00:00Since Donald Trump announced the beginning of the peace negotiations over Russia's war
00:04against Ukraine, the U.S. authorities made several statements on what Ukraine should
00:09and should not expect. As for Moscow, there have been no details on what conditions and
00:14demands will Russia face. Neil Malvin, Director of the International Security at the Royal
00:19United Services Institute, says the situation looks rather favourable for the Kremlin.
00:23Well, I think Russia will feel that it's entering into this potential negotiation with quite
00:29a strong hand. So what they're going to start to do, and you can see this already, is that
00:34they've been laying out what they consider to be their negotiating stance, which is on
00:39very high level. I mean, some of the demands that Russia will make through negotiation
00:44have already been recognised, such as that Ukraine will not become a member of NATO.
00:51So I think what Russia is going to want to do is enter into a direct negotiation with
00:56President Trump, not directly with Ukraine, not with, necessarily, the Europeans in the room.
01:05But what is it that Russia wants to achieve? Trump repeatedly said that he wants the war
01:09to end without clarifying the terms. Kuiv insists that its main goal is a lasting, reliable,
01:15just peace. Moscow, on the other hand, never revealed its vision of peace.
01:20I don't think peace is Russia's primary goal. I mean, President Putin entered this war.
01:25I mean, it was a war that he started for two particular reasons.
01:29I mean, one is because he has a particular historical vision of Russia, which is about a greater Russia,
01:37about the Russia of even the pre-revolutionary period, the pre-Soviet period,
01:44a kind of a Russian imperial, a Russian empire, and which many of the lands of contemporary Ukraine
01:50are seen in that vision as being core Russian lands because they were seized by various Russian tsars.
01:56And secondly, to push back on the Euro-Atlantic solidarity and, notably, the US security presence in Europe.
02:06And while it does seem as if only Ukraine is being pushed to concessions, what Moscow is limited by
02:12is time, Melvin says. If the talks drag on for too long and become too complicated,
02:19Trump might give up and the war will be left unresolved with much less interest from the United States.
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