Lawfare Daily: Anastasiia Lapatina and Eric Ciaramella Talk Russia, Ukraine, and Trump

[Intro]

Eric Ciaramella: So it was kind of the sweeteners for Russia got more detailed. The concessions for the Ukrainians got more detailed, and then all the stuff Russia was supposed to do, to whether repay Ukraine or withdraw troops or stop fighting and have that enforced, those were super vague.

Benjamin Wittes: It's the Lawfare Podcast. I'm Benjamin Wittes, editor in chief of Lawfare with Anastasiia Lapatina, Lawfare Ukraine Fellow and Eric Ciaramella of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Anastasiia Lapatina: The American goal is to get this whole thing over with as soon as possible, to get some Ukrainian official to sign whatever document that they can sign. And I mean, the crux of the Trump administration to the best of my understanding, really does not seem to care all that much about what's actually in the document as long as both sides sign it. And they can sell it as a win.

Benjamin Wittes: Today we're talking peace negotiations between Russia, the United States, and Ukraine.

[Main Podcast]

We had a document, everybody flipped out. Now nobody will claim responsibility for actually writing that document, or maybe they will. What is the United States's actual position on a Russia, Ukraine ceasefire? What is Ukraine's position? And is Russia really so unwilling to back off its more maximalist demands.

All right, Eric, get us started here. It seems like every day the story shifts and becomes a little bit about something else and maybe becomes less acute than we thought it was the previous day, less than a week ago, this was Trump forcing Ukraine into submission. Now the United States is working closely with the Ukrainians to come up with a joint position. What on earth is going on here? And zoom out to 40,000 feet, break through to higher ground and explain this to me like I was a kindergartner.

Eric Ciaramella: Well, Ben, we're all riding this Trump rollercoaster, and it's by now a familiar pattern as we're in month 10 or 11 of this presidency, moments of panic and then moments of relief followed by more moments of panic and more moments of relief, and any day of the week could bring a completely different story out of left field.

If we take this back a few weeks ago. I think everyone was breathing a sigh of relief when the Trump administration finally came out with its first major package of sanctions against Russia, and those were against Russia's two main oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, and that was after many months where Trump had been threatening additional pressure on Russia for not coming to the table.

If listeners recall back in the summer there was this period of time where Trump was giving ultimatums to the Russians that they needed to play ball seriously on the talks. He was warning of additional sanctions and tariffs. And then lo and behold, one day he announced that he was gonna see Putin in Alaska. They had that summit, everyone freaked out.

Few days later, several European leaders and President Zelensky came to the White House, pulled him away from the cliff, and then there was a very intensive U.S./Ukrainian/European discussion about how to guarantee Ukraine's long-term security that sort of fizzled.

Then you had the Gaza deal, and I think that put a bit more wind in the sails of the administration to go back at this Russia/Ukraine problem set that they had not made any progress with. And of course the assessment, it seemed at predominant assessment in the administration at that time was that Ukraine wasn't really the problem. Russia was the problem.

Ukraine had moved significantly in its positions from the beginning of the Trump administration, especially after that disastrous Oval Office meeting in February from the previous position, which was sort of rejecting a ceasefire in place. You know, because it would lead to de facto territorial partition, so on and so forth, to fully embracing what was Trump's proposal, you know, for a ceasefire.

So the Ukrainians moved on that they sort of signaled that they'd be open to some formulation on not seeking NATO membership, so on and so forth. They tried to be very flexible. And the Russians kept digging in and, and presenting you know, really aggressive demands over and over and over again. Trump was getting frustrated and that led to those sanctions, which Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was sort of in the lead on and really putting forward a very belligerent posture from Washington towards Russia.

Within a few days, it was subsequently reported that Trump's envoy previously for the Middle East and you know now for Russia and Ukraine, Steve Witkoff, was meeting with Russian officials and some Ukrainian officials in Miami, hammering out a new peace plan. And that was sort of revealed to the world last week in its first instantiation as very favorable to Russia.

And as you noted, Ben, the subsequent flurry of activity from the Ukrainians and the Europeans has been designed to, you know, remove or soften some of the provisions that are most unacceptable to Ukraine and to the Europeans, to get a little bit more specific on some of the provisions that are important to the Europeans and to basically reframe the narrative around something that stems from some sort of joint U.S./European/Ukrainian position. So there was a flurry of meetings over the weekend in Switzerland.

And then today as we're recording, there are meetings in the Emirates between American and Russian, still unnamed Russian officials, with potentially Ukrainians there, kind of in proxy talks in another room or in another hotel giving their input on the plan. So this is the rollercoaster we're on.

I mean, we can wake up in a few days and be in a completely different position, but I, I feel very badly for our Ukrainian colleagues who in addition to fighting a war and dealing with the crisis on the front line every day are having to navigate, which is, you know, something that is a highly erratic and emotional American foreign policy. It's very difficult to deal with that and to really understand whom you're negotiating with.

What are you negotiating over? What is it that the United States really wants? And so I hope we can dig into that and you know, some of the main issues that have been brought up in these plans as well.

Benjamin Wittes: Nastya, let's start with the Ukrainian experience on that rollercoaster 'cause I, you, Ukraine has had its own political crisis over the last couple weeks. And then on top of that, you basically had what appeared to be a sudden demand for capitulation to Russian maximalist demands by the parachuting in Steve Witkoff, which then there's an immediate American blow up about, okay, well is this actually the U.S. position or is this merely something that the Russians proposed? Is this actually the Trump administration's view? What is the Ukrainian understanding of this sequence of events?

Anastasiia Lapatina: You are right that it has been an extremely turbulent and intense couple of weeks. Of course, because as you've said, there is an ongoing political crisis here in Kyiv. Roughly two weeks ago, Ukraine's two corruption agencies revealed a large corruption scheme in Ukraine's energy industry which of course comes at the worst possible time because of Russia's ongoing attacks against Ukrainian energy infrastructure and the rolling power outages here in Ukraine.

And the society sort of grappling with all of those challenges directly related to energy. And at that moment the society is also learning that there was a large scale scheme to embezzle, you know, at least a hundred million dollars out of the energy sphere.

But it wasn't necessarily the corruption itself that was so shocking. It was the fact that implicated in that scheme were some of Zelensky’s closest friends and associates. Top officials in the Ukrainian government were implicated, including a number of businessmen, including the a close friend of Zelensky, who with whom Zelensky co-owned his film production studio. And the scheme implicated to sitting now former because they were fired ministers in Ukraine, the minister of justice and minister of energy as well as the former deputy prime minister of Ukraine.

So it was just this really huge deal and it is undoubtedly, and I think it's still ongoing, the ramifications of it are still kind of sizzling. It is the, it is the biggest scandal of Zelensky presidency and the biggest sort of crisis of his presidency. You know, possibly like the biggest after the actual full school invasion in 2022. And so, you know, doing a bit of a meta reflection here, I, as a journalist, was sort of heads on in that coverage and I was paying very close attention to that, as was, I think the, the vast majority of the country.

And then on top of that, suddenly we started getting this strange reporting from foreign outlets about this peace plan, the 28 points peace plan. And I, to be frank, didn't even pay that much attention to it when it came out because again, to be frank, it's not the first time when some sort of terrible deal is being just another peace plan. It's just another peace plan like we've been here before. It's not the first time that the Americans look like they're trying to shove down Ukraine's throat, some terrible plan. And so I sort of didn't even pay attention to it.

And, and I started paying close attention actually last Friday, a bit late into the whole foreign kind of American discussion of the situation because on Friday President Zelensky released this address to the nation, which was quite dramatic and it's, it's a rarity. I don't, I don't remember when was the last time. I mean, if we don't count like a Christmas or a New Year's address to the nation, like sort of a crisis communication, okay, I need to talk to my people kind of address. I genuinely do not remember when was the last time this happened.

So he releases that on Friday, last Friday, and he says that right now, and I'm quoting is one of the hardest moments in our history, and Ukraine is under some of the heaviest pressure yet. And Ukraine may find itself facing a very tough choice. Either the loss of our dignity or the risk of losing a key partner, either the difficult 28 points or an extremely high hard winter, the hardest yet, and the dangers that follow.

And so with that paragraph, he sort of opens this grand speech to the nation, and I remember sending the link of that to the, to our work chat being like, I'm scared 'cause I genuine, like as a Ukrainian citizen, you know, journalists hat off. I was scared 'cause it felt like he was about to announce something grand, right? Like, here we are at this historical crossroads.

And so then I, I, from that point on, I was like, okay, I really have to pay attention because this plan seems like it's a much bigger deal than, than any of the plans before, which to be honest, I'm struggling still to wrap my head around as to why exactly, and maybe Eric will help me understand this.

But you know, it's not the first time that the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian government are being pressured to sign a bad deal, and it's not the first. Throughout all of these negotiations, Ukraine has always been in a, in a vulnerable position on the front line, clearly much more vulnerable than the Russians have been.

So I found it a bit surprising that at this particular moment, everyone across the, the, the pond, right, like the Americans, the Europeans, the, the Ukrainian government, everyone just kind of took this deal and this negotiation a lot more seriously than all the previous rounds. And I'm still sort of struggling as to, as to why that happened.

Benjamin Wittes: Let me, let me throw out a theory of this and see how you both respond. It seems to me the fundamental difference was this was not mere noise president saying there will have to be Ukraine concessions, or, you know, maybe Crimea should be part of Russia. But this was a fairly detailed plan that was released, or at least it had 28 points as opposed to four, or you know, and it was the United States saying, this is our position.

Which of course then immediately got complicated by Marco Rubio and some others. But that does seem like-.

Oh, and then Trump additionally said apropos of nothing, that he needed an answer from Ukraine and by Thanksgiving and that Thursday was a really important day. And so it seems to me when you put all those things together, you kind of get, the United States has adopted Russia's position. It's presenting an ultimatum of sorts to Ukraine, not to Russia. And oh, by the way we need an answer fast.

That does seem different from even Alaska or after the Zelensky White House meeting. Some of the, the specificity of it seems a little different. Eric, do you think this was just a rinse repeat of the sort of cycle of Ukrainian/American relations, or is, was there was Zelensky right to freak out about this? Or is the freak out itself a part of the normal warp and woof of Ukrainian American relations?

Eric Ciaramella: I do think this was a more serious moment, insofar as it was a slightly more detailed plan than the one that Witkoff was shopping around with the Europeans and the Russians and the Ukrainians back in April, which was much more of a framework agreement.

I think what was concerning is that the concessions Ukraine was purportedly on the hook to make, were much more specific in fleshed out than anything Russia was on the hook for. And I think it, you know, overall it, it gave the sense that despite all of these perceptions that the, the Trump administration was moving closer to sort of an understanding that the Russians were the obstacle, ultimately, when pen came to paper, they would force concessions really only on the Ukrainian side.

I would challenge, you know, you sort of, you presented it as a capitulation to Russian maximalist demands. I think there's a bit more nuance to it because when you read the text of the 28 points, and you know, on the surface I find it to be a very amateurs amateurish effort to scope out on agreement.

There's a lot of errors. There's a lot of things that anyone with any diplomatic training would find completely absurd statements like. All ambiguities of the past 30 years will be considered a resolved. I mean, as if you could just wave a magic wand and suddenly we all get along again. There was a, you know, an incorrect reference to U.S. Russia, nuclear arms reduction treaty that expired many years ago.

I mean, really basic stuff that if anyone who had any training had looked at it, they could have spotted that. If you put that sloppiness to the side. There was a certain amount of detail on some of the key issues that I think have been most, most sensitive to the Ukrainians on territory and, and sort of limits on their military, and then on these mechanisms for reintegrating Russia into the global economy, lifting sanctions, so on and so forth. So it was kind of the sweeteners for Russia got more detailed.

The concessions for the Ukrainians got more detailed, and then all the stuff Russia was supposed to do to whether repay Ukraine or withdraw troops or stop fighting and have that enforced. Those were super vague. I've been thinking about the kind of deals because we're now dealing with three different deals here, and I don't want to get us too wrapped up around the details of each of them because these are changing minute by minute and people are in talks right now.

But there was the original Witkoff authored deal, which may have had some substantial input from the Russians in their envoy Kirill Dmitriev, we'll never know for sure, but they certainly talked a lot. That's the 28 point plan. Then there was a European counter proposal. Which sort of edited out some of the points and made a few things stronger.

And then there is supposedly a kind of joint U.S.-Ukrainian understanding that came out of Geneva this weekend, which is 19 points, which supposedly we, you know, we've seen reporting on what it contains, although it hasn't been made public yet. And again, that's gonna go through additional rounds. If I were to divide the issues into just the few main baskets here. I would put them as follows.

The first issue is territory, and I think that's become the most sensitive one. Even though this war was never about territory to begin with, it was always about Ukraine's geopolitical orientation, Russia's desire to get Ukraine back into the Russian orbit and so on. But as this war progressed, and I think Putin found it harder and harder to achieve those overarching war aims, he started to redefine success in a territorial manner.

And that was particularly after his announcement in September 2022, that he was seeking to annex for additional Ukrainian regions, of which he didn't control the entirety of any of them, but then it became a bit of a war over territory. And the specific territory in question is the remainder of the Donetsk region the cities of Sloviansk, Mariupol which have been, you know, the center of Ukrainian resistance dating back to 2014.

It's, it holds an emotional role in the Ukrainian mindset for the Ukrainian military. These are well fortified areas. It's often called the Fortress Belt of Ukraine, and what Russia wants is something that it has yet to achieve on the battlefield, which is to via these negotiations and via American pressure to force the Ukrainians to withdraw from this territory that they've fought tooth and nail to hold onto for, you know, 12 plus years.

So the original American plan had a Ukrainian withdrawal, would turn this into some sort of DMZ. The European counter proposal was that there should be a freeze on the current line. Again, we'll see how this works out, but I would say that's the hardest part in, its interesting that the U.S. proposal kind of dove in and just sought to pressure the Ukrainians to just agree to the Russian plan. There's a few other small territorial issues that, you know, we can come back to later, but that's the main one.

The second issue, security guarantees Ukraine's long-term security. It was very vague in the main document, what it was that these security guarantees would contain, but there was allegedly a separate document with a little bit more detail, which sought to recreate in some sense Article Five of NATO, which is that an attack on Ukraine would somehow be seen as, you know, a threat to Ukraine's guarantor powers as well, and that they would take actions to meet this challenge to include potential military action. Although it's, again, very vague–

Benjamin Wittes: Although the 28 point document sort of seems to say the opposite, that it would not be considered as an attack on the others.

Eric Ciaramella: I would say that the 28 point plan left it quite vague there. Again, there were internal contradictions to this plan too, if we really dig down and compare specific points to the others. It was more focused on how the guarantee would be invalidated if Ukraine did X, Y, and Z launched missiles on, you know, it was very silly how it was set up, but I think the main point to take away from the second security guarantee document is that it's entirely focused on this issue.

On this question of a broader guarantee whereby external powers would come in and do something if Ukraine was attacked. Again, to me that's a very misguided, because it misses what is needed in the interim, which is to help Ukraine build up a very robust military. And what I would've rather seen, and what I've written about many times, is some sort of structured cooperation and security assistance from the Americans and the Europeans to build up a credible defense and deterrence force for the Ukrainian armed forces.

And instead, it just sort of waves a magic wand and says, well, we won't talk about that. But then in the future, if there's an attack, you just better hope we live up to this agreement where we're gonna do something for you. And I think Ukrainians who have been skeptical about it and say it looks a little bit like a rehash of the Budapest memorandum of ‘94 are right to worry about that.

And again, I still have questions. Does this go through the Senate? Or is it just an executive order? I mean, how, how is this enforceable? And if you don't have the interim steps to build up the Ukrainian military, then it, to me, it's hollow. That gets to the third major basket, which is the sort of limits placed on Ukraine's military capacity, which to me is again, a very misguided way of thinking about this.

Russia has been demanding what it calls demilitarization of Ukraine from the get go. If you look at purely the sort of detailed points, the original American proposal would've limited the Ukrainian military to 600,000 people. The European counter proposal, which maybe the Ukrainians signed up to, was 800,000.

Again, on the surface, those, that's a plenty big enough army for Ukraine to field and peace time, but it's not about that. The point is that there's only a limitation being placed on Ukraine not on Russia, which is weird because Russia was the one that attacked in the first place, and then it opens up a huge can of worms about verification.

So where you have most conventional arms control and limitations like this, you would have subsequent agreements that would come out of it. That would have some sort of joint verification committee by the signatories. So does that mean Russia would be able to conduct intrusive inspections and complain about every little small detail?

The Russians are amazing at doing this, you know, about what Ukraine is doing, whether it's demobilizing fast enough, whether it's building X, Y, and Z weapon system, so on and so forth. What is that structure going to look like? Because this is not just gonna be some number on paper. Russia's gonna want very strict enforcement mechanisms, which will be highly onerous on the Ukrainians, and we'll give the Russians a way to sort of lo complaints at them all the time.

The fourth major issue, I'm almost done here. Fourth major issue is the economics and reconstruction part of it. So there was this cockamamie scheme in the American proposal to divide up the frozen Russian assets into these weird investment funds. Half to Ukraine, half to Russia. The Americans would take some profits.

I mean, I don't know how you get profits from reconstruction anyway 'cause the whole point is you need to rebuild all these buildings and railroads and you know, again, these are social projects. No one's gonna make a profit on them. It's very Trumpian, very bizarre. But then also lifting sanctions, which would have to be part of some sort of deal with the Russians.

But it was sort of, you know, we're gonna move as quickly as possible to reintegrate Russia into the global economy. All these great investment opportunities which to me are magical. And then Russia rejoins the G8 and everything is hunky dory. So a lot of work left to be done on that. And then finally, this basket of other issues that were thrown in that to me have no bearing on a sort of peace deal, like the nuclear, you know, talks between the United States and Russia.

This issue of Ukrainian elections where the initial American proposal said they would happen within a hundred days. Again, that is complicated by the fact that there is martial law in place and you would have to have a real sustained period of peace to enable campaigning and so on.

And then finally, this issue of what Russia has been harping about since the beginning that Ukraine is allegedly discriminating against Russian speakers and, you know, Nazi ideology and all this BS even though Ukraine, you know, has adopted EU rules and regulations on minority protections and has them codified in its constitution. But again, yeah–

Benjamin Wittes: Nastya feels really oppressed as a native Russian speaker.

Eric Ciaramella: It's, it's really, the structure of it is designed to force all of these domestically explosive concessions and issues on the Ukrainians while making Russia not on the hook to do very much of anything, even though the plan itself is in my mind, you know, it's certainly not a complete capitulation because Ukraine would have a huge military and there would be some security relationship with the West and all that.

But still it is very, very lopsided and I can see why the Ukrainians and the Europeans, for that matter freaked out about it because they were completely excluded from the original drafting of this.

Benjamin Wittes: Alright, so before we get into Zoom out to the big picture, Nastya, you wrote a piece on your Substack about the domestic Ukrainian politics of this, not of the proposal, but of the ways Zelensky was using this to essentially require that people stop talking about his, about this ongoing corruption scandal.

So talk to us about, you know, how how much of the Ukrainian side freak out here was tactical on Zelensky part that he is, it's very convenient time to have a crisis that requires everybody be unified. And how much of it was sincere or was it both?

Anastasiia Lapatina: I think it was probably a mix of both, but I I, I agree that the, it was, it was sort of a very convenient timing for Zelensky to, to seize this moment and, and attempt the same kind of rally around the flag as the administration did after the White House blow up between Trump and Vance and Zelensky back in the spring.

But I think, I think it's a lot harder to achieve the same rally around the flag effect now, and I, from my sort of. Just understanding, looking at my social media, what the civil society actors are saying. I don't think anybody bought that. But also just to explain what you're referring to I did write a column describing how Zelensky is using this moment for his own political means because the national dress that I referenced earlier in the podcast.

Apart from saying that it was a very dangerous moment in Ukrainian history and Ukraine was facing this sort of historical moment when it might need to make a tough choice, a lot more of his speaking time of that speech was then spent on him calling for societal unity, and he was very frank about it.

He was saying literally things likem I ask you to stop the the grumbling and I ask you to stop political games and you know, I ask you for unity in the Parliament. And all that seems reasonable if you do not take into consideration all of the domestic political context. And the context is such is that the entire past week, and he released this on Friday, so at the end of the week, that whole week the Ukrainian society was watching as a crisis in the Ukrainian parliament was unfolding because the more that the energy corruption scheme was becoming apparent and the sort of the scale of it was sinking in, the more it was becoming clear that.

Zelensky immediate response to the crisis was nowhere near enough that this was a, an unprecedented moment, an unprecedented political crisis. And it called for an, an, an equally unprecedented response. And so it was clear that Zelensky firing the two implicated ministers, that Zelensky sanctioning some of the people who were involved in the scheme, was not gonna be enough.

And the opposition parties in the Parliament, as well as a number of lawmakers in Zelensky own party began calling for the removal of Zelensky’s Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak. And he's this infamous Ukrainian politician who is widely seen as sort of the great cardinal of the Ukrainian politics.

Benjamin Wittes: More of a Rasputin figure than a, than a éminence grise, right? I mean, he's like, people love to attribute everything they don't like about Zelensky to the, the sort of evil machinations of undue Andriy Yermak.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Sure. But I think the way you phrase that makes it sound like that attribution is not necessarily justified, and I think more often than not. It is because–

Benjamin Wittes: No, I, I, I, whether it's justified or not, I mean, I, I, I think the éminence grise image is more about a power behind the throne, but not everything you hate about, there's something, there's something about your mock that is, I, I, I'm trying to think of who a good analogy for him in American politics would be, and I honestly can't think of one.

You know somebody who Dick Cheney as a sort of Dick Cheney, Henry Kissinger like figure except without the intimations of brilliance with, that you have with Kissinger. Anyway, sorry. Do go on, but.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So the, it's been widely reported in the Ukrainian media and also partially in the international media that your mock has managed to concentrate incredible political power ever since the full school invasion. And this was not sort of a, an event of chance he was allowed, he was, he was allowed to concentrate this power specifically because Zelensky gave him power, right?

Zelensky appointed him as the chief of staff and through all of these various corruption scandals, through all of the demands of the Civil society, diplomats, journalists. To, to get rid of him because he's not effective, because he's potentially corrupt, because it's not democratic that an unelected official has such an outsized level of influence.

Zelensky still kept him in place, and so he's seen as, you know, the person without whom. Nothing of substance in Ukrainian politics ever happens. Like you cannot really become a minister in the Ukrainian cabinet unless Yermak is okay with you becoming a minister. A bill, a significant bill cannot pass the Ukrainian parliament unless Yermak allow, wants it to pass and allows it to pass. So he's really an extremely powerful figure.

And the point is that last week, the Ukrainian Parliament, the Ukrainian civil society, journalists, activists, diplomats in, you know, back channels and off the record meetings, everyone was calling on Zelensky to fire Yermak as, and, and saying that that would be the best response to the crisis because everyone sort of, sort of under sort of understands that it's impossible that such a large scale energy scheme could happen without him.

And there was also some reporting that he, in fact, was directly implicated in the scheme. But Zelensky refused to do that. He, despite all of the pressure he on Thursday told his party, the servant of the people party, the governing party, that he was not firing Yermak. He made that clear. And then on Friday after, after the sort of the disappointment that that decision cost, he goes out and gives a grand speech and calls for societal unity.

And, you know, we just, I'm not gonna say how it looks like, but I think listeners can tell it that it looks a certain type of way. So much so that, you know, I, I, I read one article by a leading Ukrainian outlet that said that, you know, Zelensky saved Yermak in that moment, but more than Zelensky was probably Donald Trump who saved Yermak, because now there's this another crisis, a peace plan situation.

And it, it's just amazing timing for Zelensky to sort of take that on and, and rally around the flag and say we're, you know, we're, we may be about to lose our dignity. Let's quit the, quit the discussions about all of this stuff. Let's just be united. It's just very convenient, you know? And so, yeah, that's the sort of domestic context of that.

Benjamin Wittes: Alright, so we've got some Ukrainian dysfunction going on here. Let's be honest, we also have some U.S. dysfunction here. Eric, I wanna focus a little bit on the U.S. dysfunction because frankly, some of the confusion arises from the fact that nobody seems quite able to pin down the U.S. position here.

What is your best understanding of this original 28 point document that Marco Rubio seemed to have disclaimed, but then his spokesman seemed to have said that, of course, it was a U.S. position. Do we have any clarity about, is, is this just shooting from the hip in a kind of Witkoff, Witkoff and Kushner go off and do one thing and the Secretary of State is not a part of the conversation? How do we understand from a U.S. governance point of view what did and didn't happen here? Or does it just not matter?

Eric Ciaramella: You know, the details almost don't matter who was, who was holding the pen and, and all of that. But I think the bigger issue here is that the, this first U.S. proposal came out of a channel which was detached from the rest of the government, you know, with heavy involvement from Steve Witkoff, who obviously has the president's ear and is his personal envoy.

Benjamin Wittes: An is a one man show and who's very proud of not knowing anything about the conflicts that he gets involved with.

Eric Ciaramella: Exactly. I mean, he, his lack of expertise I think, really came through in this first draft where, you know, as I mentioned earlier, there are a ton of internal contradictions and, and poorly written points.

And you know, it almost creates more problems than it, than it seeks to solve whether or not Kushner was involved, I have no idea. There's a lot of speculation that Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and one of Putin's sort of business envoys, who I think has courted Witkoff and others within the Trump family as sort of natural allies who see some huge upside and future return to the resetting of U.S./Russia economic relations if we could only solve this metal sum issue of Ukraine. You know, he had some input.

I have no idea why Marco Rubio originally might have told senators that it was a Russia drafted plan and then seemed to reverse course in a very belligerent way, and no one is really paying attention to that. I mean, in any other administration, if your Secretary of State comes out and says the main peace plan that people are talking about was actually authored by the adversary. Oh, no wait. It was actually authored by us. I mean, that would be grounds for removal or impeachment or something, but we're in a completely different zone right now.

Then there is this other element, which is that, you know, I think Vice President Vance, who shares the Trump and Witkoff desire to get a deal done, but maybe is you know, less swashbuckling and a little bit more steeped in the details than Witkoff has tried to insert himself actually quite successfully into the negotiating process.

So there was this other trip with uniform commanders and the Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll, who was a law school classmate of JD Vance's. They were gonna be in Kyiv anyway, to be discussing, you know, Ukrainian drone technology and U.S./Ukrainian military technical cooperation. And apparently Vance sort of found a way to insert Driscoll into this negotiating track by saying, oh, wait, actually your trip is gonna be about talking about the peace terms.

And now Driscoll went to Geneva over the weekend and is reportedly in the Emirates now, and has emerged as a main interlocutor despite having also no diplomatic expertise and being, you know, Secretary of the Army, not even Secretary of Defense, which has a sort of, you know, heavy international relations standpoint.

But the Army Secretary really deals with, you know, personnel, manpower readiness in the U.S. Army and doesn't do much on the international front. So it was odd, but I think, you know, people need to see that as Vance trying to kind of save. Trump and the administration from Whit Coff's ineptitude by getting someone in who's a little bit more responsible and and whatnot, and a little bit more credible.

And then again, the role of Rubio in kind of walking some of the terms back and getting the Europeans on board. I mean, clearly he played some role there. How this all shakes out, what does it say about what Trump is thinking? He issued that blazing tweet against the Ukrainians a few days ago. I honestly don't know.

It is, it is dysfunction. I think for the Ukrainians who are trying to think about how to engage with this, and for the Europeans, it is really hard to figure out who is the main interlocutor because Trump is floating above the details. And then he has all these, you know, lieutenants who are rowing in completely different directions.

So, you know, we have made a mess out of what I think was a genuine opportunity. And I, you know, I have to say that even though I disagree with the way in which the administration went about this, I think Trump was right to try and double down on efforts to bring this horrible gore to an end, and that he had, and maybe still has a really unique opportunity to try and move the Russians into some reasonable space.

You know, he completely blundered by relying on Witkoff and by relying on this really grotesque pressure on the Ukrainians, we haven't even talked about the reported threats to cut off Intel cooperation and all of that by Thanksgiving, if the Ukrainians didn't just sign on the dotted line. I mean, that's just, it's outrageous.

From a, obviously from a moral and political perspective, but also from a strategic perspective. I mean, this does not advance us interests in any way to be acting like this towards a partner where we do have not completely aligning interests, but significant shared interests and values. And so I hope that this broader recalibration that may or may not be underway proves itself to be a little bit more long lasting.

Benjamin Wittes: Alright, with all of that, as preface, let's talk about where we are now in terms of the big picture of U.S./Ukrainian relations and our joint efforts. Or maybe they're not so joint to deal with the problem of Russia. They have very good reason to doubt the stability and steadfastness of U.S. support at this point.

They also have a kind of weird whiplash associated with our vacillating between points that they don't understand where they come from on the other hand. Even as Zelensky has been quite ham-fisted at home for all the reasons that Nastya has described the Ukrainian administration has been incredibly sophisticated in how it deals with the Trump administration and within a week of this situation erupting.

They have the administration talking to the New York Times about how there were incredibly productive conversations with the Ukrainians on developing a joint position and everybody's kind of walking back the maximalism of the 28 point document and sort of pretending that we didn't have much to do with it, that it was just a Russian proposal.

I, I'm curious, Nastya, you first and then Eric. How do you understand the current state of Ukrainian American relations and what? What is the strategic objective that both sides are now attempting to garner from the other, and what is the understanding that may or may not emerge from that?

Anastasiia Lapatina: To the best of my understanding, the American goal is to get this whole thing over with as soon as possible to get some Ukrainian official to sign whatever documents that they can sign and I mean, the crux of the Trump administration to the best of my understanding, really does not seem to care all that much about what's actually in the document. As long as both sides sign it and they can sell it as a win.

The Ukrainian side does not want to sign a capitulation because it can't. Like it, like it just cannot do that because of societal pressure, because of a very real risk of widespread unrest in a country where a lot of people are mad. A lot of people have PTSD and a lot of people have guns and there is hundreds of thousand people in the military who may, who have the guns and may have opinions about the peace plan.

And so that's just a very sort of explosive situation where you really. Can't afford to sign some sort of terrible deal, whi, which, which brings me to, you know, there, there has been some speculation in the media that the Americans were pushing through on this plan because Zelensky was and is in this vulnerable position because of this scandal.

Therefore, that makes him more likely to sign a bad deal, which I think is ludicrous. If, if you know anything about the Ukrainian society, how and how relationships here between the society and the government work? I think it is precisely because, you know, speaking dramatically, everyone is already coming for Zelensky head for this scandal.

And everybody's already so angry at the government and everybody's already so disappointed and emotionally charged because of the scandal. It is precisely because of that. The very last thing that Zelensky can afford to do is sign a terrible deal. Like that's just gonna be a complete political suicide.

And that, and I think that can lead to real political violence in the country and, and everybody knows it. And so Zelensky is kind of in this, a little bit of a, an impossible position, but I think at the end of the day. Like bird's eye view, I do think that this episode of negotiations was just another one of those dances that we've seen before where I think, as you've said, Ukrainians, because it's not the first time that this is happening, have learned how to deal with this kind of thing, which is why now you have all of these.

All this reporting that some American official tells the journalists that the Ukrainians endorsed the deal, the Ukrainians supported the deal. We don't really know what that means because what that likely means is that the Ukrainians came into a room, into a meeting room and said, this looks amazing.

Thank you very much. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for helping us, because that's what they have to say. We don't really know if that means that any part of the Ukrainian government is ever gonna sign anything. Right? And so as always, I think the Ukrainian side is just trying to be as nice as possible to delay the American abandonment of Ukraine for as long as possible.

And, and the ultimate goal is to show that Ukraine is not the problem here. The Russia is the problem. And the Russians, frankly, are making that really easy to buy into because we already have seen the reporting that they have already rejected any new inter reiteration of this plan. Supposedly like one of those, either the European country proposal or the one that was hashed out by Ukraine and the US and Geneva, there was already, I saw some reporting that the Russians are like, yeah, we don't really want any of that.

Like, that does not fit our interests. So, you know, the Russians are the problem. Like that's kind of a very black and white reality of this.

Benjamin Wittes: Eric, what do you think is what, how, how do you understand the basic state of the bilateral relationship right now?

Eric Ciaramella: I mean, what is left of the bilateral relationship? In a sense, I think it's a series of transactions that are being done by certain individuals within the U.S. administration who see some minimally overlapping points of convergence between Kyiv and Washington. But on a grand scale, you know, it doesn't really exist.

And so the question for the Ukrainians is, you know, not only how do you, how do you beat back some of the most unreasonable demands coming from Washington? Do you treat this like they treated the critical minerals deal back in the spring where the United States initially came out, guns ablazing with a very exploitative deal that the Ukrainian said, okay, let's try and finagle our way out of this?

And they ended up with something that was fine and just didn't really do much. How do you pivot away from defensive mode to a more proactive Ukrainian and possibly jointly with European strategy to actually end the war? And that's where I'm. I haven't seen much action, and I think maybe because of all the scandal and political turmoil that Nastya has talked about, the fact that the Europeans are also concerned about the credibility of NATO.

And so they've been watching out for themselves these last 10, 11 months. I haven't seen a real credible vision coming out of Europe. About how we take Trump's energy to get this done and try to put forward a proactive way to do it that has any chance of success. So this European counter proposal, again, they're, the points are better than the original American proposal, but it shouldn't have taken an American proposal.

That was crazy. To prompt the Europeans to get together and hastily write their own 28 points. There should be some more proactive European and Ukrainian thinking about a strategic vision here. So, you know, there's, there's three kind of points in this. One is, we haven't really talked about the battlefield.

In addition to sensing that Zelensky is vulnerable politically, I think the Americans have an assessment that Ukraine is on an ex inexorable path to military catastrophe, and that it's only a matter of time until Russia destroys, you know, the majority of the Ukrainian force takes the rest of the Donbas and Ukraine will be in an even weaker position.

I think there's some truth to the fact that the situation is, is not good right now. There's been a lot of reporting about the situation in the city of psk, which you know, probably was lost a year ago. But the Ukrainians are holding on and, and trying to slow the Russian advance into the city. But by all measures, I think that that city, which used to be a major road and rail hub is gone.

That doesn't mean that the Ukrainian armed forces is on the verge of this catastrophe that I think some American officials, particularly people like Secretary Driscoll, seem to have come to the conclusion about. So, so the Ukrainians have a challenge here of beating back the American understanding, probably fueled by, by the Russian narrative that the Ukrainians are in a.

Weakened and getting weaker position. Actually they have a lot of still latent strength to, to hold the line. So again, what is this vision for the battlefield? If there is no negotiated settlement? Because if the Americans say, well, if you don't sign on this paper, you toast by the spring. And Ukrainians are saying, well, we don't see that data.

It's bad, but we can still hold out. There needs to be an alignment of the, of the military analysis here. The second part again is, is on the European side. The Ukrainians and the Europeans need to get together and come up with more detailed planning and thoughts about different scenarios of how these extremely sensitive issues like territory security guarantees and so on.

Could play out, and I've been frustrated by the conversation since really the Alaska Summit, which is focused on these shiny objects like tomahawk missiles or a European post ceasefire deployment where it's really leaving the hardest questions about the Ukrainian security and ceasefire parameters and territory.

It's just sort of magically. Wishing those things away and focused on things that are unrealistic and aren't gonna solve the war anyway. So I would like to see more U.S., European and Ukrainian planning. And then finally, I think what this whole episode has revealed is that Russia still feels like it's in the driver's seat, and Putin doesn't feel any serious pressure.

Maybe not to come to the table, but to moderate. Some of these more extreme demands, why should he, if he feels like he's winning? He feels like he now has Washington completely wrapped around his finger and buying into the Russian narrative about the terms of any piece. And so I think, again, Trump squandered what was a very good opportunity that he himself set up with these sanctions on Ross Neptune, Luke Oil, which could have kicked off a phase of him saying to Putin.

Listen, we really want a deal. We're ready to talk. Seriously, the Ukrainians are willing to make concessions, but you're gonna need to make serious concessions as well. And if not, we're gonna have to keep turning the pressure up because you know, the Ukrainians have already moved significantly from the beginning of the year due in large part to my personal pressure on them. And so you gotta get with the show, otherwise this situation is gonna look worse for you and we're gonna keep arming them. We're gonna keep turning the ratchet up on sanctions and so on.

But he didn't say that. Instead, he levied the sanctions, said, well, we're probably not gonna do any more of that. And then. Let's run to a deal and how can I sign off on, you know, as many of Russia's terms as possible. So it's really backwards and you know, I think the kind of the coming weeks will demonstrate whether this is a real serious turn of events. By whether we have more proactive European and Ukrainian diplomacy, and whether we have a little bit more recalibrated pressure on the Russians coming from the White House.

I still don't see it right now, which leads me to think that this whole effort is gonna fail miserably in some shape or form. But if we start to see that, and it could come out of these, this series of. Lightning shuttle diplomatic meetings where the American leadership could come to the realization, okay, we, we really do have a Russia problem.

It's not really a Ukraine problem, and we need to do X, Y, and Z to, to mitigate that challenge. But until I see that, I think this is destined for, for failure.

Benjamin Wittes: Nastia, what are you looking for in the coming weeks?

Anastasiia Lapatina: I am more interested in Ukraine's domestic political situation, to be completely honest with you.

And I know that that's not the perfect answer to your question and it's getting lost in the Trump related headlines of recently. But I am, I'm just interested in how the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian, Ukrainian officials involved in these negotiations, what they're actually gonna say about it.

Because so far we haven't actually seen any. Any public reaction, any explanation of what the hell is actually happening. Like what are these deals? And there's all of this flurry of reporting that, you know, some Ukrainian delegation agreed to the plan or endorsed the plan. And we haven't seen that articulated from the Ukrainian side at all.

And whenever there is a, a readout after, after these meetings, the American readout is very positive because of course they wanted. To look like that, right? They say that the Ukrainians endorse the plan. We've seen amazing progress. And then the Ukrainian readout is really a lot more conservative than that in terms of the positive emotion.

So I'm just looking forward to seeing like what else, what, what, what else are we gonna learn about how the Ukrainians are actually feeling about this? Like what is our actual position, not the one where we have to be nice to Trump so he doesn't abandon us, but what do we actually think about this deal?

And is there any chance at all that anything can be signed anytime soon?

Benjamin Wittes: We are going to leave it there. Anastasiia Lapatina, Eric Ciaramella. Thank you both for joining us today.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Thank you.

Eric Ciaramella: Thank you, Ben.

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