Is there still hope for the United States-Ukraine relationship?

This transcription was generated automatically by Artificial Intelligence and may contain errors or inaccuracies. This is the story of the day from Radio Observer. Is there still hope for the relationship between the United States and Ukraine? "I'm not a big fan of Zelensky. They've destroyed that country." There are two answers that show the current state of relations between Washington and Kyiv. This is the one we heard from Donald Trump confirming that he is not a fan of Zelensky, and this one from Zelensky when asked: "Do you think you are being treated as a scapegoat?" If he thinks he is being the scapegoat of Trump. This strange silence lasts 15 seconds. "This is my answer." And then Zelensky says he has the answer. Today is about this state of affairs which I will discuss with the international editor of the Observer, Cátia Bruno. We will understand how the relationship, which has never been famous, deteriorated, when and how it went from acrid rhetoric to concrete decisions, how that has an impact on the war, at a time when Donald Trump is once again giving several signs of rapprochement to Moscow. And then we try to answer the question, which is the title of this episode: is there still hope for a new rapprochement between Washington and Kyiv or is everything irreversibly lost? I am Pedro Benevides and this is the story of the day, Monday, October 19th. Hello, Cátia. Hello, Pedro. You wrote an article in the Observer about the state of relations between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky, more specifically between the state of relations between the United States and Ukraine. There were three events here, and we will now get to the answer on whether these relations are definitively compromised, but there were three essential elements here that gave us clues that things are indeed at a very low point. Yes. First, this week, it was the failure of the Starlink system, the system belonging to SpaceX, Elon Musk's company, and which is essential for the Ukrainians on the front of war to intercept drones and to use drones themselves. Therefore, they are blind without this system working. Basically. That is, missile or drone rain falls on them, they cannot foresee that this will happen and also cannot prepare attacks for the other side, because they cannot map the enemy territory. And this system started to fail on Tuesday. Then we had a public statement from Elon Musk saying: "This is not my responsibility, because the North American government and the North American president control Starlink." More specifically, a system within Starlink that is actually intended for military use. Yes, and which is controlled by the Pentagon. Therefore, Musk does not have these powers. Therefore, Elon Musk basically shifted the responsibility to the White House, or to the Pentagon, if we want to be more rigorous in terms of administrative building. He even said directly to the President of the United States. Therefore, it was quite direct. And Donald Trump then reacted by saying: "It wasn't me, I didn't do anything," but defending Musk and saying: "I don't think so either." What happens is that at the end of the week, the Telegraph published an article citing four sources saying that Musk directly asked Trump to slow down Starlink in Ukraine. Therefore, the things did not go well right away and then throughout the week the service was restored, although Zelensky says he does not have the same capacity he had before. He said this Sunday, by the way, that, for example, the drones as soon as they reach 160 km/h, the system will go down again, so it maintains a certain limitation in terms of its military potential. Exactly. And this has very direct impacts on the ground. This is the first case, we talked about three, let's move to the second. The second has to do with the sharing of military information that the American intelligence services have with Ukraine. That is, considering that the United States has the best intelligence services in the world, they can often anticipate that Russia will make some attack towards Ukraine and warn the Ukrainians and this allows them to prepare to intercept the missiles or drones of those attacks. And this did not happen. Ukraine says no. The United States guarantees that nothing has changed, that they continue to share the information, but Zelensky openly said: "We did not receive the information about this week's attack, in which 39 missiles were fired," which is one of the largest attacks since the beginning of the Russian war, which left more than half a million people without electricity. And Zelensky says there was no warning from the United States, as is customary. And what is the third element of this series of coincidences that allow us to look at the Washington-Kyiv relationship? There is also the fact that Ukraine is running out of Patriots. The Patriots are the anti-air defense system used to intercept all missiles coming from Russia, and they are produced only by the United States and are currently supplied to Ukraine through a program in which NATO acts as an intermediary, which buys from the United States and passes the Patriots to Ukraine. And Ukraine is currently practically without them. On October 7th, it was said that there were only 10 Patriots in Ukraine and, meanwhile, the North American CNN said that there are none at all. And what does this mean in terms of Ukraine's defense capability? Are they managing to find some alternative, at least in a timely manner, is that possible? If things stay as they are, the situation becomes very difficult. The Patriots have been essential. Of course, the European Union will try to arrange alternatives, but with the quality level of the American Patriots and in a timely manner, to reach Ukraine and manage to minimize large-scale attacks, it seems difficult to me. And therefore, we can have a period of the war where the situation gets much worse for Kyiv. And all this happens at a time when the American president seems to have a much more favorable stance towards Russia, saying that he will not proceed with the package of sanctions that was approved by Congress against Russia, boasting about the energy agreement he made with Russia and which supposedly depended on a ceasefire, which Russia itself broke, and yet, the agreement remains, and making public statements, such as, for example, "I'm not a big fan of Zelensky," which suggests that Trump considers Ukraine to be the obstacle to peace, and not Russia. How is this rapprochement of Donald Trump with Vladimir Putin explained? This is something we should look at the timeline, it has happened quite often. Let's say it is a kind of roller coaster with ups and downs, the relationship between Washington and Kyiv. At this moment, it is again in a dizzying descent, but how is this souring of relations explained again, since we understood from the beginning that Trump was never a fan of Zelensky. Never. And it is curious because Trump promised that he would end the war in 24 hours, then he could not do it and from there there were several moments of tension with Zelensky. We all remember what happened in the Oval Office last year. But the truth is that the relations improved again. And we are at a point where we do not know if this improvement will happen again or if this is a cut that doesn't go back. And the reasons that lead Trump to have this stance, only he will know. But the truth is that if we look at the president's profile, he has a tendency to respect leaders he considers very strong, who he considers very successful, and in that regard, Vladimir Putin, having been in power for more than 20 years, from the pragmatic point of power, is a successful leader. One cannot say that he did not exercise power with an iron fist. From that point of view, the attractiveness is indeed perceived. But from the point of view of the internal politics of the United States, this makes sense, this rapprochement to Moscow, these agreements he made from an energy point of view, and even basically nullify, well, it's not the right term, because he basically postponed the formal entry into force of a new package of sanctions that were even very linked to an American senator. How is this explained? I would say that all this is related to the interim elections that will take place in the United States on November 3rd and which the polls show will very likely be a big defeat for Donald Trump. And this happens mainly because of energy prices. This rise is related to the war in Iran, which does not seem to have an end in sight. And therefore, Trump may be making a series of steps to try to remedy the situation of fuel prices. First, with this direct agreement with Russia to receive Russian diesel, as he says, millions and millions of tons. And then, on the other hand, we do not know, we are speculating, but there may be a hope that Trump can get Russia to intervene in relation to Iran and that he can therefore make the situation in the Persian Gulf improve and, therefore, that energy prices fall. Now, it is very difficult for this to reflect in time for the elections. It gives the idea that he is doing something to solve a problem, which he himself created in part, but this naturally is not part of the campaign discourse, but at least it gives the idea that he has done something. Exactly. At least it is the practical effect, whether it happens or not. Exactly. But it is a way to show the Americans that he is sympathetic to the difficulties people are facing and that he is trying to solve it and that he is working towards it. And therefore, it seems to me that many of these actions are for domestic politics. The sympathy towards the Russian regime may be greater than to the Ukrainian government. And we have a difficult cocktail for many countries in the West that are actively supporting Ukraine. Now, even within the United States, that is, even within the Republican Party, this fascination with Vladimir Putin and this rapprochement with Russia is viewed favorably, does it continue to be blind support for what Donald Trump does or can he find some resistance there? He can and has already found it, because several Republican senators publicly said they are against postponing sanctions and that they would vote with the Democrats on the issue if it were brought up in Congress again. And therefore, it is not that the Republican Party is all united in this position, but there is a considerable part of the party that does not blindly follow Trump in this regard. There is a large group of senators who are very critical of Russia and therefore do not want to align with that discourse. And then also, if we think that although the war in Ukraine is not at the top of the priorities of American voters, the truth is that much proximity to Vladimir Putin does not sit well. I saw a poll a few days ago that said that for more than 80% of voters, Vladimir Putin was considered the most despicable world politician. And therefore, there is not really much sympathy for Moscow. This also has electoral weight. True. The question is that compared to the economic situation, it is a much reduced weight. Moreover, many voters maintain a discourse of not wanting us to get involved in world problems. But also for this reason, the war in Iran is unpopular and this harms Donald Trump, because it is also a very serious involvement in the world situation and it is having these reflections on fuel prices that affect Donald Trump himself. It will be interesting to see what will emerge in these elections of November, the American midterms, considering all this that is happening now from Zelensky's point of view. Losing or feeling that he is letting this support from Washington slip away, which has always been a little shaky in these years of Trump, where can he turn and with what success rate? Zelensky is clearly courting the Europeans in the hope that they come forward and try to replace the United States in a more muscular way. Now, there is no military capacity on the European side as there is on the United States. Even technologically, hardly. Exactly, it is a difficult path. And then this is added to the internal divisions of Europe. At this moment, Hungary and Slovakia, for example, continue to buy Russian oil. Therefore, the European Union is imposing sanctions and even so there are member states that contribute to boycotting these sanctions. However, with this position of Trump, this often activates a kind of alarm in Brussels that, considering the Russian threat even for other European countries, something needs to be done. And therefore, I think that Zelensky is betting everything on this, while not completely burning bridges with Washington. That is, despite him having had much tougher statements in recent days, perhaps the toughest we have ever seen regarding Donald Trump, I do not believe that Zelensky will completely dynamite this connection and I believe that he is probably waiting for the interim elections to pass, for Donald Trump to change a little, as he has done in the past, his stance on Ukraine. Let's see what will happen. Cátia, thank you. Thank you. I spoke with Cátia Bruno today, editor of international at The Observer, about the state of relations between the United States and Ukraine. On Zelensky's side, this Sunday he gave an interview to Meet the Press on the American NBC channel, where, despite everything, he softened the most aggressive criticism of the last few days towards Donald Trump. He did not stop pointing to the risks of rapprochement with Russia, but said he trusts the relationship with the United States. On the other hand, also this Sunday, Ukraine launched a large-scale attack on a Petrograd oil terminal, a challenge to Trump's will, who doesn't want the attacks on Russian energy facilities, now that he has just signed an agreement with Vladimir Putin. This was the story of the day. The sound design is by Tomás Ferreira, the music of the generic is by João Ribeiro. I am Pedro Benevides. See you tomorrow.