that Russia doesn't currently control, as I understand it would be conceding this, this line of fortified towns along the river through that quarter of Donetsk that, that, that Ukraine does still hold.

And it seems to me that would essentially sort of open a gateway to central Ukraine for the Russians.

As as I'm going to challenge you again a little bit here just as as as sort of simply as you can.

Can you just talk through the the military strategic implications of Ukraine's submitting to those particular demands?

Look.

I think when it comes to this, this remaining 30 odd percent of the Donetsk region, first of all, I mean, let's keep it in context.

It's very rare that a territory is actually of that pivotal importance.

Yes, it does matter and it matters particularly because of the so called fortress belt, about 50 kilometres in length, 4 cities and a few other smaller towns do represent a very tough strategic bastion.

And clearly from the Ukrainian's point of view, they will be thinking about how even with security guarantees, there is the chance of the Russians coming back for another crack at them.

And therefore clearly they want these fortresses to be on their side of the border, not the Russian side.

That said, the Russian perspective is, well, we're we're going to take this territory anyway.

If there's not a peace deal now, you know, maybe in a year's time, especially because the Russians are now adopting a strategy of not as they did, for example, back in the days of the the Bakhmut campaign, you know, terrible meat grinder of a war where they tried to take a city head on.

Now they're actually encircling them.

And we're seeing, for example, you know, another strategic hub, Pakharovsk, quite likely to fall for this very reason.

So, you know, from the Russians point of view, they're going to be ours anyway.

So let's accept that from the Ukrainians point of view, it will be difficult.

But I, I can't help but feel that whatever the strategic importance of Donetsk or the remaining bits of Donetsk, it is the political one that is in many ways more important.

As you said, this, this is a ground that is soaked in the blood of Ukrainian soldiers.

And to just simply give it away, I mean, I'm not even convinced that if Zelensky gave the orders, he could be absolutely certain that the military would obey.

I've heard.

And it may just simply be empty talk.

But nonetheless, you know, in the last couple of days, just from contacts in, in Kiev, you know, I've heard some rumblings about that.

This may well be a step too far, which again is one of the reasons why Zelensky needs to be given political ammunition if he is going to make any kind of concessions.

So we'll have to wait and see.

I have to say that I think that the Donetsk issue, this territorial quote, unquote, swap, because the Russians might give back some insignificant little slivers of Sumi and Herzog regions that they've taken, may well be the rock on which this current negotiation process founders.

Right, right, OK, all right.

And that well then that flows into to the last thing that I just want to cover and that is that is looking forward to what happens next.

This you know Trump has announced this trilateral meeting.

My understanding is that that Putin has not expressed any willingness to that obviously Zelensky has.

I mean, do you think that Putin has any kind of escape route to to wriggle out of attending that meeting?

Could you have a stab at what happens if it if it does go ahead?

I mean, you've just, you've just pointed to, to it to 1 potential rock on which the, the, the ship of progress gets dashed as it's as it were.

I mean, it feels like everyone in a sense has figured out at least a superficial, at a superficial level, how to manage Trump.

You know, the, the Europeans, as we saw today and we've seen previously with Mark Rutte, you know, a, a degree of flattery and biting one's tongue seems to at least get you through the moment.

But is, is Putin actually sort of still better at Trump management than anyone else?

And, and would, I mean, is, is there a way in which Putin sort of goes into it with with this sort of stronger hand and just sort of finds his way through it?

Do you think so that the the war goes on?

Is that AI mean what is?

Is that sadly the most likely outcome?

I think unfortunately, the most likely outcome is indeed that the war goes on and that Putin is able to manage Trump enough that although the Americans might provide a little bit more assistance to the Ukrainians, but essentially the Americans are looking to withdraw rather than engage in this conflict.

As you said, Putin has demonstrated himself to be a depressingly capable Trump Wrangler.

And interestingly, again, if one compares the Alaska summit with others, he he doesn't depend on quite the same rather fawning flattery that we get, you know, the whole calling him daddy or whatever else.

In some ways what Putin is able to do because he is member of the sort of the strongman club of leaders, which is in many ways something that Trump aspires to being considered.

So in some ways, his flattery is much more that sense of, you know, you, you can be one of us.

It's much more, you know, equal to equal rather than vassal to, to, to monarch.

So, you know, he he so far at least has managed to play it.

And I think that this sort of issue of a trilateral meeting, which frankly would be premature at this stage, I don't think you would get anything from, you know, putting Putin and Zelensky into one room would be a very combustible binary mix.

And I think exactly we're now at the stage when the hard, quiet work needs to be done.

So I think, you know, the issue of security guarantees, the issue of the future of that remaining part of of Donetsk and the the the potential for the Russians to push harder.

They have attendance.

Again, it's a very classic Russian style of diplomacy and negotiation that you push and you push and you push because in a way you, you, you demand ridiculous amounts because you expect to be haggled down to merely excessive amounts.

So I think we may well see the Russians, for example, pushing for what they call demilitarisation of Ukraine, limits to the size of Ukraine armed forces, an absolute non starter for all kinds of reasons.

So there's still lots and lots of of nuts and bolts issues to be addressed before there's really any point in a trilateral.

And yeah, it's it's it's in dealing with the details that I think it's still most likely that this attempt at negotiation will fail.

But for all that, we are closer to the prospect that there could be some kind of peace, even if it is an ugly, unfair peace, let's be clear.

But we're closer to that than we have been at any point since the start of the war.

It's a really important point you make that I mean the the this this assumption as as it's well or this portrayal that is being put that that if if we get these two guys in in the room together and then we get Trump to sort of to mediate.

I mean, I'm not saying anyone's so credulous is to assume that's going to work out, but it but it is, it is well.

Except for Donald Trump, it seems.

Apparently so.

I and, and, and the fact that I mean, I, I can't recall Trump ever knocking back one of Putin's demands as being completely and utterly outrageous and ridiculous.

So of course Putin has this added secret weapon of making demands that he knows that Zelensky can't actually agree to.

And therefore putting Zelensky in the position where he has to be the one who says, no, I'm not going forward with that.

And therefore attracting Trump's ire on on that basis.

So yeah, it's, it's a bit of a depressing situation, but I suppose, I mean, I think, I think the point that you make about, I mean, there's, there's some really hard details, long slog type work to be, to be gone through before the the leaders actually sit down and and wrap it up is one that probably most people aren't really acknowledging as much as they should be.

Absolutely.

This is the start of a process, not the end.

Yeah, yeah.

All right, Mark, look, you've been super generous with your time and I think we've really delved into it.

And look, I feel much better informed.

I'm sure I'll listen as well as well.

Thank you so much for joining us.

My pleasure.

Thanks for listening to or watching Stop the World.

We'll be back with another episode soon.

Ciao for now.