Ukraine and European allies have reasons to be worried about peace deal, expert says

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00:00at the analysis. Natia Siskuria joins us, Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services

00:04Institute. Natia, thanks for being with us and good to have you because we need,

00:08from your perspective here, to get this into a focus. There are so many aspects

00:12happening at this present moment in time and so many question marks floating around,

00:17of course, all starting with that phone call between Trump and Putin last Wednesday.

00:23Thank you very much for having me, Mark. It's good to be back on your programme.

00:27Well, as you mentioned, so much has happened in the past few days. I think this phone call

00:34gave a reason for European allies, and particularly Ukraine, to be really worried

00:38about the potential peace deal. And on top of that, we heard the speech from

00:46J.D. Vance, who never mentioned Ukraine during his speech, and the expectation was that

00:52we would hear the details of this peace plan during the Munich Security Conference. However,

00:59Trump decided that it was a better choice to have face-to-face for Rubio, Marco Rubio,

01:08to have a face-to-face meeting with his counterpart, which sends a really alarming

01:13message, I think, particularly for Ukraine, because as President Zelensky mentioned,

01:18it is important and necessary to have Ukraine at the negotiation table. And even if there will be

01:26no deal reached, it is important to include Ukraine when it comes to deciding what would

01:32be the next steps in terms of ending the war in Ukraine. Olaf Scholz, this evening in Paris,

01:38saying it's important that the US and Europe work together on all security matters, basically

01:44making a plea for the preservation of NATO and for the primacy of NATO in these situations.

01:52Well, he is right, but I don't think, based on what we've heard so far, I don't think this is

01:58necessarily what the US administration, Trump administration, agrees with. One thing is obvious,

02:03the US is no longer interested in playing the same role in terms of ensuring European security.

02:09This is a wake-up call for European countries and also highlights that there is a need to change

02:17certain approaches, particularly when it comes to how they approach defence and security of Europe.

02:27And I think Munich Security Conference also revealed that there is a lot of tension right

02:35now within the European allies and a bit of confusion when it comes to what would transatlantic

02:42relations look like after what we've heard from the US administration. Emmanuel Macron warned,

02:48I think we can go back as far as last May, about the threat to Europe that was, he said,

02:54very, very, very present. There's been all kinds of warnings since then about what is happening.

03:01Obviously, with Trump coming to power, the whole equation changes again. Today,

03:06Keir Starmer said that he would be, I'm not happy, that's the wrong word, he would be willing to put

03:12UK troops in a peacekeeping force going to Ukraine if a peace deal was agreed. How strong

03:19a statement is that? How good a statement is that in terms of the perspective going forward for Ukraine?

03:25I think that is a very important statement, because one thing which is very much unclear,

03:30and this was also much discussed during the Munich Security Conference, in terms of security

03:36guarantees and what these security guarantees could look like for Ukraine. Unfortunately,

03:41there is no concrete response to that question. But one way in which this could be considered

03:48is what Keir Starmer basically suggests. He highlighted that this is not just about

03:57the frontline in Ukraine, this is a frontline of Europe and of the UK. It's an important message,

04:05and we have already heard that there are some allies which may follow Keir Starmer's decision,

04:14statement and may support this statement, such as Christensen, who mentioned that he

04:20might consider as well. Natia, we're just hearing Vladimir Zelensky arriving in Turkey

04:25for talks with Recep Tayyip Erdogan. What do you see as the aim there for Zelensky?

04:31Well, Zelensky tries his best right now to get the best deal out of this. And for him,

04:37it's very important to have allies when it comes to entering these negotiations. Currently,

04:44it doesn't look like Ukraine is in a favourable position, because it very much seems like Russia,

04:50what Russia wants out of this is to have direct negotiations with the United States and to decide

04:56the fate of Ukraine with President Trump and without Ukraine. So far, given that these

05:03meetings are taking place without Ukraine being involved directly, indicates that there is a

05:10reason for Zelensky to be concerned. So it's important for him to speak to European allies,

05:19but also to Turkey, which has played quite an important role in terms of mediating the

05:25discussions. And Turkey, as we know, even at the first stages of the war has tried to play sort of

05:32mediating role in the conflict. Natia, we need to leave it there,

05:38but there's so much more to discuss, isn't there? Natia Cescarea, Associate Fellow at the Royal

05:42United Services Institute, thank you for joining us here in France 24 as always and sharing your

05:46analysis with us. Fascinating stuff as always. Natia, thank you very much indeed. We're watching

05:51you, as I keep saying, for all the...

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