Hosted by Christina Ruffini and Sir Richard Dearlove
Guest
Episode Summary
In this episode of One Decision In Brief, hosts Kate McCann and Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of Britain's MI6, break down the latest meeting in Florida between U.S. and Ukrainian officials and lay out the expectations for Special Envoy, Steve Witkoff's upcoming trip to Moscow, Russia and the likelihood that a peace deal will be negotiated. They also discuss NATO's preparations to potentially confront Russia and whether Germany could replace the United States and take the lead in NATO.
Episode produced by Situation Room Studios. Original music composed and produced by Leo Sidran.
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Transcript
INTRODUCTION
Mccann: Hello and welcome to One Decision in Brief. I'm Kate McCann and I'm joined today by my co-host Richard Dearlove. Hi Richard, how are you doing?
Dearlove: Hi Kate, I'm doing pretty well.
Mccann: I understand you're not doing that well. I mean, you're a bit depressed, but largely about what's going on with Ukraine. Do you wanna talk about it?
Dearlove: I think what's depressing me is the fact that Trump's launched, what is it, his third or his fourth initiative, which starts off very pro-Putin, and then we go through this rigmarole of pulling him back into a more reasonable position. And why are we going around this circuit yet again?
THE WITKOFF MOSCOW MISSION
Mccann: Well, let's see how it develops. But it does lead us into this question about what happens next with Ukraine, because about a week or so ago, maybe a couple of weeks ago now, there was a real sense of renewed momentum, not necessarily in the direction Ukraine might have wanted, but a feeling that Donald Trump had turned again, he was interested in striking this deal with Russia again, he wanted to talk seriously about Putin's demands, and we had the whole furore over, you know, this translated Russian document, then we had the leaked conversation between the US and Russia, you know, essentially coaching the Russians on how to approach Donald Trump and get the best out of him. We now land in a situation where Steve Witkoff is set to go to Moscow, but in the last couple of hours, that meeting has been delayed by the Russians, essentially again pushing back, making it look like President Putin is pulling the strings here. I mean, what what in your view can be achieved by this meeting in Moscow? What realistically do you think that Witkoff can achieve at this point?
Dearlove: I'm very skeptical that he can achieve anything, because there is no apparent concession being made by Putin at all, and it looks as though Putin is still insisting on his original war aims. And what we actually have to remember is that the sort of case that's being presented by Putin that he's winning this war is not the situation at all. Both sides are suffering badly, and in fact, the Russian economy is in a mess, and the Russian losses are just huge. They can't manage to take this town, this strategic town of Pokrovsk. I think I've actually said previously that in fighting for this one town, they've lost more forces than the whole size of the British army put together, which gives you an idea of the sort of seriousness and intensity of the conflict. The Ukrainians are not surrendering on any point of principle, and they're not going to because of the cost that they've had to fight for this long. And Putin, it seems, is not adjusting his position either. So where are we gonna get to? I don't see what Witkoff and Kushner, unless they have got some point to make. I think that there is a possibility of a ceasefire, not a settlement, a line of ceasefire, but it would have to be along the current line of conflict. And even that, I think, would be disadvantageous to Ukraine because it would give the Russians time to reconstitute their forces and then go again.
FROZEN RUSSIAN ASSETS
Mccann: There is also this question of the frozen Russian assets, and that seems to come up again and again in this conversation, almost in the way that, you know, I've heard Prime Minister Keir Starmer talk about it, I've heard the Ukrainians talk about it. There is a feeling that that might be the last button that could be pressed against President Putin, that that might be the final step when it comes to any kind of economic sanction. Why do you think more hasn't been made of that as yet?
Dearlove: People will understand this is being held up really on a point of judicial principle. The money is held in a European clearing bank in Brussels, in Belgium, and the Belgian authorities are terrified because essentially this is breaking international banking rules, that at some point in the future there will be liability and that the Belgian government will be responsible for releasing the sum and therefore have to pay compensation. What the Europeans are now talking about is giving jointly to Belgium a guarantee of indemnity, to say that the responsibility for releasing this money would lie with the European Union as a whole, and probably the UK in this instance too would have to take on some of that liability. And I think actually it's an essential European move now to show European unity and to sequester that money and give it to the Ukrainians. And I think that that would be a huge move politically. Symbolically, it would be important.
Mccann: Is it being resisted by America?
Dearlove: No, I think it's entirely the Belgians that are holding it up in my understanding in Europe, and if the Belgians could be persuaded to agree by the EU and by the other European nations, then I don't think there would be any — to my knowledge, it isn't the Americans that are blocking it. So it should be possible to make this move, and, of course, it wouldn't make much difference immediately. It would make a huge difference in the medium term because it would give vast amounts of the financial backing that Ukrainians need, not just to buy weaponry, mostly American, but it would also underwrite a certain amount of cost in terms of protection of their energy facilities and some degree of reconstruction as well.
EUROPE AND THE FUTURE OF NATO
Mccann: I'm really interested to see what happens with that money, not just because of, as you say, the beneficial impact for Ukraine, but also because rumbling along underneath these talks and the back and forth about Witkoff and the Russians and Trump, who I think said this weekend that the talks with Ukraine have been going very well, is this idea that Europe is finally waking up to the sense that America is not a reliable player anymore, and that maybe, you know, Germany or another nation, but maybe Germany with its sort of renewed interest in military investment could replace or should replace America in NATO, not directly but certainly in terms of firepower and intention and rhetoric. How realistic do you think that is? How far away is Germany from being able to back that up?
Dearlove: Not very far, and of course this is the big issue in relation to European defense. And if Germany opens the spending taps, which it's already indicated it can do because it's changed its government debt rules in order to subsidize, guaranteed defense expenditure. It changes the whole balance of European armament because the German economy is so massive. The German capability to build armaments is massive, and, of course, it will take time, as it were, for this to come through and make a difference. But I've always said from the — if you go way back when Scholz was chancellor and actually said, you know, they were gonna spend €100 billion on defense, and then of course his coalition couldn't deliver and it never did, but that's changed now because Merz, the new chancellor, has, as it were, indicated not just his willingness, but has pushed through the necessary legislation through the Bundestag. So for me, this is the biggest deal of all, and it would alter the balance of NATO. However, you still need American participation, but I think the American participation is perhaps going to be made more willingly if they see Germany and France and the UK and other European nations doing much more of the heavy lifting.
Mccann: I mean, there's been a conversation for a long time about how proactive, you know, how behind the scenes, what kind of interventions NATO countries make in Russia, and there is a bit of a sense that maybe now is the time to fight fire with fire. What do you make of those reports?
Dearlove: Yeah, I don't actually understand what the plan would be because we don't really want to go on the offensive. Fighting fire with fire really means much more robust backing for Ukraine, and then a more robust program against things like the shadow fleet of Russian tankers and the deployment of Russian drones along the border. I think there are lots of things that NATO can do quickly to show that we're not gonna sit there and just talk about these issues. For example, having a much more developed program against Russian sabotage, and there have been a host of incidents. There could be, let's say, a NATO response force which could be coordinated by people that really understand this issue. And we could take a much tougher line with the Russians. I mean, for example, there are issues to do with intelligence that could be quickly and easily solved because a lot of the sabotage issues are carried out by Russians who are coming from third countries. Do you see what I mean? We could make Russian travel much, much more restricted in Europe. Say you get a Russian diplomat who's in Spain who travels home to Russia via Switzerland, let's say, or via the Czech Republic and does something naughty and aggressive when it is in the Czech Republic. I mean, that could be stopped very quickly.
VENEZUELA
Mccann: Should we end by talking about Venezuela? We've had a real riot around the world, I think, in this conversation so far, but Venezuela is one of those issues that, you know, we've talked about, we're going to be talking about it more in more depth on Thursday, the episode that comes out on Thursday, so if that's something you're interested in, then do make sure you stay tuned and listen out for that. But what's the latest on Venezuela and obviously Trump's sort of campaign there?
Dearlove: The whole business of Hegseth approving these attacks on vessels leaving the coast is quite a fraught area of international law, where there is a difference between American and European lawyers, but I see now there are quite a lot of American lawyers and American officials saying that Hegseth has gone too far, and some of these targeted killings, although the administration in the US is saying they're legal, are not legal at all and that they, as it were, they breach, you know, a barrier.
Mccann: One final question for you. Have you got your Christmas tree up yet?
Dearlove: No. We don't put it up for another week or two, but my wife Rosalind loves her Christmas tree and her Christmas decorations, most of which are rather antique and beautiful and were bought behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War when you could buy beautiful things like antique glass decorations made in what was then Czechoslovakia. It's one of the things they were good at.
Mccann: That sounds much classier than my tree, which has tinsel, lights, all kinds of random decorations on it. Thanks, Richard. I'll speak to you soon. That's it for this week's One Decision in Brief. And, of course, do stay tuned. Our regularly scheduled episode is out on Thursday, and there'll be plenty more discussion on Venezuela for you if that's something you're interested in. Phil Gunson, the senior analyst of Venezuelan politics, will be joining us to discuss and some really fascinating insights from him. You don't wanna miss that one. We love your comments, by the way. So if you've got any feedback you want to share, you can do that. You can find us on onedecision.com, our YouTube page, and, of course, wherever else you get your podcasts. I'm Kate McCann. Thank you for listening.
