- 5/4/2025
In this hard-hitting CrossTalk episode, we assess the stark reality of Ukraine’s situation. Russia and Trump seek a resolution to the conflict, while Kiev and European leaders resist, leaving Ukraine to lose ground and likely American support.
Zelensky’s choices are coming with dire consequences, and in this conversation with Peter Kuznick, Steve Jermy, and Arnaud Develay, we break down why Ukraine is a lost cause—and how the decisions made in Kiev are leading the country down an irreversible path.
🎥 Watch the full discussion to understand why the West’s support for Ukraine may soon fade—and what this means for the future of Europe and global peace.
👇 Comment below: Is Ukraine’s fate sealed?
🔔 Subscribe for insightful analysis and thought-provoking debates on global conflict.
#UkraineLostCause #CrossTalk #Zelensky #RussiaUkraineConflict #USForeignPolicy #UkraineWar #GlobalPolitics #DiplomaticFailure #USandRussia #GeopoliticalAnalysis #WarInUkraine #PeaceNegotiations #EuropeanPolitics #TrumpAndUkraine #PoliticalDebate #WesternSupport #UkraineCrisis #FutureOfUkraine #KievChoices #ConflictResolution #ColdWarEra
Zelensky’s choices are coming with dire consequences, and in this conversation with Peter Kuznick, Steve Jermy, and Arnaud Develay, we break down why Ukraine is a lost cause—and how the decisions made in Kiev are leading the country down an irreversible path.
🎥 Watch the full discussion to understand why the West’s support for Ukraine may soon fade—and what this means for the future of Europe and global peace.
👇 Comment below: Is Ukraine’s fate sealed?
🔔 Subscribe for insightful analysis and thought-provoking debates on global conflict.
#UkraineLostCause #CrossTalk #Zelensky #RussiaUkraineConflict #USForeignPolicy #UkraineWar #GlobalPolitics #DiplomaticFailure #USandRussia #GeopoliticalAnalysis #WarInUkraine #PeaceNegotiations #EuropeanPolitics #TrumpAndUkraine #PoliticalDebate #WesternSupport #UkraineCrisis #FutureOfUkraine #KievChoices #ConflictResolution #ColdWarEra
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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. Kyiv 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 to Arnaud Devolle. He is a political consultant.
01:13All right, gentlemen, 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.
01:33I 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?
01:51The most recent development is that the United States and Ukraine just signed this mineral deal.
01:57It 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.
02:10You 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?
02:17No, 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.
02:26This 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.
02:45So why don't cooler heads and more reasonable heads prevail? And we'll sit down and end this.
02:51I mean, Putin's been saying now, he says, he wants direct negotiations. In the past, he's said different things.
02:58But 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.
03:12I saw that happen in the United States with all the U.S. wars, and it's happening with this war.
03:17And the world is weary of this. And 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.
03:32So 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.
03:44It's in nobody's interest that it continues.
03:46But 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.
03:55I think one of the key concerns is that the West is shooting hard for a ceasefire, and 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. I'm winning.
04:28But 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 situation.
04:40Let me stay with you. I agree with you.
04:43I've been using this term European security architecture from the very beginning, but will that security architecture include Russia?
04:51Because 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.
05:01Isn't that part of the equation that needs to be equalized?
05:04Yeah, 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 is the direct result of that is why we've arrived at the war that we have.
05:32What we've been much better at is looking at a different architecture in which we could start to talk about cooperative security.
05:40And 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.
05:59I 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.
06:08Yeah, I don't know.
06:10The problem with the way the negotiations are presented in the West, particularly in the UK and the United States,
06:18is that somehow, in some way, negotiations are illegitimate because dealing with Russia is an illegitimate proposition.
06:29And 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 is that negotiations are considered Munich all over again.
06:44That's another one of the problems we face.
06:47Yes, 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 showing 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,
07:25and a part of the American establishment, and thus far as what Russia's legitimate interests are all about,
07:32how those interests should be taken into account in thus far as the long-term interests of everybody involved,
07:38and how do we begin to take into account the situation and proceed forward?
07:45Right now, we are not there yet.
07:47Far from it.
07:47If anything, everything we're hearing from Western capitals seems to be doubling down.
07:54You know, it doesn't work, let's double down.
07:56This is, unfortunately, what predominates right now.
08:00Well, and also, to all three of you, we have to consider the political angle here.
08:07There 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.
08:17That is the apex of cynicism.
08:21Peter, it's interesting.
08:22We look at the revisionism, as it was already mentioned here,
08:29and we see a whole lot of it going on as we approach Victory Day.
08:34In Russia, it's May 9th, the 80th anniversary of the destruction of fascism in Europe.
08:40But there is another kind of revisionism in play that I think the West feels very uncomfortable with,
08:46and that is the reassessment of the end of the Cold War.
08:50Because in the West, there's the mantra,
08:54Russia lost, the Soviet Union lost the Cold War.
08:56Well, the Russians say they exited.
09:00They 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.
09:15Peter.
09:15Well, this whole thing seems to be predicated on a couple of very serious myths.
09:25The first one is that if Putin gets a win in Ukraine,
09:30he's going to gobble up one piece of Europe after another.
09:34I think that's madness.
09:36You know, I don't know, but that's what they did throughout the Cold War and since,
09:42playing upon people's fears in order to justify exorbitant military spending
09:50and a world in which we're threatened with extinction
09:53in order to somehow keep some other, deter some other force from doing something terrible.
10:00And this idea that the Ukrainians can claw back the territory that they've taken,
10:07that they've lost, neither of those is valid at all.
10:11But the question that you're raising about historical revisionism
10:14and the role of Russia in the world, I mean, Russia is a major player in the world,
10:20and the Russians are very proud, and they have interests,
10:24and they have hopes, and they see themselves in a certain way.
10:27So, yeah, the world is going to have to adjust.
10:30It's no longer the unipolar world that Krauthammer announced back in 1990, right?
10:36This is now a multipolar world.
10:38We've got this 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.
10:48And the United States is not going to be able to ride roughshod over the rest of the world
10:52as it did for many, many decades, as it 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.
11:07And some of the Europeans are clinging to this idea that Europe is going to somehow
11:11replace the vacuum of the United States withdrawal.
11:14Well, let me address that to Steve.
11:19I 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?
11:43Or if they do take responsibility for security, they'll realize that Russia isn't a threat.
11:49I 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.
12:13And 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.
12:38So I think it's a failure of strategic thinking.
12:41I think as well in this particular intervention, 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.
13:20Welcome back to Crosstalk, where all things are considered.
13:26I'm Peter LaBelle.
13:27To remind you, we're discussing Ukraine.
13:38Renal, let me go to you here in Moscow.
13:42One of the interesting things that Donald Trump has said, he said a lot of things, okay?
13:46This war never would have happened if he had been president.
13:49He could end it in a day.
13:51We all, a whole litany of things.
13:53But in the last few days, he said something.
13:55I don't know if it's by accident, serendipity, just came into his head.
14:01Maybe somebody told him.
14:02We can't really tell at this point.
14:04But he said something that goes, plays into this shifting narratives.
14:11And what I mean by that, Russia lost the war on the day of its invasion.
14:16Russia is using washing machine parts to fuel its missiles.
14:23Russia's run out of missiles.
14:25Russia's lost.
14:26Russia's already losing.
14:29Over and over again.
14:30We could spend an entire program going through that.
14:32But I don't know if Trump said something that's really quite interesting.
14:35I've saved Ukraine.
14:36We should end the war.
14:37I saved Ukraine from the rest of Russian occupation of the country.
14:43Now, all of us know, 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,
14:53well, okay, 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 trickle like, I saved Ukraine.
15:20I don't know.
15:21Well, I don't know who advises Donald Trump, but to be sure,
15:25we are really looking at the contrast between the lightedness with which American policymakers
15:32are approaching the conflict, as opposed to, and everybody who follows the conflict
15:38understands that, and as far as Russia is concerned, it's an existential issue.
15:43And 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, but 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 stepped back into
16:07the room.
16:08He even alluded to the Europeans, like little, you know, poodles would come around at some
16:13point.
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 their
16:50positions, but in the wake of what we've been hearing the last three months, I think we're
16:56going to be seeing the special military operation proceed apace to fulfill its twin agenda, which
17:05is to demilitarize and denazify what used to be the bridge between the West and Russia, because
17:12it has no choice.
17:13And I think if Trump does not wake up and understand this seriousness of the situation, the
17:20reality on the ground will catch up with his current political rhetoric, and he will be
17:25left with another L to his current term.
17:31You 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, but I'll tell you one of the
17:43things that I find really frustrating is all of the voices in the Trump administration
17:48talking about this, and it's very, very confusing.
17:52For example, why is Keith Kellogg there?
17:55I mean, why does the United States need an envoy to Ukraine?
17:59Now, Ukraine is a vassal of the United States.
18:02I mean, why do you need an envoy?
18:04I mean, I find that very confusing.
18:07And he's given enormous amount of prominence about ideas that are so, you know, I mean,
18:13deftoned to what's going on and countervailing to what other people in the administration.
18:21I mean, for better or worse, gentlemen, Steve Witkoff seems to have that portfolio, not the
18:26Secretary of State.
18:28And so it's, I mean, if I'm confused, the Russian side must be just as confused.
18:33Peter?
18:34I 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, and you look at this Trump administration and this cabinet choices and his advisors,
18:47these are clowns.
18:49These are not qualified, serious, thoughtful, intelligent people.
18:53So 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.
19:14I mean, so, I mean, they're all over the place.
19:16Rubio is effectively sidelined.
19:18Usually it's the Secretary of State who's doing the diplomacy.
19:21What do we hear from Rubio?
19:23That maybe that's because Rubio was so anti-Putin in an earlier life that now he can't get along
19:29with 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 exactly.
19:40Keep going.
19:41So, I mean, we're dealing with incompetence.
19:45But 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 threaten to do so if
20:06he 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 haven't picked up any Russian leaders thinking that Trump is a trustworthy, reliable
20:22ally in any of this, or even an even-handed negotiator.
20:27So, which is why, and part of the reason why some people are very pessimistic that this
20:33is 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.
20:41And 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
20:50points we can agree on, what compromises both sides are willing to make, and how we proceed
20:56when we move forward.
20:57At least there's some momentum for talking at the moment.
21:01And we should see that.
21:02What there is momentum for, well, maybe it's slightly lessening here.
21:07Steve, if I can go to you in Cornwell, is that I think the Trump administration is mistakenly
21:14thinking that normalizing Moscow-Washington relations will solve the problem in Ukraine.
21:22That's an erroneous assumption.
21:24And if the assumption is that better relations can resolve it, the Americans and the Europeans
21:32are going to be sorely disappointed.
21:33Maybe the Europeans want to be disappointed, but the Trump administration will be disappointed.
21:38You can't have American missiles killing Russian civilians and better relations at the same
21:46time.
21:46It's impossible, at least in the long term.
21:49Steve?
21:49Yeah, no, I think what's going on in the Trump White House is confusing.
21:54I think it's worth, seems to, feels to me that there are two sort of sides of the Trump
21:59White House, of the Hegseths and the Neocons, those people of that mindset.
22:04You could say Rubio's in there, although I did hear Rubio say, almost at the start of his
22:09time, the recognition of a multipolar world, which is in itself a good thing, because actually
22:16he's accepting that we're no longer in this unipolar world.
22:19I think the two who interest me are Tulsi Gabbard and J.D. Vance.
22:23Now, J.D. Vance is somebody who, within Congress, some at least a year ago, perhaps longer,
22:29was talking in a much more practical way about what was actually going on on the battlefield
22:34and in a way which is realistic.
22:37And of course, you've also got Tulsi Gabbard, who as well has military experience, but is
22:41an intelligent person.
22:42So I think we're starting to see, for example, in the Americans' most recent security intelligence
22:49review, we're starting to see a recognition in that review that it can't be won militarily
22:54in Ukraine.
22:55I think when it comes to Wyckoff, I mean, Wyckoff may be a property man.
22:59The good thing is he seems to have Trump's ear.
23:03But also he's talking to Putin.
23:06I can't emphasize how important it is that at last we have a channel of communication
23:10and these conversations are going on.
23:13This is always going to be a long-term thing because of Russia's interest.
23:19It's this issue of the long-term solution for the security problems.
23:22But the fact that Putin is going on is the right thing.
23:26What's important to understand here, I think Western audience should understand, Russia would
23:32very much like to have a good relationship with the United States.
23:36That's high on the list.
23:38They do want that.
23:40That is not conveyed to Western audiences whatsoever.
23:44Russia is this kind of this gray, monolithic, one-man rule.
23:48Well, the portrait of Russia is so distorted.
23:53It has been for a very, very long time.
23:55But the Russians would very much like to have a good relationship with the United States.
24:00We'd like to work with the United States on all kinds of problems around the world.
24:03It just has to be done as an equal and with respect.
24:06I don't know where we're rapidly running out of time.
24:10Last 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., and it
24:20could be this week, we're almost at the end of this week, that the United States could
24:24just walk away.
24:27Should we take that seriously?
24:28And is that something the Europeans would welcome?
24:32Because it seems to me that they're the ones that want to take the bell-coast position
24:36towards Russia.
24:38Go ahead.
24:38I don't know.
24:39Well, I think if politically it is deemed expedient, the Americans might just decide
24:45to, yeah, throw the towels.
24:47But throwing the towels is one thing if you decide to stop all weapons delivery, intelligence
24:54sharing, and, of course, financial support.
24:59If the United States keep on providing at least intelligence, if not equipment, and prompt
25:06the Europeans to wrap up their own military upgrade using American equipment, what kind
25:15of message does that send to Moscow?
25:17It means that the Americans are irresponsible, that they start fires, geopolitical fault lines
25:22and 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, stalking
25:32the 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
25:42have 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
25:52almost a nonstarter, nonsensical for a country that is a co-belligerent in a conflict to act
25:59as a mediator, and that is one of the problems the Trump administration has never been able
26:03to resolve.
26:04You can't be, you can't play both at the same time and be a legitimate power broker,
26:11as it were.
26:12All 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.
26:19See you next time.
26:19And remember, cross-talk rules.
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