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00:00here on set is our international affairs commentator, Doug Herbert. Doug, talks then in Saudi Arabia.
00:06Why Saudi Arabia? What might come out of this?
00:08Yeah, and you're right, you know, a nice sober question, right? Saudi, we're a little bit
00:12in upside down world here, Stuart. You know, time was not so long ago. You don't have to
00:16go back far. Talks like this, when US and Russia spoke, it was held in Europe, basically,
00:21you know, either Geneva or Helsinki, Reykjavik, Iceland. No more. Riyadh is Donald Trump's
00:28go-to country because it's a transactional place. And, you know, there's no longer the
00:33question of all the human rights abuses that it's been accused of. Remember Jamal Khashoggi
00:38and all of that, the Saudi hit squad that was accused of basically knocking off the
00:43journalist in Istanbul. All that's over right now. You go to Saudi Arabia, this is also
00:48a place that wants to be a key global player in the game, knows what Donald Trump, it has
00:53a real foothold into its ambitions. Also at the center of Donald Trump's hopes of having
00:58some normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia. So the talks are in Riyadh, like I
01:03said, upside down world. But of course, this has all become sort of normalized. We don't
01:07even think about the fact it's being held in Riyadh now, they're being held there. Moving
01:12on, you have a situation right now where this is a dream in the making. Putin never thought
01:18he would get so lucky, perhaps. Not only does he have a Trump administration, which
01:23Putin seems to be able to play like a fiddle. Maybe he'll be proven wrong. Maybe Trump will
01:28be transactional and flip on Putin, right? We never know how things are going to pan
01:31out with Donald Trump. But for now, Putin's getting exactly what he's wanted. He said
01:36from the outset of this war, this is not just about Ukraine. For Russia, this is about basically
01:41rewriting the security architecture of the world, an architecture that he has railed
01:45against as being written against Russia, being against Russia's interests. And Putin's
01:49going to do something about it. That is meant trying to push NATO back from encroaching
01:53on its borders. So maybe getting Donald Trump to pull some troops, NATO troops out from
01:57the eastern reaches of NATO countries, maybe pulling US troops out of Europe. Basically,
02:02like I said, tearing up the old playbook of everything that has been normal about the
02:07post World War Two security order. So Putin is getting his wish here. I want to hear though,
02:12I want our viewers to hear what Lavrov actually had to say going into these talks, because
02:16it's not just the Trump administration, through the through J.D. Vance and others that is
02:21absolutely holding Europe in contempt and saying you have no place at this table. Listen
02:25to the Russian foreign minister.
02:35I don't know why they should be at the negotiating table. If they're going to come up with some
02:39cunning ideas about freezing the conflict while actually intending, as is their custom
02:44and nature, to continue the war, then why should we invite them at all?
02:51So we had heard the Trump envoy the other day, right, Keith Kellogg, the Ukraine envoy,
02:56basically saying to the Europeans, no, you're not at the table. It's not realistic. It's
03:00not happening. But, you know, he's been sort of maybe soft pedaling a little bit more in
03:05recent days, saying nothing's off the table, nothing's excluded. But as of now, as things
03:09stand, he's pretty clear that there's no place for Europe at the table. And you have
03:13Sergei Lavrov. I mean, like I said, a dream for Russia, this this meeting, manna from
03:18heaven, Stuart. Basically, Sergei Lavrov is on the exact same page in his view of Europe,
03:25his very dim view, may I say, basically saying, you know, Europe has no place at this table.
03:30Why should it? Europe's the one that's continuing having provoked this war. That is essentially
03:35almost verbatim sort of what we're hearing out of Washington right now. Rarely have we
03:40seen Washington and Moscow on such a similar wavelength when it comes to their geopolitical
03:46view of what is supposedly one of the United States firmest allies since World War Two
03:52and even before that. No more. A new world order in which all bets are off, all geopolitical
03:57bets and everything, whether you're an ally or not of the United States, is conditional
04:01on your behavior here and now in the present.