Sanctions on Russia will persist if it maintains its hardline stance in Ukraine, Political Science and International Affairs Professor William Lawrence says. #Russia #Ukraine
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00:00William, the French President Emmanuel Macron says now is not the time to lift Russian sanctions.
00:07Are Starmer and Trump and also Europe just far apart on their view of Russia, especially
00:14when it comes to sanctions?
00:16I'd say to some degree, yes. I'd say that, you know, as I mentioned before, Trump did
00:20say twice there needs to be more economic pressure on Russia and in order to get this
00:25deal, you know, the implication being that the sanctions would be unwound if not. And
00:30during that moment this morning that I was talking about, or at least this morning, our
00:34time when Zelensky said, because the Russians didn't accept the deal, there need to be more
00:39sanctions right away. You know, this is all part of that conversation. I think ultimately,
00:46Trump would like to decrease the sanctions because he got a ceasefire and also trying
00:51to get a Nobel Peace Prize, which I don't think we'll get, but that's part of his motivation.
00:55And he, you know, will use the threat of sanctions if he has to, like he uses threats
01:01of tariffs and then sometimes he applies them and sometimes he doesn't. You know, anyone
01:05that tries to predict Trump's next move is lying to you, you know, that thinks they're
01:10able to predict the move. But there is sort of a dance going on here between Europe, Ukraine
01:15and the United States. Sanctions is a big part of the puzzle. And as long as the Russians
01:19take maximalist positions, I don't see the sanctions going away anytime soon.