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00:00But first, then, just prior to Donald Trump's return to the White House, Volodymyr Zelenskyy
00:14had expressed optimism that the now U.S. president could broker peace with Russia.
00:19Well, just a month into Trump's presidency, the Ukrainian president, his tone, rather,
00:24is now much different, Zelenskyy insisting that Donald Trump helped bring Vladimir Putin
00:29out of isolation.
00:31He was also forced to specify that Ukraine will not sell his country in any deal with
00:35Washington through giving access to its critical resources, a plan that Donald Trump has indeed
00:40floated in recent days.
00:42Here's the Ukrainian president.
00:47We have seen this disinformation.
00:50We understand that it comes from Russia.
00:53We understand that.
00:55And we have evidence that these numbers are being discussed between America and Russia.
01:00So unfortunately, President Trump, who we have great respect for as the leader of the
01:05American people, whom we respect very much, who supports us constantly, unfortunately
01:12lives in this disinformation space.
01:15Well, to Zelenskyy's point, then, the Kremlin swiftly hailed Donald Trump's remarks.
01:21The Russian foreign minister describing Trump as the only Western leader who has publicly
01:26and loudly said that one of the root causes of the war in Ukraine was the previous administration's
01:32efforts to bring Kiev into NATO.
01:34On Tuesday, Donald Trump essentially blamed Zelenskyy for the duration of the war, claiming,
01:40I quote, he could have made a deal long ago.
01:43Delano De Souza with the details.
01:47Locking horns with Ukraine's president from a distance in Mar-a-Lago.
01:52Donald Trump took a swipe at Volodymyr Zelenskyy after Kiev's vocal disapproval for being left
01:57out of talks between the U.S. and Russia aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.
02:03And I'm very disappointed.
02:04I hear that, you know, they're upset about not having a seat.
02:07Well, they've had a seat for three years and a long time before that.
02:10This could have been settled very easily.
02:12Just a half-baked negotiator could have settled this years ago.
02:20Trump says he's confident Moscow wants to do something to end the war, as he reiterated
02:25a Kremlin allegation that falsely questions Zelenskyy's legitimacy.
02:29A situation where we haven't had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law, essentially
02:35martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine, I mean, I hate to say it, but he's
02:41down at 4 percent approval rating.
02:43That's not a Russia thing.
02:44That's something coming from me.
02:46The U.S. president's latest false statement came hours after the first talks in years
02:51between American and Russian officials.
02:54The negotiations in Riyadh were described as positive by both sides.
02:58Trump reportedly wants to have a deal with Russia wrapped up quickly and could even meet
03:02the country's president by the end of this month, a statement that's now been confirmed
03:06by the Kremlin.
03:09For more on this, then, France 24 senior international affairs editor Rob Parson joins me now on
03:14set.
03:15Hi, Rob.
03:16So what do you think, then, about this back and forth, and most notably about Volodymyr
03:19Zelenskyy's handling of those remarks from Donald Trump?
03:22Well, look, you know, Volodymyr Zelenskyy obviously had a pretty good idea of what was
03:28coming from Donald Trump.
03:31But I think even still, he's taken aback by just how fast things are moving and shocked
03:36by the exclusion of Ukraine and Europe from the discussions and the negotiations that
03:41took place in Riyadh on Tuesday.
03:44Whether he's right to be shocked or not, it's not the issue.
03:48Europe and Ukraine have been kept out of the loop and still appear to be kept out of the
03:52loop.
03:53So he is sort of trying to play catch up and trying to find where Ukraine's place is going
03:58to be in this.
03:59And he's trying to do so, on the one hand, presenting Ukraine's case and making sure
04:05it's up there at the front, and, two, trying not to offend Donald Trump, because he knows
04:11that Donald Trump is extremely touchy and that can quite easily go off in a direction
04:18that Ukraine won't be happy with if he takes offense.
04:21So it's a terribly difficult balancing act that he's got to play.
04:25And we saw just how difficult from that press conference that Donald Trump gave on Tuesday,
04:33talking about Ukraine and why Ukraine should be surprised that it wasn't represented at
04:40that meeting in Riyadh, saying, you know, you could have made a deal.
04:44So the complete confusion of virtually everybody.
04:48Where was Ukraine meant to have made a deal?
04:50With whom?
04:51With the Russians who were invading them?
04:53Were the Russians prepared to make a deal, and on what possible terms?
04:57And when he said that Zelensky only had a popularity rating of 4 percent, where did
05:03he get the information?
05:04Where did it come from?
05:05You know, so, you know, the complete shock on the Ukrainian side, but trying to think,
05:12you know, how can we work our way back into the game without losing Donald Trump on this?
05:18And perhaps there's a chance with Keith Kellogg, the special envoy in Kiev today, to talk to
05:24him on the ground, to acquaint him with the realities of what's happening in the Ukraine
05:29and make it clear that Ukraine genuinely is not prepared to accept any deal that is
05:34struck without its involvement.
05:37That is the bottom line.
05:38It's the bottom line for the European Union, too, to a lesser extent, is playing the same
05:43game, if you want to call it that, as Ukraine.
05:46You're trying to keep it in the game, but at the same time, try to work out how to do
05:52without offending the man in Washington.
05:55Indeed, Rob Parsons.
05:56Thank you very much.
05:58Well, meanwhile, the war, of course, continues.
06:00Russia unleashed a barrage of drone strikes on energy infrastructure in the southern Ukrainian
06:05port city of Odessa.
06:07Four people were injured and at least 160,000 left without heat or electricity in sub-zero
06:12temperatures, according to Volodymyr Zelensky.
06:15Take a listen to reactions from residents.
06:20The facade is very badly damaged.
06:22There's not a single window intact.
06:24And last night, when it was possible to be there and look, all the doors were gone, too.
06:30Not a single door survived.
06:31So, unfortunately, serious damage both outside and inside the building.
06:37It all happened around 10.30pm.
06:40Everybody ran to the hall of the building.
06:42All the windows were blown out.
06:44The next strike scattered all the debris around.
06:46The furniture fell, the door was blown out as well.
06:50Even the ventilation in the bathroom was knocked down.
06:52And they say that the bathroom is a safe place.
06:54Well, no, it's not.
07:00Putin cannot be given any deals.
07:03We have to stand our ground and expel this asshole out of here.
07:06Well, few thought the war would last this long.
07:09But in just a few days, it will have been three years since the beginning of Russia's
07:13full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
07:15The war of attrition has undeniably taken a heavy toll on both sides.
07:19But the situation today looks much different than it did two years ago, for example, when
07:23Washington-led Western support for Kyiv still seemed unshakable.
07:28As the Trump administration pursues a peace plan with Russia in the Middle East, an end
07:32to the war on Ukraine's terms seems further off than ever.
07:37Andrei Kirkov joins me now on the program.
07:39He's one of Ukraine's best-known writers.
07:41Last year, he published Our Daily War, a second volume of his war diaries documenting the
07:47daily realities of life under the Russian offensive, and it was just published in France
07:51as well.
07:52Andrei, thank you for joining us today.
07:54I want to start, if you will, on the artistic side of things.
07:58You are first and foremost a novelist amongst Ukraine's most prolific, of course.
08:03But since the start of the full-scale invasion, you've been writing chronicles of daily life
08:07under the war.
08:08Why pivot to nonfiction, this almost journalistic-style writing, instead of exploring it through fiction?
08:15Well, first of all, actually, there was a lack of knowledge about the situation in Ukraine
08:20from the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
08:22And I started commenting on the events and explaining in articles and essays for international
08:27media about what was happening then.
08:31And the same was done by many writers.
08:33Actually, frankly speaking, you cannot write fiction in the time when your houses and your
08:38cities are shelled with missiles and drones.
08:41For fiction, you need concentration.
08:43You need to be relaxed to use your imagination.
08:47And when you have so many tragic, real stories around you, just you don't have an idea to
08:52invent another story or to work one story into a fiction.
08:56Now, you've, of course, you know, stayed in Ukraine throughout.
09:00In February of 2023, you wrote, like a disease, war takes control of your behavior, your thoughts,
09:07even your feelings.
09:08War starts to think for you.
09:09It makes decisions for you, I quote.
09:12That was two years ago.
09:13How do you think this disease of war, as you describe it, has changed the way that you
09:17and Ukrainians at large think and make decisions today in 2025?
09:22Well, everything is the same, maybe even worse, because actually, we all know different people.
09:29I changed a lot.
09:30I mean, I, I lost, for example, feeling of value of material items, world of property.
09:37I have a feeling that my house and my apartment do not belong to me anymore.
09:41They belong to the war, and it will be war who decides whether they will be damaged,
09:46destroyed, or they will remain intact.
09:49You don't sleep if you live in a big city, because every night you have several bomb
09:53alerts.
09:54And every time you go to check what is the reason for these alerts, if it is drones,
09:58you go to the corridor.
09:59If it is missiles, ballistic or cruise missiles, you probably go to the shelter or to the metro
10:06station if you have a metro nearby.
10:08So I mean, logistics is different.
10:10I mean, every travel for me from any town, any city in Europe from Kyiv lasts two days
10:16because we don't have aviation for three years now.
10:19So every small detail of the life is now different than before 24th of February 2022.
10:26Andrei, culture has, of course, been a constant theme in this war.
10:31You also cover this in your war diaries, writing in our daily war that Pushkinists has become
10:37a pejorative term for defenders of Russian culture in Ukraine.
10:41Has the war completely obliterated any culture, cultural exchange between Russians and Ukrainians?
10:48And if so, do you see this as a positive development?
10:52It's an avoidable development, actually.
10:54There was no cultural contact practically between Russia and Ukraine from 2014, from
11:00the beginning of the war, because actually the war started with annexation of Crimea,
11:03with the occupation of part of Donbass.
11:06And this was actually the crucial moment.
11:08And now Ukrainians hate everything Russian.
11:11I mean, there are Ukrainians who are indifferent, but generally I don't believe anybody is interested
11:15now to find out what Russian writers are writing or what the music is composed by Russian composers.
11:24And actually Ukrainian refugees, who are 7 million in the world, they get upset every
11:28time they see posters of Tchaikovsky's ballet performed in one theater or a choir of Don
11:36Cossacks performing in another place.
11:39So I mean, like the culture is, Russian culture became the instrument of the war.
11:44And actually portraits of Pushkin, of Tostoy and Dostoevsky were used in anti-Ukrainian
11:49propaganda.
11:51And the defenses around destroyed Mariupol theater were decorated with the quotations
11:57and portraits of classical Russian writers.
11:59So it will take probably one generation at least before Ukrainians can just look without
12:06indignation, without anger at these portraits.
12:10You touched upon this earlier, but I want to know how you think the war in Ukraine has
12:14affected Ukraine's cultural space.
12:17Has there been a proliferation of work, not only from writers you talked earlier, of course,
12:21about how difficult it is for fiction writers to do that in the middle of a war?
12:27But what about other artists?
12:28Do you think that the war has caused somewhat of a creative drought?
12:32Well, I mean, we have a huge void because of the war.
12:36We have more than 1,000 representatives of Ukrainian culture killed on the front lines
12:42or by bombs.
12:43More than 100 poets and writers are killed.
12:46One was executed, actually, by Russians near Kharkiv, Volodymyr Vakulenko, who wrote for
12:52children.
12:54In fact, actually, we will have a gap in the history of Ukrainian culture, definitely three
13:00years long, but maybe much longer.
13:04It's been, of course, nearly three years, as I mentioned earlier, since the start of
13:07the full-scale war.
13:08Do you see a sense of generalized war fatigue?
13:11How is this affecting the morale of soldiers and even the morale of civilians as well?
13:17Well, I think people are more traumatized than tired.
13:22They are irritated.
13:24Sometimes they are irritated by Ukrainian politicians who say something not very reasonable.
13:29Now they are irritated by Trump's statements and by the expectations of this deal that
13:36is imposed on Ukraine by Russia and America, who seems to be together now.
13:43But of course, I mean, everybody wants the war to stop, but the majority of Ukrainians
13:49don't want to accept the terms of Putin.
13:53And he wants capitulation of Ukraine.
13:55He wants more of Ukrainian territory, which is still under control of Ukrainian government.
14:02He wants lots of things which are unacceptable for Ukraine.
14:07In reading your chronicles about the war and your views on what sets Russians and Ukrainians
14:11apart, I get the impression that Ukraine remains extremely unified, largely pro-democracy,
14:18attached to political freedoms, open to deepening ties with a liberal West.
14:22But as this war does drag on, have you seen any major societal or political divisions
14:28grow amongst Ukrainians themselves?
14:32I wouldn't say there are divisions.
14:34I mean, we have just three Ukraines now.
14:36We have Ukraine of refugees abroad, seven million.
14:39We have Ukraine of displaced people who are also not very happy because they have to integrate
14:44into new traditions, new regions of Ukraine.
14:47Sometimes they are at odds with local people.
14:49They don't know what will happen to them in the future.
14:52And we have Ukrainians who are still living in their apartments and houses, like myself,
14:58who are much more, I would say, openly patriotic and who hope that Ukraine will defend its
15:06sovereignty, its independence.
15:09So I mean, there are no divisions.
15:11And there are no political divisions, because actually there is almost no political activity
15:16in the time of the war.
15:17We know that we cannot have elections when you have seven million voters abroad, six
15:22millions living not where they registered, and one million of soldiers and officers on
15:28the front line.
15:29I mean, the soldiers are actually more adamant about the situation than the civilians who
15:33live far away from the front line.
15:35And the soldiers and officers, I mean, they're commenting on YouTube, in telegram channels,
15:42that they don't believe there will be any deal and that they are ready to fight on.
15:47We're going to come back to you very shortly, in just a couple of minutes, Andrei.
15:53But before we do, I want to stay on this theme of divisions, because the war in Ukraine has
15:58undeniably created some widening fractures among EU nations, as you'll see in this report
16:04by Emerald Maxwell.
16:07It's the second emergency meeting this week, convened by the French President on Ukraine,
16:14after he hosted key European leaders on Monday.
16:17This time, NATO members Norway and Canada have been invited, as well as European Union
16:22countries like Romania and the Baltic states, some of whom share borders with Russia or
16:27Ukraine.
16:28On Monday, Emmanuel Macron appeared open, along with Britain, to the idea of sending
16:32forces to Ukraine, but only in the most limited fashion and away from conflict zones.
16:38France is not preparing to send ground troops, as belligerents in a conflict, to the front
16:43line.
16:44We're all concerned that a simple ceasefire in Ukraine would not resolve the conflict
16:48in any way.
16:49What will resolve it is full and complete peace, with security, economic and political
16:54conditions for Ukraine over the long term.
16:58In other words, to establish precise conditions for a possible ceasefire in Ukraine, defining
17:03for instance whether military experts or a UN-led peacekeeping mission should be sent
17:08in.
17:09And for this, Emmanuel Macron, like Britain, is counting on the backing of the United States.
17:15I'm prepared to consider committing British forces on the ground, alongside others, if
17:21there is a lasting peace agreement.
17:25But there must be a US backstop, because a US security guarantee is the only way to
17:34effectively deter Russia from attacking Ukraine again.
17:38European leaders are wary of showing a united front, after being blindsided by the lightning
17:44rapprochement between Washington and Moscow, whose foreign ministers held their first face-to-face
17:49meeting on Tuesday, since before Russia's February 2022 invasion.
17:55We'll turn back to you now, Andrei Kiryukov.
17:58If you just heard that report there, I want to know what you make of this, the inability
18:03of the European Union to really come out with a unified stance.
18:08What are the consequences on this conflict for Ukrainians?
18:11Well, it's a very difficult situation, because of course, I mean, if America is out and Europe
18:18was already split, European Union was split, and there were countries which were against
18:22continuation of the military help to Ukraine.
18:25I mean, Hungary was never helping Ukraine and was criticizing Ukraine.
18:29Slovakia, after the change of government, became more pro-Russian than before.
18:34The Greek communists are blocking the roads when there are trucks with ammunition for
18:40Ukraine leaving the factories.
18:42So I mean, it's a very difficult situation.
18:45But I hope that now European Union understands that they should develop a new common strategy.
18:52They should understand how to survive without looking at U.S. and thinking about U.S. influence
19:00on the world situation.
19:03Once the war is over, Andrei, I want to know how you think Ukraine might fit into the larger
19:08shift that we're seeing happening, not only across the Atlantic, but also in Europe.
19:13The far right is gaining in popularity from the U.S., Hungary, Italy, Austria, Germany,
19:18here in France as well.
19:19You mentioned a kind of anti-Ukrainian policy, so to speak, from three nations as well in
19:25your response.
19:26If Kiev is to get closer to Europe, which Europe do you think that a post-war Ukraine
19:32is likely to align with?
19:33Well, actually, I mean, Ukraine and the war in Ukraine reminded Europe the value of democracy,
19:41because before that, for European Union, profits from China, from Russia, were more
19:46important than democratical principles.
19:49And actually, Angela Merkel was signing new contracts with Putin already after annexation
19:54of Crimea and after the beginning of the war in Donbass.
19:57So I hope that Ukraine after the war can be a good contribution in the sense that Ukraine
20:03will promote and will remind again the values of human rights, of democracy, of rule of
20:11law.
20:12Ukraine needs also help from the European Union in order to reform itself and to become
20:19an equal, not in economical way, but actually in moral way, in political way.
20:25But I think actually Ukraine will win definitely from membership in the European Union and
20:32European Union will find it useful to have Ukraine on its side, inside the European structure.
20:40Last November, Andrei, you wrote in The New York Times that Ukraine was running out of
20:43optimists following the election of Donald Trump and, of course, what was at the time
20:47mostly speculation about his plan to privilege Vladimir Putin's terms for ending the war.
20:52Now that we've seen this confirmed, we've also seen Donald Trump float some pretty surprising
21:00proposals to end the war in Ukraine, including Ukraine giving up to 50 percent of revenues
21:05from some of its most critical resources.
21:08Are you still feeling the same way?
21:10Are there any optimists left in Ukraine?
21:13I'm sure there are optimists, but not about the situation with Trump and Putin.
21:18And actually the conversation on the telephone between Trump and Putin sounded like conversation
21:22between two business partners and old friends who want to remove an obstacle in order to
21:28restore the relationship and the trade.
21:30And this obstacle is called Ukraine.
21:32So, I mean, there is not much ground for optimism if we talk about possible peace deal and
21:38actually negotiations which are conducted without participation of Europe and Ukraine.
21:44But again, the statements of European leaders, also of President Macron, they give hope to
21:50Ukraine. And actually, I think sooner or later, Europe will be again playing a major
21:57role in the destiny of Ukraine and in the solving of this conflict.
22:04As a final question for you, what do you think a realistic peace agreement would look like
22:08then, given the situation as it is now, with the position from the White House, with the
22:12current indecisiveness from the European Union?
22:16By realistic, I mean something that both Russia and Ukraine are likely to accept in the
22:20long term.
22:22It would be probably a temporary agreement about frozen of the front line and the return
22:33of parts of Ukrainian land occupied by Russians and postponing the decision on some other
22:43issues for later, for the time, 10 years later or five years later.
22:49And then actually the process of long and painful negotiations would need to start.
22:55But first of all, of course, we need ceasefire and the beginning of the diplomatic
23:00process. Andrei Kiryukov, thank you so very much for all of your time and coming on the
23:05show today. Thank you very much.