Is Ukraine’s war effort collapsing from within? 🇺🇦 In this hard-hitting episode of CrossTalk, we examine the growing divide over the Ukraine conflict. While Russia and Donald Trump advocate for a negotiated peace, Kiev and its European allies seem intent on prolonging the war 🕊️ vs 🔥.
🎙️ Join Peter Kuznick, Steve Jermy, and Arnaud Develay as they explore:
🔸 Why Ukraine is losing ground
🔸 How Western support is fading
🔸 Zelensky’s controversial decisions
🔸 The potential role of Trump in resolving the war
With each passing day, Ukraine’s position weakens, and U.S. political tides may shift even further. Is this the beginning of the end?
💬 What’s your take on Ukraine’s path forward? Peace or more escalation? Let us know below 👇
🔔 Subscribe for more uncensored geopolitical discussions!
#UkraineWar
#Zelensky
#Trump2025
#RussiaUkraine
#UkraineConflict
#CrossTalk
#PeterKuznick
#SteveJermy
#ArnaudDevelay
#Geopolitics
#UkrainePeace
#TrumpRussia
#UkraineCrisis
#NATOWatch
#UkraineSupport
#LostCause
#EasternEurope
#GlobalPolitics
#WarDebate
#WorldAffairs
🎙️ Join Peter Kuznick, Steve Jermy, and Arnaud Develay as they explore:
🔸 Why Ukraine is losing ground
🔸 How Western support is fading
🔸 Zelensky’s controversial decisions
🔸 The potential role of Trump in resolving the war
With each passing day, Ukraine’s position weakens, and U.S. political tides may shift even further. Is this the beginning of the end?
💬 What’s your take on Ukraine’s path forward? Peace or more escalation? Let us know below 👇
🔔 Subscribe for more uncensored geopolitical discussions!
#UkraineWar
#Zelensky
#Trump2025
#RussiaUkraine
#UkraineConflict
#CrossTalk
#PeterKuznick
#SteveJermy
#ArnaudDevelay
#Geopolitics
#UkrainePeace
#TrumpRussia
#UkraineCrisis
#NATOWatch
#UkraineSupport
#LostCause
#EasternEurope
#GlobalPolitics
#WarDebate
#WorldAffairs
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Hello and welcome to Crosstalk, where all things are considered. I'm Peter Lavelle.
00:26This is the scorecard. Russia and Trump want a resolution to the Ukraine conflict. Kiev and the Europeans don't. This is where we stand. Ukraine will continue to lose ground and most likely American support. Ukraine is a lost cause. Zelensky has chosen this fate.
00:43Crosstalking Ukraine, I'm joined by my guests, Peter Kuznik in Bethesda. He is a professor of history at American University, as well as co-author with Oliver Stone of The Untold History of the United States.
01:04In Cornwall, we have Steve Jeremy. He is a retired Royal Navy Commodore. And here in Moscow, we cross Arnaud Devolle. He is a political consultant.
01:13All right, generally, Crosstalk rules in effect. That means you can jump anytime you want, and I always appreciate it.
01:17Peter, let's start out with you. We've all been following the pace of, I guess you could call them negotiations, or particularly Steve Witkoff's multiple visits to Moscow.
01:28And there's a lot of noise around the Trump administration, how the U.S. wants to proceed. I suppose the Russians are being very patient. But I'm going to ask you, the longer this takes, the more unlikely there will be a diplomatic outcome. Peter?
01:45Eventually, there's going to be a diplomatic outcome. The question is, how soon is this going to happen?
01:50The most recent development is that the United States and Ukraine just signed this mineral deal. It hasn't been ratified yet by the Ukrainians. But if anything, that gives the United States more skin in the game and might make the United States more willing to give aid and more lethal aid. You know, Trump's been on back and forth.
02:12Do you think that's a good idea, Peter? Do you think that's a good idea to give more aid and more lethal aid?
02:16No, because I agree with your sense that the longer this goes on, the more suffering, the worse position the Ukrainians are going to be in.
02:27This goes on six more months. It's going to mean scores of thousands, more dead and wounded on both sides, and Russia having more of Ukrainian territory.
02:36It's not in Ukraine's short-term or long-term interest to prolong this. And it's not really in Russia's interest to prolong this.
02:44So why don't cooler heads and more reasonable heads prevail? And we'll sit down and end this. I mean, Putin's been saying now, he says, he wants direct negotiations. In the past, he said different things.
02:57But I think it's time. The world thinks it's time. And I was just in Russia last week for the Moscow International Film Festival.
03:07And the sense I'm getting from the Russians also is that they're weary of this. I saw that happen in the United States with all the U.S. wars.
03:15And it's happening with this war. And the world is weary of this.
03:19And also, the longer it goes on, the more dangerous there is of a possible expansion to World War III.
03:26Okay, well, Peter, you're not going to get an argument from me, obviously. Let me go to Steve here.
03:33So in whose interest is it to have this conflict continue?
03:36I mean, Peter has given a wonderful checklist of reasons why it should end. It ends soon.
03:41It's in nobody's interest that it continues. But I think we have to reflect the realities on the ground, but also the balance of power between the parties, which is not understood in the West.
03:56I think the key concerns is that the West are shooting hard for a ceasefire.
04:02And they're missing a fundamental point, which is that Russia is not interested in a ceasefire without having first established the long-term security architecture to allow it to get to peace.
04:14So I think the West has got its sequencing wrong. It wants to go ceasefire, then the security architecture.
04:18And Russians are saying, as I would as a former military person, well, I don't want to do that because actually I'm going to lose the initiative that I've got on the ground.
04:27I'm winning. But I think as soon as the Europeans and the Americans can accept this, that actually that we need to work hard towards to get towards that long-term security architecture, then we can be in a position to actually establish the seat.
04:40Let me stay with you. I agree with you. I've been using this term European security architecture from the very beginning.
04:48But will that security architecture include Russia? Because the way it's talked about in the West, Russia doesn't have any security.
04:56It has no legitimate security interest. We've heard this from a number of European leaders. Isn't that part of the equation that needs to be equalized?
05:05Yeah, I mean, I'm afraid that what you've just described is the reason we are where we are.
05:10The issue is that we have had a NATO architecture, which I was in part in my previous military career.
05:17And the strategy that we've been following in that NATO architecture is one of confrontational security.
05:25Now, that's been that that is the direct result of that is why we've arrived at the war that we have what we'd be much better at is looking at a different architecture, which in which we could start to talk about cooperative security.
05:39And there is no better architecture, at least in the short term, as a starter for the organization for security and cooperation in Europe.
05:47I mean, the clues in the title, security cooperation in Europe, we can get towards that sort of architecture, but also that sort of strategy.
05:56And I think we'll be in the right place.
05:58I personally think that NATO is well past its sell-by date and an impediment to the ending of this war rather than a part of the solution.
06:08You know, I don't know the the problem with the way the negotiations are presented in the West, particularly in the UK and the United States, is that there's somehow in some way negotiations are illegitimate because dealing with dealing with Russia is an illegitimate proposition.
06:28And we have people, which I'd like to know in the future, who is still supporting Zelensky in the West that is against any kind of peace process.
06:37But the problem the problem is, is that negotiations are considered Munich all over again.
06:44That's another one of the problems we face.
06:46Yes, indeed, the whole problem in this conflict is also the type of rhetorics that have been thrown mostly from the West to anybody who is throwing a critical appreciation of the situation.
07:01We've heard revisionist power and revisionist obviously, you know, brings a lot into, you know, the discussion as far as certain thematics.
07:12But the main problem, I think, is, as you said, as you alluded to, a complete refusal, almost tone deaf posturing from the European, to be sure, and a part of the American establishment in this far as what Russia's legitimate interests are all about.
07:32How those interests should be taken into account in this far as the long term interest of everybody involved.
07:38And how do we begin to take into account the situation and proceed forward?
07:44Right now, we're not there yet. Far from it.
07:47If anything, everything we're hearing from Western capitals seems to be doubling down.
07:53You know, it doesn't work. Let's double down.
07:55This is, this is unfortunately what predominates right now.
08:00Well, and also to all three of you, we have to consider the political angle here.
08:06There are many people that do not want to see Donald Trump get a win, as he calls it.
08:12So to obstruct Trump, they want the war to continue.
08:16That is the apex of cynicism.
08:19Peter, it's interesting. We, you know, we look at the revisionism, as it was already mentioned here.
08:28And we see a whole lot of it going on as we approach Victory Day in Russia.
08:34It's May 9th, the 80th anniversary of the destruction of fascism in Europe.
08:39But there is another kind of revisionism in play that I think the West feels very uncomfortable with.
08:45And that is the reassessment of the end of the Cold War.
08:50Because in the West, there's the mantra, Russia lost, the Soviet Union lost the Cold War.
08:56Well, the Russians say they exited, they no longer participated in it, which is a very different interpretation.
09:03But, you know, Russia demands to be recognized as a great power again.
09:09And that is a reversal of the perception in the West that Russia was defeated.
09:14Peter.
09:15Well, this whole thing seems to be predicated on a couple of very serious myths.
09:24The first one is that if Putin gets a win in Ukraine, he's going to gobble up one piece of Europe after another.
09:34I think that's madness.
09:36You know, I don't know.
09:37But that's what they did throughout the Cold War and since.
09:41The first one is that Ukraine is playing upon people's fears in order to justify exorbitant military spending and a world in which we're threatened with extinction in order to somehow deter some other force from doing something terrible.
10:00And this idea that the Ukrainians can claw back the territory that they've lost.
10:07Neither of those is valid at all.
10:10But the question that you're raising about historical revisionism and the role of Russia in the world.
10:16I mean, Russia is a major player in the world and the Russians are very proud and they have interests and they have hopes and they see themselves in a certain way.
10:26So, yeah, the world is going to have to adjust.
10:29It's no longer the unipolar world that Krauthammer announced back in 1990.
10:35Right.
10:36This is now a multipolar world.
10:38We've got the alliance between Russia and China.
10:41We've got other countries emerging.
10:43We've got the BRICS alliance becoming a major player globally at this point.
10:47And the United States is not going to be able to ride roughshod over the rest of the world as it did for many, many decades.
10:54It has done most of the 80 years since World War II.
10:58The Russians understand that.
11:00Some Americans understand that.
11:03But not enough Americans still understand that.
11:06And some of the Europeans are clinging to this idea that Europe is going to somehow replace the vacuum of the United States withdrawal.
11:14Well, let me address that to Steve.
11:18I mean, Europe, is it Stockholm Syndrome?
11:22I mean, you know, over the decades, you know, the French say we need a new European defense pact.
11:31We have to distance ourselves from the Americans.
11:33And then it goes back in the other direction.
11:35I mean, what is it?
11:36Why do they need to cling to the United States so much?
11:39Because they don't want to take responsibility for their security.
11:42Or if they do take responsibility for security, they'll realize that Russia isn't a threat.
11:48I think the reason it's difficult to be to put my finger on one thing.
11:53But if I would say one thing, it's a lack of the capacity to think strategically across the leaders in Europe.
12:00I think with a few exceptions, such as Viktor Orban in Hungary, people are unable to distinguish between support to America and their own national interests.
12:12And it's becoming increasingly clear to me that that support that's been given almost without question to America has been a big mistake.
12:23I look back at the moment, you know, I'm looking at the back of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and now Ukraine.
12:30That's five failed interventions, only one of which should probably ever have happened, which is possibly Ukraine.
12:37So I think it's a failure of strategic thinking.
12:40I think as well in this particular intervention that the West has been guided by a political narrative, whereas Russia has been guided by a military strategy.
12:50And what the West is struggling with at the moment is they're having to come to terms with a political narrative which is falling apart around them as Russia wins on the battlefield.
13:02And I think the Americans are coming to terms with it more quickly, albeit in a slightly chaotic way, thanks to the Trump administration.
13:09We're going to talk about that chaos in the second half of the program.
13:12Gentlemen, we have to go to a hard break.
13:13I'm going to jump in.
13:14And when we return, we'll continue our discussion on Ukraine.
13:17Stay with RT.
13:18Welcome back to Crosstalk, where all things are considered.
13:25I'm Peter LaBelle.
13:26To remind you, we're discussing Ukraine.
13:38Ronald, let me go to you here in Moscow.
13:41One of the interesting things that Donald Trump has said, he said a lot of things.
13:46OK, this war never would have happened if he had been president.
13:49He could end it in a day.
13:50We all a whole litany of things.
13:52But in the last few days, he said something.
13:54I don't know if it's by accident, serendipity just came into his head.
14:00Maybe somebody told him.
14:01We can't really tell at this point.
14:04But he said something that goes, plays into this shifting narratives.
14:10And what I mean by that, Russia lost the war on the day of its invasion.
14:15Russia's using washing machine parts to fuel its missiles.
14:22Russia's run out of missiles.
14:24Russia's lost.
14:26Russia's already losing.
14:28Over and over again.
14:29We could spend an entire program going through that.
14:31But I don't know.
14:32Trump said something that's really quite interesting.
14:34I've saved Ukraine.
14:35We should end the war.
14:37I saved Ukraine from the rest of Russian occupation of the country.
14:43Now, all of us know it and our viewers know that that is not the case.
14:47However, that is an interesting narrative shift to kind of make you stand up and think,
14:52well, OK, well, Ukraine still exists as a sovereign state.
14:56That's a good thing, isn't it?
14:58Talk about this narrative shifts, because that's the only way.
15:02The battlefield activity will continue.
15:06Geopolitical realities will remain.
15:08Political facts remain on the ground.
15:10But it's going to get, for Western audiences to understand Trump's departure,
15:15it may need a rhetorical trick.
15:17Like, I saved Ukraine.
15:19I don't know.
15:21Well, I don't know who advises Donald Trump.
15:23But to be sure, we are really looking at the contrast between the lightedness
15:29with which American policymakers are approaching the conflict as opposed to,
15:36and everybody who follows the conflict understands that as far as Russia is concerned,
15:40it's an existential issue.
15:42And so Trump may try to somehow, and that may be why he was selected, you know,
15:48to somehow put some lipstick on a pig.
15:51But this is America's war.
15:53And he may say this is Biden's war, not my war.
15:56This is your war, buddy, whether you like it or not.
15:59The buck stops here.
16:01And Vladimir Putin was actually, for a moment, thinking that the alpha male
16:06stepped back into the room.
16:08He even alluded to the Europeans, like little poodles would come around at some point.
16:14And what's hard to understand is that Donald Trump is completely informed about the conflict.
16:22And he just thinks that by signing, you know, just for optics, this kind of a deal, mineral
16:28deals, which on its face is illegal because, well, the president of Ukraine is not legitimate
16:34or legally legitimate, he's going to get away with it and get a political win.
16:40And this is not the way it's going to work.
16:43So I think Russia is taking stock of the situation, is patiently allowing the Americans to state
16:50their positions.
16:51But in the wake of what we've been hearing the last three months, I think we're going
16:56to be seeing the special military operation proceed apace to fulfill its twin agenda, which
17:04is to demilitarize and denazify what used to be the bridge between the West and Russia.
17:11Because it has no choice.
17:13And I think if Trump does not wake up and understand this seriousness of the situation,
17:19the reality on the ground will catch up with his current political rhetoric.
17:24And he will be left with another L to his current term.
17:30You know, Peter, what's really frustrating for me, I mean, obviously, all of us follow this
17:36very closely, you know, every single layer from day to day.
17:41But I'll tell you one of the things that I find really frustrating is all of the voices
17:46in the Trump administration talking about this.
17:49And it's very, very confusing.
17:51For example, why is Keith Kellogg there?
17:55I mean, why does the United States need an envoy to Ukraine?
17:58Ukraine.
17:59Ukraine is a vassal of the United States.
18:02I mean, why do you need an envoy?
18:03I mean, I find that very confusing.
18:06And he's given enormous amount of prominence about ideas that are so, you know, I mean,
18:13deftone to what's going on and countervailing to what other people in the administration.
18:20I mean, for better or worse, gentlemen, Steve Witkoff seems to have that portfolio, not the
18:26secretary of state.
18:27And and so it's a I mean, if I'm confused, the Russian side must be just as confused.
18:32Peter.
18:33I don't usually agree with Tom Friedman, but he said something that I like.
18:38He said, if you hire clowns, you should expect a circus.
18:42You know, when you look at this Trump administration and this cabinet choices and his advisers,
18:47these are clowns.
18:48These are not qualified, serious, thoughtful, intelligent people.
18:52So you've got Kellogg, who's effectively very, very bellicose in his statements.
18:59So he's been sidetracked.
19:01And then they bring in Witkoff, who's a little bit more balanced and reasonable.
19:05But you've got people like Hegseth.
19:07Hegseth says, we have to end the war in Ukraine so we can go after the real enemy, China.
19:13I mean, so I mean, they're all over the place.
19:15Rubio is effectively sidelined.
19:17Usually it's the secretary of state who's doing the diplomacy.
19:21What do we hear from Rubio that maybe that's because Rubio was so anti Putin in an earlier
19:27life that now he can't get along with the Trump agenda.
19:30Well, over the weekend, it was thrown back in his face.
19:34And he didn't acquit himself very well, just to highlight your point.
19:39Exactly.
19:40Keep going.
19:41So, I mean, we're dealing with incompetence.
19:44But Lavrov said something to me that I find very interesting.
19:48He said, when I hear America first, it makes me think of Deutschland uber alles.
19:54You know, so these people are not deluded.
19:56They're not tricked by what Trump and Trump's game is.
20:00They understand that Trump could turn on a dime against them and is threatened to do so
20:06if he doesn't get the deal that he wants to get.
20:09And now he's got this greater stake if this mineral deal goes through.
20:14So I never I haven't picked up any of the Russian leaders thinking that Trump is a trustworthy, reliable ally in any of this or even an even handed negotiator.
20:26So which is why part of the reason why some people are very pessimistic that this is going to end anytime soon.
20:35The Russians keep saying this is much too complicated.
20:38We're not going to get a deal in the first 24 hours and we're not going to get a deal maybe in the first four months.
20:45But we have to keep we need to really be sitting down and talking and figuring out what points we can agree on, what compromises both sides are willing to make and how we proceed when we move forward.
20:57And at least there's some momentum for talking at the moment.
21:00And we should see what there is momentum for.
21:04Well, maybe it's it's slightly lessening here.
21:07Steve, if I can go to you in Cornwell, is that I think the Trump administration is mistakenly thinking that normalizing Moscow Washington relations will solve the problem in Ukraine.
21:22I think that that's an erroneous assumption.
21:25And if there and if the assumption is that better relations can resolve with the Americans and the Europeans are going to be sorely disappointed.
21:33Maybe the Europeans want to be disappointed, but the American Trump, the Trump administration will be disappointed.
21:38You can't have American missiles killing you Russian civilians and have in better relations at the same time.
21:46It's impossible, at least in the long term.
21:48Steve.
21:49Steve.
21:50Yeah, no, I think I think the what's going on the Trump White House is confusing.
21:53I think it's worth seems to feels to me that there are two sort of sides of the Trump White House of the Hegseths and the neocons, those people of that mindset.
22:03You could say Rubio's in there, although I did hear Rubio say almost at the start of his his time, the recognition of a multipolar world, which is in itself a good thing, is actually accepting that we're no longer in this unipolar world.
22:18I think the two who interest me are Tulsi Gabbard and J.D. Vance.
22:22Now, J.D. Vance is somebody who within Congress, some at least a year ago, perhaps longer, was talking in a much more practical way about what was actually going on in the battlefield and in a way which is realistic.
22:36And of course, you've also got Tulsi Gabbard, who as well has military experience, but is an intelligent person.
22:42So I think we're starting to see, for example, the Americans most recent security intelligence review.
22:49We're starting to see a recognition in that review that it can't be won militarily in Ukraine.
22:54I think when it comes to Wyckoff, I mean, Wyckoff may be a property man.
22:58The good thing is he seems to have Trump's ear, but also he's talking to Putin.
23:05I can't emphasize how important it is that at last we have a channel of communication and these conversations are going on.
23:12This is always going to be a long term thing because of Russia's interest.
23:18It's this issue of the long term solution for the security problems.
23:22But the fact that talking is going on is the right thing.
23:25What's important to understand here, I mean, I think Western audience should understand,
23:31Russia would very much like to have a good relationship with the United States.
23:35That's high on the list. They do want that.
23:39That is not conveyed to Western audiences whatsoever.
23:43Russia is this kind of this gray, monolithic, you know, one man rule.
23:48The portrait of Russia is so distorted. It has been for a very, very long time.
23:54But, you know, the Russians would very much like to have a good relationship with the United States.
23:59We'd like to work with the United States on all kinds of problems around the world.
24:02It just has to be done as an equal and with respect.
24:06I don't know where we're rapidly running out of time.
24:09Last week, I did a program throwing in the towel.
24:13We heard that again from the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, that the U.S.,
24:19and it could be this week, we're almost at the end of this week, that the United States could just walk away.
24:25Should we take that seriously? And is that something the Europeans would welcome?
24:31Because it seems to me that they're the ones that want to take the bellicose position towards Russia.
24:37Go ahead. I don't know.
24:40Well, I think if politically it is deemed expedient, the Americans might just decide to, yeah, throw the towels.
24:46But throwing the towels is one thing if you decide to stop all weapons delivery, intelligence sharing, and, of course, financial support.
24:57If the United States keep on providing at least intelligence, if not equipment, and prompt the Europeans to wrap up their own military upgrade using American equipment,
25:13what kind of message does that send to Moscow?
25:16It means that the Americans are responsible, that they start fires, geopolitical fault lines and crisis in key areas around the world.
25:25And when it doesn't go their way, they just seemingly walk away, but keep, you know, stoking the fire from a distance.
25:33This is not going to work.
25:35We need to have a complete retooling of the grand strategy, if any, that the Americans have for the world.
25:43You know, to wrap up, gentlemen, this has been a fascinating program.
25:46But I think one of the problems I guess future historians will examine this time is that it's almost a nonstarter, nonsensical for a country that is a co-belligerent in a conflict to act as a mediator.
25:59And that is one of the problems the Trump administration has never been able to resolve.
26:04You can't be, you can't play both at the same time and be a legitimate power broker, as it were.
26:11All right, gentlemen, that's all the time we have.
26:13I want to thank my guests in Bethesda, Hornwall, and here in Moscow.
26:16And, of course, I want to thank our viewers for watching us here at RT.
26:18See you next time.
26:19Remember, cross-talk rules.