CN editor Joe Lauria tells RT News the significance of the recent flurry of high-level diplomatic activity on Ukraine may be overblown and that tangible progress depends on Donald Trump’s shaky resolve.
RT: And let’s discuss this live with Joe Lauria, editor in chief of Consortium News. Welcome to the program, sir. Trump is urging Zelensky to show flexibility in the peace talks. Apparently, that’s a hint that Ukraine must make some territorial concessions. Do you see Zelensky doing that? And what exactly could Trump be referring to? I do think, I’m of the school that not a lot happened over these days from Alaska until the White House on Monday.
Joe Lauria: There is some significance there, the ceasefire being the most important, that Trump did not backtrack when he agreed with Putin that there should not be first a ceasefire; that they have to move towards an overall settlement; that he has shown a little backbone on that is very good. And the fact is, that Trump showing that has told the Europeans who came in a weak position, almost desperate, to sit in front of his desk at the Oval Office, that they are going to have to just essentially accept what Trump decides in the end. And this is really both sides trying to out-flatter Trump, both the Russian side and the Europeans.
So will Trump continue to follow through? I don’t think Zelensky on his own, with the backing of the Europeans … doesn’t want to give up any territory, even Crimea, and he doesn’t have any interest in compromise whatsoever. But we know that they’ve lost the war, and the Europeans know that.
Zelensky knows that. It’s all up to whether Trump can stick to what he’s saying about not wanting a ceasefire. But there’s a lot more that we can’t trust about what he’ll do or not. For example, the Europeans are still insisting on peacekeepers on Ukrainian territory, with Europeans being part of that. That’s something Russia obviously will not accept.
We don’t know where Trump stands on that. Zelensky is going to have to face reality. He should have done that back at Istanbul two or three years ago. In the end, I believe that this war can only end on the basis of the draft treaty proposals that Russia presented to NATO and the United States in December 2021, which was to remove NATO forward deployments from the former Warsaw Pact countries, take out any missiles in Romania and Poland, and not expand NATO, particularly to Ukraine.
This is the basis. This is the overall security architecture that Russia tried in 2009 with a treaty proposal. They revived that in 2021. The U.S. said no. They just rejected it out of hand. It led to the invasion of Ukraine. So we’re going to have to come back to that point. I’ve been saying that all along, and I think that’s where we’re at right now, and we’re not close to that.
RT: Now, you’ve just mentioned, the ceasefire and the temporary peace, and the complete full on peace that Moscow has been calling for this entire time. And now the Kremlin has acknowledged that Washington is interested in establishing that long term peace in Ukraine as well. But what do you think about the real prospects for that, though?
Joe Lauria: That’s really the big question. I mean, Trump makes a lot of good noises. He seems to have some good instincts. But then the last person he talks to seems to convince him. He’s got neocons there. Witkoff I don’t trust, but certainly Kellogg, Rubio, and Senator Lindsey Graham, above all, are extremely Russophobic.
They are telling him that this was an invasion of Ukraine that was isolated. There’s nothing that caused that. And, of course, as the Russians continuously talk about the root causes, they’re made fun of by the American press, by people like Rubio. These root causes, I mean, there are always causes for any conflict.
This is joked about. And I think that’s really troubling that that’s not taken seriously, what the causes of the war are. Plus, the media here in the United States, probably in Western Europe as well, they portrayed Putin in Alaska as being brought in from out of the cold. He was isolated. And now Trump has made a mistake by giving him this stage.
Well, what about BRICs? I mean, the vast majority of the people, China and India, for God’s sake. And he’s not isolated. It’s such a Western-centric point of view. But I think we’re seeing some cracks in that. And this all goes back to what’s going on on the ground. It’s clear Russia’s winning. They’re about to break through. They can get to the Dnieper River, perhaps.
And this was clear for years that this was happening. So the earlier that Ukraine and the European leaders [accept that] — whose own careers are staked on this war continuing, and we’ve seen that many, many times in history where leaders know they’re losing, but they have to continue to support it. There was the meeting with Macron in Paris and the previous chancellor of Germany, in which they told Zelensky at a dinner two years ago, you better give up and you better make peace with Russia. Look, Germany and France have made peace after all those wars. And then, of course, they ditch that because they have to keep their own reputations alive and people die for that. Ultimately, the only solution is going to be those draft treaties. I don’t see Trump doing it. I don’t see a future president necessarily doing it. It’s going to be won on the battlefield unfortunately.
That’s my fear. But I hope that Trump can follow through. He’s making the right noises and he met with Putin at least. Biden wouldn’t even do that.
RT: And also Trump says that he understands that Ukraine must retain its security guarantees. A very tricky issue, by the way, because ultimately, security guarantees is what Russia has been asking for this entire time, citing the expansion of NATO.
Joe Lauria: Exactly.
RT: But yeah, but if Trump says that he understands the situation, how could he guarantee this security after his time in office?
Joe Lauria: That’s an excellent question. It’s Russian security that is at the essence of all of this. Going back since the end of the Cold War, when Yeltsin was opposed to NATO expansion. I mean, he was Washington’s man in Moscow and, of course, Putin’s Munich speech in 2007, and then that treaty proposal in 2009.
And now the 2021 treaties. And Russia said, if you don’t negotiate this seriously, you know, we will take technical/military means. I think that Biden and the US and the Europeans wanted Russia to invade so that they could put their economic, their ground war and their information war into [effect]. They thought they were going to bring down the Russian government, destroy the economy, beat them on the ground.
They lost, lost, lost. And they know that now. So there has to be a way out for them. And Trump can give it to them if he sticks to some of these ideas, and what you just mentioned, the security guarantees and Ukraine. He can’t allow … he said Americans won’t take part. He’s got to say the Europeans cannot take part.
I don’t know if there could be a U.N. peacekeeping force with Bangladeshi and Indian troops. This is the only thing that I think might be acceptable to Russia. I don’t even know if that would be, but certainly you’re never going to have NATO nations there, even if they’re not part of a NATO [operation], as a peacekeeping force.
That still was talked about by the Europeans in the White House yesterday, which was a really sorry state of affairs, because they were going to lose face. Let’s face that. That’s what’s at the bottom of the European problem. Joe Lauria, Editor in chief of Consortium News, thank you so much for joining us with this analysis.
You’re welcome. You’re welcome. Bye bye.
The victory will be pyrrhic. The one and only root cause was outlined in the first 25+ minutes of the Tucker Carlson interview. Ukraine never should have been created. It’s an artificial state. The price for this historical mistake? Hundreds of thousands of dead soldiers on both sides, soldiers and civilians with missing limbs, blinded, skin burned off. Millions of civilians fleeing their homes with a suitcase or two. Civilians undergoing 30 or 40 surgeries and still coming out disfigured or disabled for life. Mass graves, rape, kidnapping, torture and looting. Tens of thousands of children abducted and sent far away to be “re-programmed” and stripped of their identity. Entire cities flattened. Schools, hospitals, theaters, shopping centers, stadiums destroyed. One day, the facts will scale the firewall and be delivered. And then the long period of reckoning will have to begin. For now, many of them don’t know. Or have been persuaded otherwise by a powerful and well-financed state media. Orwell’s words ring loud and clear: “The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, and the lie became the truth”. “All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.” Yes, the victory will be pyrrhic. Eventually, the truth will come out. It always does.
Trump puts on a show. His diplomacy is all of this type. He strives for progress that is essentially meaningless. Trump’s typical “great result” from a session is really just an agreement to keep talking. Trump can not admit a failed negotiation, and the show must go on. Trump uses summits as a big publicity draw. Thus, he’s always trying to arrange and then promote a summit just like pro wrestling is always trying to promote its next big pay-per-view.
In America, foreign policy is almost always a tool to distract the masses from the problems at home. I learned this at a young age when Nixon fled Watergate to China. Trump uses foreign policy as a distraction, so that people don’t pay any attention to what they are really feeling from the economy, or don’t notice that the capital is now under military occupation, or that we are detaining large numbers in camps that concentrate the people we don’t like. I’m guessing that when he was in Alaska he didn’t take any questions about inflation or Epstein.
BTW, as a non-government stat on inflation, Walmart says in its quarterly report that “like-for-like” inflation in its stores was an increase in prices of 1.1% in the last quarter. Which would be around 4.4% at an annual rate. I do not expect the next head of stats at the BLS to publish such numbers, now that we live in a nation where officials get fired for publishing stats that do not amuse the King. But, we aren’t supposed to pay any attention to that as the media hypes the next Trump summit with Putin or Xi.
I was very disturbed at Putin’s assessment of Trump as standing firm against the Europeans. He really hasn’t learned the pathology of Trump who will take every step to appear successful, including feigning and fawning where it suits his own interests. Trump was faced with an implacable Putin in Anchorage so adopted a passive mode, appearing to discard Zelensky and the Europeans. Now Trump is pulling the same stunt with them, playing both ends against the middle and adding US involvement features that Putin would reject such as possible US security air cover for Ukraine.
The key issue here is a Trump request for Putin to meet Zelensky which apparently Putin is considering. This would be a disaster. I cannot state this clearly enough: THERE IS NO GOOD FAITH FROM ZELENSKY, THE EUROPEANS OR TRUMP. They will take any Zelensky-Putin meeting as an affirmation of the political legitimacy of Zelensky. The Europeans and Western media will double down on every propaganda falsehood in order to undermine any peace agreement.
Putin should be insisting that Zelensky lacks electoral legitimacy, is the author of multiple war crimes in the Eastern provinces and breached the Minsk Agreements. He can be fully expected at any later date to reject any signed agreement on the grounds that it was made under duress. Putin should insist that another Ukrainian official meet with him accompanied by a written statement of non-negotiable Ukraine conditions. That should put an immediate end to good faith intentions by the Ukrainian leadership. Ukraine’s insistence on a return of all Ukrainian territories must be disavowed before any leadership meeting takes place otherwise what is the point. The propaganda war will continue.
Putin must not meet Zelensky. This would be a fatal mistake. His political legitimacy should be publicly denied.
An excellent interview . Joe Lauria went straight to the core issues of Russian and Ukrainian security . His pessimism that the fragile consensus of the White House meetings and phone call to Putin will not hold up is IMO justified . Putin has not formally responded yet but already both sides are behaving characteristically : the Russia-haters around Trump are trying to undermine his vision of peace , and those in Russia who with good reason fear Western duplicity are speaking more loudly e.g. Lavrov. As Joe foresees , most likely outcome is that it will go back to being settled on the battlefield . I note that Joe and RT interviewer did not even get onto border issue where there is still wide gap between sides .