Transcript
Dejan: Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Debatable Discussions podcast.
John Gartside: Thank you.
Dejan: Today we've got very interesting, very current episode where we will be discussing some of the premier issues in Eastern Europe, starting with the abysmal, if I can say so, abysmal US proposed plan to end the Ukraine war.
John Gartside: Yes, Diane, that was a very good adjective there, abysmal, because I think it is clear that Donald Trump has caved in to Vladimir Putin. In his recent 28 points peace plan, he just purely reflected Russia's demands and did not at all punish Russia.
John Gartside: it's fairly clear that Russia is the one that should be punished in this conflict, not Ukraine. However, there was no peace plan in the peace plan. So, Dan, I'll say a few points of this, I mean, abysmal police plan of Trump, and then you say a few more.
John Gartside: I think the major one for me, which was just silly, is for Ukraine to not be able to join NATO and to cut its arms forces down to 600,000, This is bad purely from a military perspective, because it's a country which has been under military threat for so long.
John Gartside: No one knows that Russia, no one knows that they're safe from this Russian threat. Therefore, these were two huge military concessions, which are frankly wins for Putin.
Dejan: Yeah, definitely, John. And not just that. I mean, getting an army down to 660,000 from
Dejan: is quite a bad economic decision at the moment in Ukraine. A lot of people are relying on that. Sadly, but also it's just so...
John Gartside: you
Dejan: Strange after just after war and after a flimsy peace plan, you remove your protection and you're basically inviting the Russian wolf to bite you. Another thing that really struck me is the fact that Trump wants Russia to join back the G8.
Dejan: I mean, slightly weird, to be honest.
John Gartside: I mean, Trump is crazy.
Dejan: It's
John Gartside: Why is he welcoming Russia back into the top of the international community after Ukraine? It's simply ridiculous.
Dejan: Yeah, and also Russian to be a language to Ukrainian schools, for the nuclear power plant at, I'm going to butcher this name, Zaporozhnev,
Dejan: So Zaporizhia is actually quite a Ukraine, but its power is going to be given to Russia.
Dejan: Obviously, probably the most abysmal one for me, if we're being honest, is Zaporizhia. The fact that Trump is sort of banking on Russia's guarantee to not prevent the Ukraine from using the Dnieper River for commercial activities. I mean, how do we know that?
Dejan: When people are literally under the risk of having a ballistic missile drop on their heads, one, is unsafe. And two, there's a huge, huge danger that there'll be a Kremlin-Russian puppet who's going to sort of magically win the election through some people coming back from the dead.
John Gartside: Yes.
Dejan: voting, some abysmal voting numbers in sort of Russian-controlled areas. So it's all to destabilise the region, from what I can gather, and it's none in the interest of Ukraine. It almost seems like sort of Putin's hit the jackpot here a little bit, and he's managed to get away with so much.
Dejan: And also he's been given amnesty. So he's not even going to get prosecuted for his crimes against humanity at the ICJ and ICC. He's just going to receive a... a carte blanche and sort get on with his day.
John Gartside: Yes, I totally agree you there, Diane. And just before we get into some more analysis, I quickly urge everyone listening to go follow us, to go subscribe to us, give us five-star rating, and to also continue listening to the end so you can hear more of this, hopefully insightful, discussion we'll have on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. But yes, Diane, as you described there,
John Gartside: Trump has really caved into Russia with his 28-point peace plan. There are major concessions for Ukraine from a military perspective, major territorial concessions. And one has to remember that Russia and Putin are asking for territories that they've not even invaded or have not even invaded any time in the war.
John Gartside: Similarly, many have said, oh, well, Russia is getting some sort of penalty because the frozen Russian assets are going to be re-given or are going to be used to help rebuild Ukraine.
John Gartside: However, this is just simply another false argument, which I think Trump has tried to sort of use in his defense because Moscow is never going to be able to get their hands back on these frozen Russian assets anyway.
Dejan: Yeah, let's be honest.
John Gartside: Yes. So, frankly, Russia, Trump has really, think, discredited part of his reputation. He looked fairly good on the world stage before. Trump had an appetite for world peace, but this 28-point police plan has ended that reputation of Trump.
John Gartside: Another...
Dejan: Yeah. And also, if you actually read it, just seems like a GBT'd Document done by Marco Rubio in 15 minutes.
John Gartside: Yeah, it's ridicule. And I think European leaders also recognise that this peace agreement for Ukraine is just totally preposterous. So Donald Tusk, the Polish Prime Minister, said he's not sure if we are actually getting any closer to peace.
John Gartside: I think that's very diplomatic phrasing for it's not going to work.
Dejan: Have Friedrich Merz, Manuel Macron and Keir Starmer replied?
John Gartside: Oh,
John Gartside: yeah.
Dejan: with another peace plan, a much more Ukraine-friendly peace plan, and Moscow rejected that unequivocally in about 10 minutes, saying that this doesn't fit any of our interests.
Dejan: I mean, think that's probably a good sign, to be honest.
John Gartside: Yeah. I mean, and I think a major thing to understand here is why? Why is Trump in a situation where he is caving into Putin? We saw it in Alaska, where they held peace talks.
John Gartside: a few weeks ago, a few months ago. it's fairly bizarre why Trump is caving in. And there's been many arguments for this. I think he doesn't really recognise the threat that Russia poses to Ukraine. He's always sort of seemed to like Putin. But also, it can also be attributed he's got on the debating table.
John Gartside: Steve Wyckoff and Jared Kushner. These are both basically close personal allies Trump. They've been true business negotiators.
John Gartside: However, I think this is a totally different game what they're now doing. The Kremlin has sent some pretty serious negotiators who are basically saying no to everything that's good for Ukraine.
Dejan: Yeah.
John Gartside: Therefore, these two people who have been leading this US effort have really not been able to achieve something that's substantive and helpful for Ukraine. Diane, this beckons the question, is peace for Ukraine possible?
John Gartside: And how can it be achieved in a way that isn't like Trump's 28-point peace plan?
Dejan: it's a good question, John.
Dejan: I think it's very difficult. Very, very difficult. Because on one side, you've got a team of very strong, very litigious, very sort of shark-like negotiators led by Sergei Lavrov, who have basically, will stop at nothing so that Russia get what they want.
Dejan: They know Trump's afraid of them.
John Gartside: I
Dejan: They know they've got the upper hand in the negotiations. They will stop at nothing. on the other side you've got zelensky and you've got the european leaders who understand say the gravity of the situation and the the gravity of giving into these demands with with uh with no no consequences for russia and for putin so at the moment i'm going to have to be a bit cynical and say no think i think there needs to be a change in attitude
John Gartside: have a password.
Dejan: on the side of the Americans and going forward in this way of sort of trying to appease appeal is never going to work. I mean, we've seen it before. We've seen it in history.
Dejan: Many, many times people trying to appease and sort of say, OK, well, you've done this. We're going to give you Donetsk and Crimea and it's going to be fine. It's never going to be fine.
John Gartside: I agree you. I think there needs to be an American change of attitude. I think Trump's sort just been oddly supportive of Putin. And he frankly needs to end that.
John Gartside: But I do think peace is possible for Ukraine. However, I think, as you said there, it takes the America, who are frankly the key mediator in almost every international dispute nowadays, and it takes them to say to Putin, you're going have to pay.
Dejan: Thank you.
John Gartside: You know, the European and largely the Western international community views Putin as leading this totally unparalleled know, heinous invasion of Ukraine. And Trump needs to say that to Putin and that he's going to pay. And so I think as were right saying that, there needs to be a change in attitude with Trump because Ukraine are never going to agree to an end to a war, to end a war, which just would not at all be favorable for them.
John Gartside: Russia's got to pay as this invading force. just to give our listeners as well a little bit of history because it's actually flown by. So the war begun on the 24th of February, 2022.
John Gartside: So not everyone listening will know this, but this is when me and Diane were in our first year of secondary school and now in our last.
Dejan: Yeah.
John Gartside: So it's been going on for a really long time. We're close to four years in a few months. However, many say that this invasion has actually been going on for far longer. Between February March 2014, there was large unrest in Ukraine because of pro-Russian forces, and notably Russia also annexed the Crimea. This led to fighting in the Donbas region between Ukraine forces and Russian-backed separatists.
John Gartside: This sort of reflects how some view, especially in Russia, I think, that this wall has been a bit more hybrid. It's been a bit more covert since 2014. But nonetheless, it shows what's been decades long of tension between Russia and Ukraine since Ukraine independence in 2021.
John Gartside: Diane, you're someone lives in Eastern Europe. What sort of repercussions does Putin's aggression have across Eastern Europe?
Dejan: Well, I think, you know, you've ended up on a great term, the hybrid war. And, you know, lot of people will agree with me when I said I think there's been a hybrid war wage on the whole Eastern Bloc.
Dejan: So going as far as, know, Romania, Poland, Serbia, Hungary, and many other countries have been under this Russian hybrid war.
Dejan: hybrid because there were no troops on the ground. However, you know, lot of misinformation, lot of propaganda, lot of sort of political puppets, lots of Russian intelligence spreading fake news and fake information. So,
Dejan: There has been this hybrid war and it's felt very much in Eastern Europe. You know, a lot of people from the region don't really have a sympathy towards Russia for good reason.
John Gartside: Yeah.
Dejan: And there is a threat. It's knocking on everyone's door. We've seen it, you know, with Viktor Orban. Viktor Orban, I think, is just a very opportunistic individual who sort decided to jump on this trend and gain power. But through that, he's managed to sort of bankrupt Hungary to a certain degree. I mean, you know, couple of years ago, you never imagined countries like Romania beating Hungary in GDP per capita. And now it's happened because sort of managed to drive the Hungarian economy into the ground, into the bottom of the river. So,
Dejan: We've definitely seen it, economic impacts, you know, oil, gas, lot of it being from Russia or Ukraine. We've we've people feel that impact. People feel that impact in the UK as well. But I think the big the biggest issue is this hybrid war, this information war that Russia is at the moment having.
Dejan: At the moment, no one's really fallen. Poland, very interesting elections in the presidential elections. I think a lot of brainwashing, a lot of...
Dejan: you know, similar things happened there. And we've had a, you we've had a candidate who got kicked out of national published television by having pro-Russian sympathies.
Dejan: And then he came back and sort of retracted those statements and explained them a bit further. And they went a bit more in the gray area but it's still a very dubious candidate from from that perspective and in romania you've had a very dubious candidate you know praising putin having a bit of the same style bit of the same rhetoric as trump and putin as well
Dejan: funded perhaps by the kremlin know you've had his accomplices were on their way boarding a flight to moscow when they were caught and are now under trial for failed uh you know there is an impact and and i i genuinely think that we've not seen much of it
John Gartside: Thank
Dejan: We're still at the beginning stages because it's clear to me that Russia feels like it's able to maneuver. It's able to move. It's able to sort of make some moves on the chessboard and get ahead. And the Eastern Bloc is the first way to do mean, Putin...
Dejan: openly nostalgic about the USSR and the sort of power that Russia had back then, the influence it had in the Eastern Bloc of Europe. So that's obviously going to be a desire, but it's also a strategic desire, you know,
Dejan: a lot of impact has come to Putin's ability to manoeuvre because of the NATO bases in Romania and Poland, especially, who are very close, very ready to act.
John Gartside: Yeah.
Dejan: But, you know, a couple of 200 of the 1,500 or so American soldiers moved out of the biggest base in Eastern Europe a couple of weeks ago.
Dejan: So, yeah, it's all up in the air, I'd say.
John Gartside: And actually, that's sort of what's happening in Eastern Europe, as you mentioned there, Putin trying to sort of get involved in meddle with countries' affairs. That's even been seen in the UK recently.
Dejan: Yeah.
John Gartside: in Wales, the former Reform UK leader, I think it was when was an MEP, he accepted bribes from clearly Russian security forces.
Dejan: Yeah.
John Gartside: So he's been sentenced to prison for that, rightly. But it's still astonishing how he was promoting these pro-Russian views.
John Gartside: Similarly, we've had Russian ships pop up in the English Channel. The Royal Navy has been quick to respond to them, but it shows that Putin's trying to be more provocative. We see it in Eastern Europe.
John Gartside: As someone who studied, I've studied Russian history as part of school now, and I'm actually still studying it.
Dejan: Yes.
John Gartside: But there's a common theme you can see from Alexander III, who was a 19th century Russian monarch, to even the present day with how Russia had been trying to suppress perhaps Ukrainian culture, Ukrainian language, or trying to meddle in countries' affairs to promote their stance in the region.
John Gartside: I'll offer a quick classic A-level history sort of comparison, but Alexander III, who ruled in the 1880s in Russia, he embarked on a policy called Russification in which he tried to suppress countries like Ukraine and Lithuania's language and culture.
John Gartside: This was also seen then also the Soviet era, the Soviet Union, where also they tried to suppress the culture of these countries. pro-soviet satellite states.
John Gartside: And we can see it in this 28-point peace plan. Clearly, Putin told Trump, as you mentioned, Diane, that he wants everyone to learn Russian in Ukrainian school.
Dejan: Yeah.
John Gartside: And people in Ukraine are just totally against this, and rightly, because Ukrainian is their language, that's their identity. And this is simply an attempt to leave you for Russia to sort of try and install itself or meddle itself in Ukrainian affairs.
John Gartside: Yes. So I think with that, we'll conclude the episode. hope you've enjoyed listening. As a brief summary, we've decanted Trump's recent 28-point peace plan. We've also mentioned, is peace possible for Ukraine? Especially amidst, as Diane described, Putin's attempts to meddle in countries' affairs across Eastern Europe.
John Gartside: And I've tried to intertwine a bit of historical analysis amongst
Dejan: Yes, thank you, John. And if you enjoyed this episode, do go back. We've got a couple other episodes on Eastern Europe and of this hybrid war that I've been mentioning, this misinformation campaign by the Kremlin, but also through some of our episodes in philosophy, history,
Dejan: some of our interviews with some the leading people in this field as well as this always you can find us on any platform including our podcast spotify youtube and more see you next week
John Gartside: See there.
