Edward Lucas
Hello everyone and welcome from whatever corner of the world you are joining us. We have a subject today, which could hardly be more topical, which is our ILC International Leadership Council Report, which we’ve all seen; a seven point plan for sustainable peace in Ukraine. The ILC has a great gamut of famous people, including former prime ministers like Carl Bildt and Boris Johnson. We have [unintelligible] and others. They’re not individually responsible for what we have written in this report, although their thoughts have certainly contributed to it. Today, we have to introduce the report, General McMaster and Dr. Alina Polyakova. H.R. McMaster, I think, requires absolutely no introduction, if you don’t know who he is, I think you’re on the wrong Zoom call. And he has seen the Trump White House from the inside in the first administration. I have just two housekeeping points: one, this is all obviously on the record, so please feel free to quote anything and everything that we say. And secondly, I’m sure there’s your we have many, many questions that you want to ask General McMaster, please, if you could focus them on, actually, the subject of the report, which is peace in Ukraine, and how we how we get there. And if you want to pose a question, I will try and find you on the- put your hand up. It will be easier if you can just put a question in the in the chat, because we have so many people on the call. I won’t be able to get everybody on one screen. I’m just going to kick off, first of all, the question to to you H.R., knowing what you know about how the Trump White House works on the inside, which bits of this report do you think have the best chance of landing with this administration?

H.R. McMaster
Yeah, I think recommendation one, which is to go into any kind of an effort to get on a path toward ending the violence in Ukraine from a position of strength. And I think the early indicators in the Trump administration are that President Trump is predisposed toward following that advice, and I’m thinking in particular of the actions that he’s taking vis a vis Iran and China’s, you know, China’s role in keeping the cash flow to the theocratic dictatorship there, and a dictatorship that has done so much to perpetuate human suffering inflict, you know, humanitarian catastrophe on the Middle East, centered on Israel, but obviously the Syrian civil war, and in Yemen and in Iraq, and, you know, the list goes on. So, I think that’s, that’s a good indicator, and, of course, the President’s Truth Social, you know, message, which everybody saw as well, I think, was indicated that he understands that, that Russia is in a position of weakness, and, that he is predisposed toward exacerbating that. If Putin doesn’t stop his onslaught against Ukraine, which he’s shown, of course, no signs of doing, and then I’ll just say, just up front as well, that I’m sure what President Trump is confronting at this moment are those who, you know, who are sort of predisposed toward retrenchment and disengagement, and those who are urging him to, you know, to support Ukraine and to initiate any kind of a negotiation from this position of strength. And I’m sure what many people in the administration are highlighting to him, is the degree to which the conflict in Ukraine, and this is an important aspect of the report as well, is connected to this broader competition with an increasingly aggressive “axis of aggressors,” which includes, obviously China, which is sustaining Russia’s war-making machine and buying, the you know, the energy such that it can feed Putin’s ATM, as well as providing Russia with the hardware and equipment necessary to sustain his war-making machine. As well as, you know, the conflict with with Iran and Iran’s aggression across the Middle East. You know, Iran is providing, obviously, Russia with the Shahed drones and missiles, and in return, getting, we know, technical support on their missile program, but probably on their nuclear program as well. And and, of course, the interconnected nature of these these competitions is quite obvious when you see North Korean soldiers fighting in the first major land war in Europe since World War Two, and Korea providing millions of rounds of artillery and so forth again in exchange, probably for assistance with their nuclear and missile capabilities. So, I think the President is probably receiving all these briefings and seeing the interconnected nature, but I think what he’s also seeing is that, hey, he has an opportunity. President Trump has an opportunity to really make us tired of winning. And the reason is that this, you know, this “axis of aggressors,” is in a profoundly weak position, right? They like to try to portray strength, but you know, the rolling blackouts in Iran, the real economic dire circumstances that they’re in, you know, based on the corruption of that regime and the degree there continue to squander the tremendous resources in Iran and deny the, you know, the path to prosperity that the Iranian people deserve and the degree to which China is having some profound economic problems, and Russia, as we mentioned, some of them. But you know, Putin sitting on piles of cash he can’t convert. He’s spending almost 50% of his GDP equivalent on defense, which is unsustainable. They’re on the verge of maybe hyperinflation. You know, 29% or so they’ve got labor shortages. He can’t generate manpower. So anyway, I just think what President Trump is probably hearing is, you know, you have an opportunity to win here, and part of that being to, you know, to get toward a path to peace in Ukraine. But again, I think the most, I mean, the report’s fantastic, I think, by the way, but I think point number one is what I think he’s finding persuasive. I hope he’s finding persuasive.

Edward Lucas
Yeah. Well, thanks so much, H.R. And of course, I should have said that you are the co-chair of the ILC, and thanks particularly for that line on the axis of aggressors. All this is some people would argue that Ukraine is a distraction. You make the point very strongly that this is all connected with the problems we have with Iran and China, and elsewhere, and also that they are not 10 feet tall, that the Russians have suffered major setbacks, sometimes not fully appreciated in the Western mind space. But I want to come to you next, Alina, because there’s another very important point about this is it’s not like some think tank reports a long list of things that the United States should do, it’s putting a big series of recommendations that are in the hands of the Europeans as well, and that’s part of the sort of burden shifting, which I think would go down quite well with this administration.

Alina Polyakova
Thanks Edward and of course, many thanks to General McMaster for being the co-chair of this distinguished group, as well as Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Germany’s former Minister of Defense, who couldn’t be here today, but is General McMaster co-chair as part of this effort. Just a couple of quick comments to Q and A. The point of this report is to do, I would say three things. One is to take seriously that the President has said that he wants peace, and that’s a good thing. Ukrainians want peace. Europeans want peace. Everyone wants peace. Nobody asked for this war. This is a war of choice by the Kremlin. But also to send a very clear message that right now, the United States and allies do not have enough leverage points to get to a good deal that will be a winning deal for the United States, for Europe, Ukraine, and I think, the rest of the global order, frankly. And the first recommendation really focuses in on how the United States can lead an allied effort to ensure that we disavow the Russians of the illusion that they are winning this war and that time is on their side, and that they currently have very little incentive to come to the negotiating table from a sincere position that will require compromise. So anyone in the business sector knows that to get to a good deal, you need to have more leverage than the other guy, and you have to be able to give up some things that you don’t care about but the other person or the other entity really cares about. So this is really a plan and how we first and foremost, get to a negotiating table in which the Russians are there and are compelled to compromise and we lay out our own objectives, which the previous administration did not do in Ukraine. We had no strategic objectives that we were trying to achieve in Ukraine. So that’s point number one. Point number two is to say the Europeans have had to take the lead here, this question of Russian assets, most of them are being held in Europe, must be resolved. There is a legal pathway to doing so, and the Europeans can get there, and they haven’t taken those necessary actions. There is also a need for Europe to take the lead on a putting together what we call “a coalition of the willing.” There’s other names for it, but basically a deterrence and defense force that could be present in Ukraine to ensure that whatever line of contact is negotiated in a potential a ceasefire, that there is deterrence and defense there, and the United States should support those efforts. And I think lastly, of course, Edward again, to your point that this is a joint effort between the United States, Europe, and also Indo-Pacific allies, that what happens in Ukraine will have reverberating effects into the rest of the world, as H.R. rightfully said. And certainly if we are, as the United States and the broader alliance, seen as losing and getting a bad deal that will have profound implications for this quartet of chaos, or whatever you want to call the emerging alliance between Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. And that’s certainly something that’s not, I think, in the President’s interest or in the interest of US national security. So I think I’ll stop there. Thank you.

Edward Lucas
Super. Well, look, the questions are already rolling in. I’ll take them so far in chronological order. So George Allison from the UK Defence Journal, Scott too, and the first is, what is the most pressing need for that Ukraine has right now in material terms. And the second one, oh, and I think, oh, that’s probably one for you, H.R., with your your military hat on, what do we need to prioritize? And then the second one is, where’s London in this? Because we’ve seen several reports that America wants the UK to take the lead in NATO generally, in Ukraine in particular, would be a top of the list. There not something that leaps to mind when one looks at the way that the government is thinking about these issues. But H.R., do you want to take the first, the first question, what’s the top military priority for Ukraine?

H.R. McMaster
Well, you know, I would defer to the to to those who really know, like the you like the European Command, and, you know, I just hope that the new administration is talking to General Cavoli, because I think he’s one of the most talented, capable officers I’ve ever known. I was in the army for 34 years, and I think, you know, sometimes the military gets it right and puts the right person the right job, and it’s certainly the case with him, so but I would just say, you know, not to, not to dodge this, this question about specific weapon systems and so forth, but it’s really all of the above. It’s really a sustained supply of of the most critical capabilities, weapon systems and ammunitions. I think that what’s happened is, because of the halting nature of the Biden administration’s provision of weapons and ammunitions to Ukraine, it’s denied Ukraine the ability to have, I think, more decisive outcomes in these defensive battles recently, but also or to inflict more losses on the Russians. But it’s had a psychological effect, right of diminishing Ukrainian confidence in a sustained supply of artillery ammunition or long range missile capabilities or layered air defense systems, or you name it. So I would say, I would say priority number one is a sustained supply of munitions. And, of course, what would be attractive to the Trump administration is more burden sharing, as Alina said, for the Europeans, you know, to help finance more of this and provide more, but also, I think, you know, something like a long term low-interest loan, this idea that’s been floated, that would, you know, that would show that Ukraine is committed to its own defense, certainly, which it is, but that this isn’t just a handout to Ukraine, right, that this is a long term low-interest loan, maybe kind of on the model of of the US loan to Finland after World War I, right? And helping Finland defend itself against the nation, Soviet Union, a loan that was paid back in full. So I think, I think that’s what’s needed. It’s just sustained supply of everything.

Edward Lucas
Right. Alina, when you look at Europe, whether in the broader sense, from Britain, Norway, Turkey, and the EU, it’s kind of leadership desert, mostly do you see the leadership in Britain, or indeed, any of the other countries be needed to step up and turn this plan into reality?

Alina Polyakova
Right, thanks, Edward. I think that also goes to one the questions here in the chat about, how do you get the allies to move in this direction when we don’t know this is the direction they’ll be moving in yet? And of course, there’s some media reports that the administration and General Kellogg will be presenting something in Munich, although the administration has denied this now, so I would not take those reports too seriously at the moment. But, you know, to my mind, there’s, it’s absolutely right that there is a leadership gap in Europe right now, but this is also why we need to think about, not necessarily our traditional Alliance structures, meaning all the NATO allies must do X, we need to think about group of countries that are security oriented, like the United Kingdom, France, Poland, the Balts in the North in particular, they can lead this effort. And there are conversations-that have been reported on as well-that are happening between all of these countries as to, one, how they can invest in Ukraine’s defense industrial base, and two, what are the forces they will be able to commit to securing a defense contact line that would be the result of some negotiation that would take place, if I may, I wanted to address this one question that’s come up in the chat about what should not be in a potential peace plan, whether the United States presents that in Munich or not. And this is, I don’t think we talked about this explicitly in the report, but I think one thing that should not be in the peace plan is any conversation about Ukraine’s future NATO membership or not. It’s clear that Ukraine’s NATO membership is the only ironclad security guarantee for long term peace in Ukraine. However, that cannot be part of the negotiation with the Russians at this time, because that’s exactly what the Russians want. They want a conversation about the future of Europe’s security architecture, and they want to close NATO’s open door policy forever through their negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, potentially, although right now, of course, there’s no incentive for them to do that. So to my mind, we have to be very clear that whatever negotiation the United States pursues with Putin, that Ukraine is at the table, the Europeans are at the table, and that NATO is not part of the debate, and that should be something tabled for some future conversation, potentially, that’s my view. I would not ascribe that to everyone who is in our International Leadership Council, but I wanted to address that question from from the chat here.

Edward Lucas
Super. Well, thanks. I think you’ve neatly rolled in Christopher von Marshall’s question from Der Stagesspiegel in Berlin, and I’m going to go straight on now to the question about how we enforce the ceasefire. I don’t like the word peacekeeping because that implies a kind of outside, neutral arbiter, but we’re going to need to have boots on the ground in Ukraine to give a credible security guarantee. And there’s a good question from Trudy Rubin here, from the Worldview column in the Philadelphia Inquirer about that, because the danger with this, and perhaps this is a question for you, H.R., is that if the force isn’t credible, it then just comes a really tempting target for Putin where he can do even more damage to Western credibility. So, looking at it with your military hat on, can you really envisage a fully deployed multinational force in Ukraine that would actually make the ceasefire credible. We’d be talking South Korea, plus in terms of both numbers of troops and the kind of logistics and air defense and everything they would need to really be credible, wouldn’t we?

H.R. McMaster
Yeah, that’s absolutely right, and Trudy is such a wise person, you know, and it’s great. It’s great to hear from her. But, you know, I think that what’s important is even before we get to what could be a, you know, a peace enforcement or the deterrent force in Ukraine, I think what we have to recognize that there’s never been a, you know, a favorable political outcome to a war that did not reflect military realities on the ground. You know, so this idea, you know, that there can be some sort of a settlement that can meet the minimum requirements or goals of Ukraine to have, you know, a viable state that is capable of defending itself, that can they can get back on the road for for, you know, for reconstructing its economy and on the road to prosperity, I mean, I think that to do that, to get to that kind of an agreement, Putin has to conclude that he’s losing the war. And I really think that no matter what happens in the interim, maybe with a brief ceasefire that fails or whatever, unless Putin concludes that he’s losing, he’s not going to agree to any kind of a political settlement that meets, I think, the minimum requirements for a degree of sustainable peace and in Ukraine. And I think the same can be said about Trudy’s question. The answer to her question, which would be, would have to be a force that’s capable of defeating all forms of Russian aggression against Ukraine. That would be conventional military, but also the force that would support Ukraine, I think would also have to be capable against what we might call, you know, Russian new generation warfare, or hybrid warfare, because what we have to recognize is, hey, Russia won’t stop. I mean, look at the broad range of Russian activity. Now. Russia has already annexed Belarus, for example. It is like what, you know, what it’s tried to do in Moldova and in Romania, and what it’s doing in Georgia, which is outside of Europe, but, but Russia’s waging a shadow war in Europe right now, cutting undersea cables, burning warehouses, incendiary bombs on DHL aircraft, and then, of course, the sustained campaign of political subversion and cyber enabled information warfare. So I think whatever force comes, it would have to have the range of capabilities, and, of course, there are best practices, you know, across across what might be, to use Alina’s term as “a coalition the willing,” right, you have, for example, in Finland, the center of excellence on countering hybrid warfare. You know, Ukraine has learned a heck of a lot itself, obviously, as being the direct target of Russia, I think at least since Russia poisoned the presidential candidate in 2003, right? So, I think that what we need to recognize is that, first of all, the political outcome, what will reflect military realities. And so there, I think this again. This gets back to point one of the report, going in from a position of strength. And there can’t be, as as Trudy’s alluding to, there’s some kind of a trip wire force, or whatever a show force in Ukraine. It would have to be a force that’s capable of fighting and defeating various forms of Russian aggression, including their conventional capabilities.

Edward Lucas
Yeah, that segues neatly into the question from Stefan [unintelligible], which is that we’ve got a kind of extra difficulty here, that Russia’s war machine will keep going even when the ceasefire stops, so they’ll be generating more forces and the Nordic-Baltic countries, particularly the Baltic ones, are worried that Russia will be able to pose a sharp, sharp strategic challenge in their corner of of Europe, and that the troops that we will be deploying in Ukraine will be ones that we will not have available for protecting them. So, that’s that’s an extra difficulty. What do you what do you see in terms of keeping NATO strong, when with the extra burden of enforcing the ceasefire in Ukraine, shooting up the agenda?

H.R. McMaster
Well, I mean, this is a good point. I mean, there’s, there’s a real problem in capacit, the capacity of armed forces, I think, for the United States, you know, based on, you know, based on the growing threats from this axis of aggressors, but certainly in Europe, and, of course, you know, in Germany. Germany’s declared the Zeitenwende, but there hasn’t been, you know, enough activity in terms of rebuilding, you know, the armed forces that were dismantled, you know, in the post Cold War period, and especially in the 2000s and really continued in a state of being dismantled, effectively, even after, you know, even after the invasion of Georgia, you know, even after the first invasion of Ukraine. And so, I think you know, from President Trump’s perspective, since you know we’re, you know we’re obviously, the big question is, how he’s going to respond to this, is that, as Alina said, you know, Europe really has to up its game in this, in terms of capacity, especially those countries that have the economic wherewithal to make the investments necessary to address issues of deferred and modernization, but also the capacity of the armed forces. So, I think the question is bringing up a good issue, you know, I mean, is, does Europe have the capacity? I mean, look at the British army right now. I mean, I It makes me want to cry, almost. So, I think there’s a lot that all of us have to do and I think what would encourage President Trump is, is seeing a real emphasis on acting on the declared and recognition of the need, you know, such as Olaf Scholz’s, you know, observation of the zeitenwende in Germany.

Edward Lucas
I want to come on. We’ve got questions flying in. I want to come to Murray Brewster, in a moment, to want to talk about ally unity, and what the effect on these putative coalitions to support Ukraine is of the threatened the tariff wars and annexations and so on. But, H.R., I just want to come back to you, because I my journalistic head smells a headline here. When you say you look at the British army, it makes you want to cry. Could you be a bit more specific? What makes you?

H.R. McMaster
The British army is a professional, extremely capable army that now lacks the capacity to sustain operations. And I know there’s the Defense Review going on now in the UK, and this is very much being debated about what to do about it, but I’m encouraged by the recognition among the British leadership that this is a big problem, right? And some of the most distinguished British military leaders have recognized this fact that the British military is now not capable of sustaining any kind of a campaign of a significant scale, you know? So I think this is I use the British army to illustrate. I think the problem across all of our armies, including the US Army, at this stage, but, but there is a real capacity issue that people we’ve been on this model. I’m just not to go into too much detail, but we’ve been on this model for a long time that we could achieve security, we could operate effectively in times of war by investing more and more money in fewer and fewer exquisite systems. And we could trade off capacity the size of the force for these capabilities, because smaller forces could now have a bigger impact over wider areas, when in fact, what we’ve seen in Ukraine is a return of the size of the force matters, the capacity of the force matters that they often, really does go to the side of the bigger battalions, to quote, [unintelligible]. So I think it’s important for us to recognize that shift and act on it.

Edward Lucas
Super. Alina, would you like to take the question on unity? A nice hot potato landing on your desk, and then going to come back and get in Rishi Iyengar from Foreign Policy, had some had a couple of questions.

Alina Polyakova
I mean, the question of the concern…

Edward Lucas
On the effect of President Trump’s his tariff trade war and threats of annexation. What does that do to the allied unity that we need to foster in order for this plan to work?

Alina Polyakova
I mean, that’s not an easy answer, but I think the reality is that Europeans right now are waiting on the sidelines in the sort of traditional European manner, rather than coming to the White House and to the President saying, here’s what we’re going to do for you, to help you, and here’s what we need from you. Those are the kinds of transactional conversations that I think this White House will be far more responsive to, and that Europeans, it may not be the full EU, may not be the full of NATO, but coalitions, a more security and defense-oriented European countries need to do this. We’ve seen some European leaders to kind of take the lead most notably Prime Minister Meloni of Italy, but that really wasn’t a coordinated effort, as far as we know. It was just a one off bilat. But if we saw a European coalition really show up at the table and say we’re going to spend 5% on defense, like Poland does some and some other Baltic states do, we’re going to buy American, we have a gap in our own defense industrial base, so we can’t fill Ukraine’s needs, but we plan on it in the in the near term future. Here’s what we need the US help with in the short term. And I think the other question that H.R. was alluding to about risk is that sometimes you have to take on greater risk in the short and medium term to avoid a huge catastrophe in the long term. And I think that’s the conversation we’re having here. I think one of the important points that the report makes is that if we continue on this very cautious, incremental approach vis a vis Ukraine, we’re going to end up within a protracted Afghanistan-style conflict. And that’s not in this administration’s interest. It’s not anyone’s interest. And now I think this year, in the next six months, there’s an opportunity to dramatically shift the trajectory of the war in Ukraine and shift it in Ukraine’s favor and in our favor. If I may, I don’t think this question came up, but I think there’s also a narrative there that was referenced in Secretary Rubio’s confirmation hearing, that Ukraine is losing this war, and the main reason they’re losing this war is because they don’t have enough Ukrainians. Of course, we know that mobilization remains a challenge for the Ukrainian military. There’s no question about that, that’s also challenge for the Russian side. But there is a real material problem, there’s a kid problem, there’s a training problem. These are all issues that we, as an alliance, can address with all of the efforts and tools that H.R. has outlined. So thank you.

Edward Lucas
Super. So Rishi’s questions were about, is Kellogg going to present a Ukraine peace plan to allies in Munich? I think we’re clear that’s not going to happen, or at least it’s been it’s been walked back. And there was a question about what shouldn’t be in the plan, and I think that was very clearly stated, or what shouldn’t be in the plan be any kind of rejection of long term NATO membership. But there is also this idea that America is in retreat with the semi collapse of USAID and the disavowal of foreign aid and so on. And he asked, how confident are you that Ukraine will be excluded from that sentiment, and why? I know you’ve touched on this already, H.R., you’ve said that this is all America’s problems are interlinked. But do you want to come back in a couple of sentences on why neo-isolationism is not going to do for Ukraine in this context.

H.R. McMaster
Well, hey, I just think it’s really important though, to understand the mentality and the mindset of those who are arguing for retrenchment, right? There is this belief that, you know, America’s allies and strategic partners have been free riding on the largest of American taxpayers. There’s also a belief that, hey, America has a lot of work to do on its own right. These are people have been affected by transitions in the global economy that occurred in the 2000s, the financial crisis 2008-2009, you know, the opioid epidemic, you know, the series of sort of blows that have occurred in American society. And they think, why do we have to solve everybody else’s problems, right? Why don’t we retrench to our shores and you see this kind of move toward a new Monroe Doctrine, I think, is also kind of is sympathetic with that idea that, you know, let the people over there, you know, the Europeans deal with Europe, let you know, and so forth. So I think it’s important to understand that mentality. But I think what’s really important then is to explain the degree to which, you know, threats to our security, the America security that develop abroad, can only be dealt with at an exorbitant cost once they reach our shores. We know this, you know, from historical experience with the great moats of the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean are not what they used to be. And so I think it’s important to to frame these challenges from the perspective of US interests and the American people. Need to know, hey, why should we care? Right? What is at stake here, and what is a strategy that will achieve a favorable outcome for American citizens, right, at an acceptable cost. This is where European partners, can do what Alina has suggested, which is to to forge a positive common agenda, you know, with the Trump administration, and there’s so much that aligns right with with Trump’s priorities. I mean, certainly burden sharing, as we’ve mentioned. How about supply chain resilience and countering China’s weaponization of its mercantile statist economic model against us. Trump cares about industrial capacity and defense industrial capacity. He cares about energy dominance, right? These are all areas that should align, you know, with with EU and European nations priorities. And instead of getting out, let’s break the cycle of like, tit for tat tariffs and other trade enforcement mechanisms. And I think there’s an opportunity to adopt a really positive common agenda that obviously doesn’t include, you know, the the war in Ukraine and the recognition that Putin is waging a much broader war, you know, against the real world as part of this axis of aggressors.

Edward Lucas
H.R., sorry, we’ve got literally four minutes left and a huge lots of questions now. Was again, so I’m going to ask you to give a very short question. This is to Liam from RTE news in Ireland, actually in Warsaw, which is literally one sentence, how big a force do we need to patrol the ceasefire line if there is a ceasefire,

H.R. McMaster
I don’t know. I haven’t studied it enough detail to know.

Edward Lucas
And the question about whether there’s a political will for this. I think we’ve already touched on that there needs to be. That was also Paul Adams also asking for, how big the force would be in the answer is, we, we don’t know. Question on General Kellogg’s comments in the New York Post yesterday, which should say, go for a cease fire first and then negotiate the details of a longer lasting settlement later. That sounds pretty dangerous to me. Alina, what do you think of that?

Alina Polyakova
You know, I actually think this is the appropriate sequencing. Is that you see the fighting stops now, there’s no more killing, and those are that is the basic condition under which we’re going to even have a conversation. So I actually think that what we’re seeing in terms of signaling, increasingly, from the White House and from General Kellogg, whether that’s on sanctions, whether that’s on this comment here, is positive. I think it is actually going in the direction of what this report lays out. It’s about economic pressure. It’s about laying out, laying our demands, versus letting Russia set the terms of what is it’s willing or not willing to do in Ukraine. And I think it’s the direction of travel to my mind, is positive, though the signals are still quite mixed to be, to be very frank, from from the White House and the in the executive branch more broadly. But I think this is, I don’t read this comment to be as you said, Edward, dangerous, I think this is a, this is a minimum demand that we should impose under which we will enter any sort of conversation about a sustainable peace, because the goal should be sustainable peace not a short term ceasefire, and I think that is to where the administration is heading based on some of the comments we’ve seen.

Edward Lucas
Thanks. I should have said that. That was a question from Laura Rozen, who’s from Just Security, but, H.R., let me just bounce that over to you, because there is a difficulty. Once the fighting stops, Russia’s military readiness will continue to increase, because their war machine carries on so long as Putin’s got his foot on the gas pedal. The Ukrainian soldier is going to want to go home. Ukraine will will very quickly see its readiness diminish. Isn’t there a danger that a ceasefire without the right political backing turns to switches the balance in Russia’s advantage if they want to start fighting up again, just very briefly.

H.R. McMaster
Yes that’s is a danger. And I think what Putin wants is he wants help in getting up off the mat right now, because he’s in a profoundly weak position. We should not help him get up off the mat. I think what we should do is ensure that we put more economic pressure on him and recognize, again, how Ukraine fits into the broader shadow war that he’s conducting against all of us, and impose costs on him for for doing so. And again, you know, this involves taking on the whole “axis of aggressors,” right? There are people who who always argue, or have been arguing for a return of the policy of the 70s of separating China and Russia. We have to recognize they are in a declared strategic partnership with no limits that Xi Jinping continues to talk about, you know, changes that have not occurred for a century. And what he’s talking about is winning over the free world, you know, and I think the more that President Trump recognizes that I mean, the better position will be in to achieve an outcome that’s favorable to the Ukrainians and restores gets us on the path to restoring peace. And remember this, again, we have to [unintelligible] this is a broader war, you know. And as soon as we acknowledge that, I think we can avoid, you know, giving Putin what he wants, right, which is really sanctions relief and the economic wherewithal to regenerate his war making machine. Because we know, right? We know he won’t stop. He hasn’t stopped, really since 2000 or at least 2003 in trying to achieve his aims of restoring the Russian Empire, where every US administration has made the mistake is by assuming, is in assuming that really the approach to Putin should be based on allaying his security concerns. But the fact is now a demonstrate a fact is that Putin has aspirations and goals in mind that go far beyond anything that is in reaction to what we do and, so I think that was important to communicate to President Trump. It’s what we did in the first Trump administration, what he did. It’s very important to remember. This is really important to remember, despite Trump’s, you know, conciliatory rhetoric towards Putin, at times, he imposed more sanctions on Russian individuals and entities in his first year of his presidency than the previous eight years of the Obama administration. He was the first, he first gave them defensive capabilities in december 2017, with Javelin missiles and so forth and so, President Trump, I think, understands this idea, you know, of peace through strength and and I hope that you know that, that you know the people who are giving them advice recognize the importance of that again, the first point in this report.

Edward Lucas
Well, thanks so much, H.R. The time has flown past. Just a couple of thoughts for me to wrap up with. One is, I think it’s important not to over personalize this about Putin, I would argue, and certainly our colleagues in the Baltic states would say they were warning about Russia and Russian imperialism, Soviet nostalgia, ethno nationalism, whatever, right back in the 1990s and our problems with Russia predate Putin and may well outlast it. So I think that’s worth just noting that view. And the other thing that worries me a lot is that Putin certainly find that fighting Ukraine was super difficult. I worry that he may think that fighting the West turned out not to be so difficult that we got bored, scared and tired far more quickly than we thought that we thought was going to be the case back in 2022 and the idea that nuclear blackmail basically works, that the West was scared. And this comes to a question that was posed by Roberto, and we didn’t answer, that the West is basically scared of long range strikes inside Russia because it might lead to nuclear escalation. That’s a big lesson takeaway from the war. It’s left a lot of countries thinking, if you’ve got nuclear weapons, don’t give them up. If you haven’t got nuclear weapons, think about how to get them. And for the Russian thinking the West is is actually quite easily scared. So let’s say we’re wrong on that. I do commend the report to you. There’s an awful lot in it, and we didn’t touch on many of the specific points there, but we will be coming back to this in future CEPA publications and seminars. So stay tuned to that. And I know we can’t applaud here, but I want to thank H.R. for making time for this. He has a very hard stop at one minute. So he’s going to be disappearing all the other members of the ILC, and I want to Alina, do you want to say a quick goodbye in the last 15 seconds.

Alina Polyakova
Thanks everyone. Thank you very much, H.R. Please do reach out to our press team if you have any further questions. I think we’re planning to send our transcript as well, if I’m not mistaken, which hopefully Sarah is nodding her head from our press team, which hopefully will be helpful to you as well. Many thanks to H.R., it’s great seeing you. This is, I think, an embargo until Sarah,

Sarah Krajewski
Monday 10th. Yes, I can give more details on that.

Alina Polyakova
Great. So this will be out to the public on Monday. Of course, appreciate everyone’s time here. Thanks so much.

Sarah Krajewski
The recording and transcript will be sent out following this. Thank you all so much for joining. Also, if you happen to be attending MSC this year and would like to connect with our experts who will also be at the conference, please email press@cepa.org We would be happy to connect you. Thank you so much.