Edward Lucas: Centre of European Policy Analysis on the call between Trump, Putin, progress towards peace in Ukraine

A relatively minor breakthrough for the US in its attempts to end hostilities between Russia and Ukraine.  

Russian President Vladimir Putin's agreed to pause attacks on energy infrastructure for 30 days and progress talks about a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea.  

It follows a call with Donald Trump, who had been seeking a temporary ceasefire on all fronts.  

Edward Lucas from the Centre of European Policy Analysis told Mike Hosking Putin's tardiness prior to the call could be perceived as a weapon.  

He believes Putin doesn't show Trump a mutual level of respect, and perhaps the thin pickings out of the call reflect that. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So a couple of days ago on the Air Force
one back to Washington, we were talking about land power
plants and dividing up certain assets. That was going to
be the phone call, where the phone calls come and gone.
It seems to have had limited success. A non resident
senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis said,
with Lucas has with us on. They said, good morning
to you, Good morning mate. What do you make of
what we've heard so far?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, it's pretty thin pickings. Really. The thing that struck
me most was not the call, but what happed beforehand,
when Putin was on some live panel as a conference
and the moderator said, aren't you meant to be having
your call with Trump just now? And there was sort
of widespread laughter because of Putin's famous weaponized unpunctuality. So

(00:45):
I do feel that he's showing the respects to Trump
that Trump shows to Putin, and perhaps the rather thin
pickings out of the call reflect that in.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
The sense of what we've got specifically, in other words,
until they cut off for intelligence, until they cut off,
aid we're not talking or going any further. Was that
always expected from Russia? And therefore we shouldn't be surprised.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
I think that the what we expect from Russia is
to spin things out and to try and and then
bog things down. So the thing that leaped out at
me was the idea of a maritime ceasefire in the
Black Sea. Now, is that cover for Russia being able
to get its neighbor out of its navy, out of
the little corner of the Black Sea it's retreated to

(01:29):
because of Ukrainian drones. That would be quite a bad
thing if it means that Russia won't attack grain shits
coming in and out of a death So that's that's
a good thing. The second thing that really struck me
was the need to stop proliferation of strategic weapons. Now,
that's presumably a reference to the way in which European

(01:50):
countries feel prettyts scared about the loss of the American
neutral umbrella, and there's a lot of discussion in Europe
about what we could do with British or French nukes
and whether other countries are going to need nukes too.
So that's a sign that Russian's notice about that. And
the third thing that struck me was this idea that
there's a huge upside to an improved bilateral relationship to

(02:12):
the Americans and Russians. And that shows me to me
that the Americans are willing to cut the Europeans loose
and go for what they think is a good deal
with Russia and hang the rest of US.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
I was just going to ask about you, where does
that leave them? And can I now argue that Sea
told you Putent doesn't want peace.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
I think it leaves the EU on the sidelines really
for now, because it just shows that the dynamic is
what we've always feared here in Europe, is that the
negotiations will be about us, but without us, and that
really is what's going on. This war in Ukraine isn't
just an invasion of Ukraine. It's a kind of attempt
by Putin to reset the whole idea of European security

(02:54):
and the idea that European countries can choose their allies
and alliances again to be and that's now being decided
to over our head. So I think that the next
thing probably is that the Europeans are going to be
pushing back on this and saying to the Ukrainians, look,
we've got your back. Dirt be bullet dirt, be bulleted,
and the gap across the Atlantic then is going to

(03:15):
get wider and wider.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Okay, it would't appreciate the insight very much here, but
Lucas non residencior fell out at the Center for European
Policy Analysis, will get him back on the program, because
the thing's going nowhere fast. For more from The Mic
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