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00:00by Andriy Zagorodnyk, who's a former Defense Minister of Ukraine.
00:03Joining us, as you can see, via a satellite link up and in the studio,
00:08our international affairs editor, Philip Toll, to add more questions
00:13that we need to ask really with our special guest,
00:16former Defense Minister of Ukraine, advisor to the government of Volodymyr
00:19Zelensky as well.
00:20Andriy Zagorodnyk, thanks for being with us here on France 24.
00:23We appreciate your time ahead of these talks.
00:25Then tell us what you're expecting Volodymyr Zelensky to come back with.
00:30Well, first of all, he will clearly transmit the message
00:34that Ukraine is ready for peace.
00:37Ukraine knows value of peace better, probably than any other nation in the world.
00:42And certainly we are happy to
00:44to discuss this with the with the United States in all different formats, etc.
00:49At the same time, he would probably say that
00:53the peace must be protected.
00:54Otherwise, it's extremely risky to
00:58to do anything.
00:59If, for instance, there's no package of security guarantees,
01:03which we've been discussing for for a while now, because a peace
01:06without protection is essentially a huge vulnerability, is a huge liability.
01:10And also there is a massive risk that Russians may be using this time
01:15of the potential ceasefire to group forces
01:19and create additional striking groups
01:22and basically renew the offensive in some period of time.
01:26As we can see right now, Russia is absolutely not reconsidering its strategy.
01:30It's behaving as if whatever they're doing is
01:34is basically acceptable and doesn't breach international law, etc.,
01:38which, of course, is not the case.
01:40So the risk that Russia will renew the offensives would be would be very high.
01:44And I guess Zelensky would be addressing that issue.
01:47It's been another weekend of Russian bombardment of your country.
01:51The damage that's been done was in our report.
01:54It's very clear that Vladimir Putin is taking advantage
01:57of what Donald Trump has done at this present moment in time.
02:00How do you feel about the Trump administration
02:02withdrawing military aid, withdrawing intelligence sharing?
02:06Well, we we try very hard not to get too emotional about that, of course.
02:11We we understand that it's very difficult situation for us.
02:17You know, the unfortunately the position of U.S.
02:20administration right now is that they want to apply some pressure
02:25onto Ukraine.
02:27The thing is that Ukraine never been against
02:31discussions of the of the potential ceasefire at all.
02:35And we believe we were not in the position that we needed to be convinced,
02:39particularly with the withdrawal of the withdrawal of the support
02:44and the intelligence.
02:46So, yeah, it's tough.
02:47It's it's I have to say this is really, really difficult.
02:50And at the same time, we have a massive support from Europe
02:53for all countries in Europe, practically all.
02:56And we have a lot of people from United States
03:00like expressing their their solidarity with us.
03:03But yes, at the moment, position of the U.S.
03:06government is that they're not helping us, at least at the moment.
03:10Your assessment, Andre, seems very fair.
03:13I'll say that for you seem very fair minded about all of this,
03:16because there are some people who are calling Donald Trump a traitor.
03:19At least one French senator has called him a traitor.
03:21That's public on the record.
03:23That's been something that's been aired on many media sources
03:26calling Donald Trump a traitor.
03:28That's what they're saying.
03:30And in terms of what this has done to Ukraine's defence
03:33and the ability to fight off Russia, it must seem incredibly difficult
03:38because it seems that the Trump administration
03:41is not really asking Russia to compromise on anything.
03:44At the moment, that's the case.
03:45We we certainly not.
03:48We are first of all, we are staying very diplomatic with the United States.
03:53We're not going to any, you know, blames and accusations, et cetera,
03:57because we we still hope that we can build up a proper relationship
04:01with the U.S. administration.
04:03And we appreciate the
04:07that steps they're making in order to to create peace in Ukraine,
04:11because, as I said, the peace is absolute, has absolute value.
04:14There is nothing more valuable than peace.
04:16And nobody could be, you know, we cannot be convinced in the value of peace
04:21because anyone who comes to Ukraine, they see these destructions,
04:24they see the air raids, they see the, you know, funeral processions and so on.
04:29So we know value of peace more than anyone.
04:31But at the same time,
04:33we don't believe that unprotected peace is actually stable.
04:38And we're talking about security guarantees.
04:42And and some people in U.S.
04:44administration saying, well, they don't want peace enough.
04:46And that doesn't make that's that's doesn't make a connection
04:50because we we want peace enough, but at the same time, we want protected peace.
04:54That's the whole difference.
04:56And it's yes, it's a bit sometimes disheartening to see that
05:00we have to explain this over and over and over again as if we
05:04as if we don't want the war to end, you know, which is obviously not the case.
05:08Disheartening, you say, Andre, and I can imagine it must be incredibly
05:11infuriating for you because you are the ones who are being bombed.
05:15You are the ones who are being hit with drone strikes.
05:17You are the ones who are under this Russian offensive.
05:19And to have people in the White House talk about it in an almost disparaging way,
05:23it must be incredibly difficult for you to keep your temper.
05:26Can I just bring in Philip Toll, our international affairs editor for more?
05:29Philip, so many other aspects to this story.
05:31Andre, talking about the minerals deal at one point.
05:34What happens next? Different aspects.
05:36What's your take?
05:36Well, first of all, the mineral deal, I think, is on the part of Ukraine
05:42going to be used as some kind of bargaining chip for those security guarantees.
05:46What is unclear right now is whether or not that coalition
05:51of the willing of European peacekeepers from notably France,
05:56from the United Kingdom, from other EU nations
06:00is going to actually get to go into Ukraine and take part.
06:04That's been a
06:07something that's been rebuked and refused
06:09systematically by the Russian authorities up until now,
06:12saying it's nothing more than NATO
06:16getting a foothold on the ground in Ukraine.
06:18And that is something that they will never agree to.
06:20I think one of the interesting questions is, is that also a bargaining chip
06:25with the Russians over the future bargaining over what they get to keep
06:30if there has to be a negotiation in the future as to who gets what in Ukraine
06:35in exchange for a peace deal?
06:37Remember, we're still only talking about a ceasefire.
06:40That is one thing.
06:41But we're still a long way off from actually getting a final peace deal
06:44between Russia and Ukraine.
06:46And that is something that's going to be a lot more complicated to work out,
06:49because as you've been hearing,
06:51there's been basically no movement from the Russians at all.
06:53And I think the Russians feel that they don't really have to do anything
06:56because Donald Trump is doing it all for them.
06:58He's giving them the possibility of renewing bilateral relations
07:02with the United States.
07:03He's been criticizing Ukraine, putting the pressure on Ukraine
07:07and not really putting the pressure on the Russian authorities,
07:10apart from one little outburst on Friday
07:12where he said that he might increase sanctions on Russia.
07:16But those sanctions he was talking about wouldn't really have any effect anyway,
07:19because they're part of sanctions that already exist against the Russian authorities.
07:23So I think Ukraine looks as though it is in a slightly better position tonight
07:30going into these talks tomorrow.
07:32That appears to be what the United States is saying.
07:36The Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, says hopefully we can get things back on track.
07:41Volodymyr Zelensky says his team is attending to work with his American partners.
07:47So it looks more positive this week than it was a week ago.
07:50But even so, there's a lot of work still needing to be done.
07:53Andrei, can we bring you back in?
07:55Andrei Zagorodnik, former defence minister of Ukraine.
07:58Thanks for being so frank with us so far,
07:59because we really appreciate you speaking in such a clear and unequivocal way.
08:04I think what Philip's getting at as well is that there might be some that you have to give up.
08:09And obviously, Volodymyr Zelensky, you've all been clear you don't want to give up anything.
08:13You want to go back to pre-2014 borders.
08:17You want to get Crimea back.
08:18You want to get all the occupied Donbass back.
08:20You want to basically have Ukraine's integrity as you think it should be.
08:25Is there a point now where you have to sort of accept that you have to perhaps give up something to Russia?
08:32The thing is that we have to be very careful about what actually may be an enabler of peace.
08:39Because if Russia theoretically receives some sort of substantial concessions from anyone,
08:46that can actually embolden them and they can particularly say that, well, maybe that would
08:50make sense to accept that and then move further.
08:54Because for instance, they already said that the territories which they occupied already
08:58belong to Russia.
08:59So they're not subject of the negotiations and so on.
09:03I have to say this is extremely delicate matter and there is no rules.
09:08There is no like a book of how to end this.
09:12It's a whole question of like trial and basically seeing what works, what doesn't.
09:17So there is no very clear like a roadmap to the peace in this case.
09:22What is very clear, though, and I have to say that, is that if we delay the discussion
09:27of these security guarantees until the ceasefire, for example, the ceasefire is accepted and
09:34installed and then the discussion on the security guarantees will start, then there is a risk
09:40that Russia will block any of them.
09:42So for instance, the people are talking about bringing peacekeepers, bringing boots on the
09:46ground as they call it sometimes, getting some kind of a NATO-like type guarantees,
09:50et cetera, et cetera.
09:52Russia's clearly saying they're not accepting all that.
09:54And in the case of ceasefire, they could be simply like threatening to withdraw from the
09:58ceasefire.
09:59And as we'll know, not a single European politician will take a responsibility of doing something
10:04which would endanger the ceasefire.
10:06And so this whole, everything needs to be arranged in one package, like at once.
10:12And then it has a chance to hold.
10:14And answer your question, yes, I mean, we do realize that we will not be able to restore
10:18the territorial integrity of the country in the near future, most likely.
10:23At the same time, we have to be very careful because any recognition of the occupation
10:29has a risk of another occupation or another continuation of the conflict.
10:33So it's an extremely dangerous line and everybody needs to be careful and not to give out Ukrainian
10:41land thinking that you can buy land for peace.
10:44This is a very dangerous assumption.
10:46I hear what you're saying, Andrei, about that one.
10:49I want to ask you about the mineral deal, because there was much talk from Trump's office
10:53that this is the way ahead.
10:55This will be a way of achieving peace and obviously bringing economic prosperity.
11:00That's what they're talking about.
11:01But is he being naive and thinking that Vladimir Putin would go along with that and just be
11:05satisfied with that?
11:08Mineral deal is certainly could be interesting because that brings the vested interest of
11:13large American capital in Ukraine, potentially at least.
11:16So if it's fair in terms of the distribution of the assets and all that stuff, you know,
11:22like basically commercial aspects, then potentially it could be quite a substantial benefit to
11:29Ukraine and to Ukrainian-American relations and potentially peace in the region.
11:35Because indeed, if there is, like, a large capital vested in the, has a vested interest
11:39in the region, then certainly its lobbying power can help to protect that area, potentially.
11:46The thing is that it's definitely not enough on its own.
11:50So we cannot say that, okay, the mineral deal will completely be, like, enough as a guarantee
11:56and essentially will bring, you know, will guarantee the peace on its own.
12:00First of all, we have seen cases when the United States entered into similar arrangements.
12:08I have to remind that with the president of Afghanistan there was a very similar arrangement.
12:12It never was concluded, but at least it was already on the sort of final stages.
12:17And that didn't help Afghanistan much.
12:19But also Russia may still attack Ukraine, and technically they can try to arrange, I
12:26mean, some sort of agreement with U.S. or whatever else.
12:29But basically the mineral deal itself cannot be considered as enough in order to secure
12:36peace in the region.
12:37It has to be supported by the military capabilities, similar to how NATO, for instance, is technically
12:45protecting Europe and so on.
12:48Of course, we cannot say that Ukraine will have NATO-like guarantees, but at least some
12:52kind of military protection there must be in place.
12:56Korea, South Korea is another example from 1953, also worth looking at as a, for inspiration,
13:04let's say.
13:05Andrej, question from Phil Patel.
13:06Yeah, just very briefly, maybe if you could.
13:09There's a lot of discussion going on about the incursion by Ukrainian forces into Russian
13:15territory into the Kursk region, and the pushback by the Russian forces right now, which look
13:21like they could encircle the Ukrainian forces.
13:24Is it worth Ukraine keeping that incursion into Russian territory going, or is there
13:30growing pressure on the Ukrainian authorities to withdraw from there to reduce the number
13:34of casualties that could be incurred if they stay on the ground?
13:39There is no reason to stay there longer than absolutely necessary.
13:45Ukraine was keeping quite confidently those territories until it had the intelligence.
13:51As you can see, the withdrawal of intelligence and worsening situation in Kursk basically
13:58coincided with time, and that's not a coincidence, that's a direct consequence.
14:04Because the way Ukraine kept Kursk area under its control, it's basically by not allowing
14:10Russian forces to come close to the line of contact, because in this case we could make
14:16sure that Russians couldn't basically create striking groups which would be able to harm
14:24Ukrainian positions in Kursk.
14:27So essentially this is a similar doctrine like a NATO interdiction doctrine, basically
14:33keeping the enemy away and not allowing it to approach.
14:36For that you need ideal intelligence in real time, and clearly that's not coming right
14:42now.
14:43So I guess the situation is worse because of this.
14:46Question.
14:48Can we afford to be encircled?
14:49No, absolutely we cannot.
14:51It's not worth it.
14:52And our commander is clearly watching this.
14:55We just had recently an announcement of our commander-in-chief that at the moment he doesn't
15:00see the encirclement as a real risk.
15:03But I'm sure that if he will see the real risk, I mean, they will be considering withdrawal.
15:07Andrei, thank you very much for joining us here in France 24.
15:10We appreciate your time and we appreciate your frank response to our questions.
15:15Andrei Zagorodnyuk, former Defence Minister of Ukraine, advisor to the government of Vladimir
15:19Zelensky, chairman of the Defence Centre and distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council.
15:23Thank you, sir, for your time.
15:25Do take care of yourself over there in Ukraine.
15:28And thank you for joining us here on France 24.
15:30Thanks also to our international affairs.