Stalled in Moscow

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NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 2nd of December.

Thank you for joining us today on WORLD Radio. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard..

First up on The World and Everything in It: Ukraine peace talks.

Special Envoy Steve Witkoff is scheduled to meet Vladimir Putin in Moscow today…to discuss a deal to end the war in Ukraine. This comes after talks in Miami over the weekend…between a delegation from Ukraine and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

MARCO RUBIO: This is delicate. It’s complicated. There are a lot of moving parts, and obviously there's another party involved here that’ll have to be a part of the equation. And we continue to be realistic about how difficult this is, but optimistic, particularly given the fact that as we've made progress, I think there is a shared vision here that this is not just about ending the war, which is very important. It is about securing Ukraine's future.

EICHER: Joining us now is George Barros…he’s Russia team lead at the Institute for the Study of War and a former adviser to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

REICHARD: George, good morning.

GEORGE BARROS: Hi Mary. Good morning. Thanks for having me once again.

REICHARD: Well, as you predicted last week, no deal by Thanksgiving…Marco Rubio said after meetings on Sunday that talks were productive, but no details yet. What’s your read on where things likely stand between the U.S. and Ukraine?

BARROS: The Ukrainians and the Americans had a very productive meeting two Sundays ago, the Sunday before Thanksgiving in Geneva, where they turned the 28 point plan into a 19 point plan, I suspect by axing some of the provisions that were problematic in the first edition. And then there was a subsequent meeting, as you noted this last Sunday in Miami, which was productive, but we don't have very many concrete details coming out of there. And now we have, today is Steve but going to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin to discuss these plans. And candidly, we don't have any readouts yet, but I strongly, strongly suspect that this is going to be dead and arrival in Moscow, that the Russians will reject this plan, and we'll sort of be back to square zero once again.

REICHARD: The delegation to Florida was smaller because Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, resigned on Friday. What’s going on there?

BARROS: Yermak is implicated in a corruption scandal because several of his associates were implicated in abuses and graft and that sort of thing. And Ukraine's independent anti-corruption bureau successfully investigated and uncovered that corruption, and so Zelensky therefore asked for his resignation, which he tendered.

REICHARD: What’s the origin of that commission? Where did that come from?

BARROS: The National anti-corruption agency of Ukraine, also called NABU, This was stood up in the post 2014, years, actually, with support from the American FBI and the American government to essentially root out systematic corruption that had dominated the Ukrainian government since it became independent following the end of the Soviet Union, really the legacy of vestigial corruption from the Soviet period as it bled into independent Ukraine, and the history and legacy of that anti corruption Bureau has been very successful in uncovering these sorts of things. You know, it's always, of course, disturbing to see corruption within Ukraine or any other country that we're an ally with. But the key difference here between Ukraine and other countries, or Ukraine and Russia, of course, is when there is corruption, it's observed, there's accountability, and people are fired for it. Which is, which is better than it being just in the shadows, in perpetuity.

REICHARD: Well, Zelenskyy has been negotiating with the United States…but also meeting with European leaders, particularly French President Emanuel Macron. Now, what has Europe been putting on the table?

BARROS: The Sunday before Thanksgiving, the Europeans also came up with their own alternative plan to the 28 point peace plan, which, by all counts, is better than the original 28 point peace plan, but really we don't know. I'm tracking at least three different lines of revision to the initial 28 point peace plan that was leaked back in mid November. So there's the line of negotiations and iteration that Marco Rubio is overseeing when he took this to Geneva and then took it to Miami last week. There's a line of revision where, as I understand, Steve Witkoff has been working on his own feedback and trying to incorporate various different critiques of that plan. And then there's the European plan. And it's unclear to me the extent to which provisions in the European plan are affecting what Marco Rubio is doing and or what Steve Witkoff is doing, and it'll be very interesting to see once, I suppose, we get an official announcement or the plan is leaked to see what points stuck and what points have been amended or changed.

REICHARD: Now you say that deal is likely dead on arrival in Moscow. Why do you say so?

BARROS: The Russians have been very clear what their maximalist war aims are, and they have offered to make exactly zero concessions, and they continue to do so throughout this entire process. The deal as it existed in the first 28 point plan, it actually had many provisions that benefit the Russians and that actually are major concessions from the US and Ukraine to Russia, but it doesn't concede everything that the Russians demand, and the Russians have been very clear in reiterating that they want to have their cake and eat it too. President Putin on Thanksgiving Day, gave a lengthy speech in Kyrgyzstan where he basically outlined and said, We want to have these territorial concessions. We want to seize all of these provinces in eastern and southern Ukraine and come hook or come crook. We're going to get it in negotiations, or we're going to war fight for it. And the 28 point peace plan, as describes, doesn't have that there's a deputy Russian foreign minister. His name is Ryabkov. He also made a statement saying that the plan is no go. We have numerous Russian military bloggers and commentators within the Russian state media apparatus saying how the plan is a no go. So, you know, it would, it would be a major inflection, if all of a sudden the Russians are. Accept this because they've not demonstrated any kind of willingness to back down off of their maximalist war aims.

REICHARD: Earlier this year, President Trump said on Truth Social that Putin just was not serious about peace talks. So if Russia does reject the deal again, do you think Trump will respond the same way?

BARROS: When the Russians reject this deal, it's going to impose a decision point on President Trump, and the decision point is this, do we say we give up with trying to solve this war, and we will stop intelligence sharing with Ukraine and stop selling weapons to Ukraine, because you no longer give it to them for free. It's now under the rubric of military sales, and just sort of tell the Ukrainians and the Europeans, hey, enjoy your war.

We're done with this. That's one option, although I would argue that's a bad option. The other option is to explore the other tools that we have that we've not yet used, namely those being coercion against Russia. The Americans and the Ukrainians have gotten all strung up and working out in the details of this plan, which the Russians were from day one, saying that they were never going to accept. And, you know, it's put the Ukrainians into a weird place, because if they don't accept the terms of this deal, and it blows up in the Ukrainians hands, and it makes the Ukrainians look like they're the impediment to peace, and they're the bad guys.

Now, when this does blow up in the Russian hands, then you know, we have to come to that other conclusion, which is actually it's not the Ukrainians that are not willing to make concessions. It's not the Ukrainians that are willing to budge. It's actually the Russians. And therefore, how should that impact the way that we go forward with dealing with Moscow moving forward?

REICHARD: George Barros is Russia team and Geospatial Intelligence Team Lead for the Institute for the Study of War. George, thanks so much for your time once again!

BARROS: Of course, thanks for having me. Mary, always a pleasure.

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